ALCANTARA  , a

town of western Spain, in the province of Caceres, situated on a rocky height on the left bank of the river Tagus, 7 M. from the Portuguese frontier . Pop . (1900) 3248 . Alcantara (in Arab . "the bridge") owes its name to the magnificent Roman bridge which spans the Tagus on the north-west . This was originally built about A.D . 105, in honour of the Roman emperor Trajan and at the cost of eleven Lusitanian communities . It is entirely constructed of granite blocks, without cement, and consists of six arches of various sizes, with a total length of 616 feet and a height of about 190 ft. in the middle piers, which are surmounted by a fortified gateway . One of the arches was broken down in 1213 and rebuilt in 1553; another was blown up by the British troops in 18og, and, though temporarily reconstructed, was again destroyed in 1836, to prevent the passage of the Carlist forces . But in 186o the whole was restored . A small Roman temple, dedicated to Trajan and other deified emperors, stood on the left bank, adjoining the bridge . It is doubtful, however, if Alcantara marks the site of any Roman town, though archaeologists have sometimes identified it either with Norba Caesarea or with Interamnium .

It first became famous about 1215 as the stronghold of the knightly

Order of Alcantara . Many of the grand masters of this order lie buried in the 13th-century Gothic church . The town possesses another interesting church built in 1506 . See Antiguedades y santos de la muy noble villa de Alcantara, by J . Arias de Quintanaduenas (Madrid, 1661); and Retrato politico de Alcantara, by L . Santibanez (Madrid, 1779) .