Apollodorus of Damascus

Apollodorus (os) of Damascus (c. 65 in Damascus, † 130 ) was one of the most important architects of the Roman Empire.

Apollodorus, a born in Damascus, Syria Greek, was the lead architect Emperor Trajan, whom he accompanied on his campaigns in Dacia. In the years 102 to 105, he built more than a kilometer long Trajan's Bridge over the Danube at Drobeta and one -sided in the rock anchored road above the water level of the Danube by the so-called Iron Gate (Romanian: Portile de Fier, see Tabula Traiana ). Maybe he was also responsible for the Puente de Alconétar in Spain. He planned beyond a high school, an academy, the Baths of Trajan, a Odeion on a circular plan, the triumphal arches in Ancona and Beneventum and especially the Forum of Trajan ( 107-113 ), the greatest Roman emperor Forum. The Trajan's Column in the middle of the Forum is suspected as the first monument of its kind. Presumably, he also designed the harbor of Portus Romae and the Centumcellae of the above, at Villa of Trajan.

After the accession of Hadrian, whose architectural and artistic ambitions he had mocked earlier, the emperor presented a draft of the Temple of Venus and Roma, the Apollodorus criticized. Then he was banished by the emperor and executed shortly afterwards ( Cassius Dio, 69, 4). The dictionary of artists Thieme -Becker called him "one of the most ingenious architects of antiquity ."