According to ancient writers, the emperor Hadrian was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries at 125 A.D. and he built a great stone bridge at the same year. The Greek traveler Pausanias, after visiting Eleusina, mentioned that the reason behind the bridge’s construction was a huge flood of Kifissos around 125A.D. Of course the easiest and safest route for the pilgrims came from Athens was another important factor for bridge’s erection. Τhe bridge was discovered and excavated by the architecture Ioannis Travlos at 1950.
It is undoubtedly a perfect sample of Roman bridge-building seems like it built a few years before, as its preservation is excellent. It has fifty meters’ length and almost four meters’ width while the river’s width approaches to thirty meters. It was built on four arched openings, with the two outer arches being narrower than the two inner ones. The whole construction stands on large rectangular stone blocks which filled the riverbed. Walls, piers and arches, are constructed with hard limestone from Piraeus. Their construction was so fine that the bridge was initially concerned as a Hellenistic monument. However, many additional evidences to this aspect, as the use of lime, the ligaments’ shape and the of Roman numbers, sorted the bridge as a Roman monument.
As each bridge connects two different parts of land area, the bridge of Eleusinian kifissos also connects the past with the present.
