Roman Temple of Alcántara

The Roman temple of Alcántara is located at one side of the Alcántara Bridge, Cáceres, Extremadura [1]. Along with the Roman temple of Vic, it is one of the only two Roman temples preserved nearly complete in Spain [1]. The temple was constructed as an offering to Trajan and the gods of Rome [1]. Alcántara is a small votive temple in antis, rectangular, with a single camera or cell [1]. The temple is constructed of granite [1]. The entrance is flanked by two Tuscan columns and accessed by an exterior staircase, covered with a gabled roof made of slabs of stone, with a pediment with trim at the edges and a smooth tympanum without decoration [1]. Presented in the lintel of the temple is an inscription (now not original, but a subsequent copy, as the last lines make clear), mostly in elegiac couplets, attesting to the dedication by the architect Gaius Julius Lacer to the Emperor Trajan [1].