Greece - Agios Georgios, Louros Aqueduct

Near the village of Agios Georgios lies the Roman aqueduct over the river Louros. The aqueduct was built by thousands of slaves after 31 BC on the orders of Octavian Augustus - a Roman statesman and military leader and the first Emperor of the Roman Empire - who founded the city of Nikopolis or Nicopolis. (Recent researchers assign its construction during Hadrian’s rule, in the 2nd cent. A.D.)

The complete aqueduct carried potable water with the method of height difference from the springs of the river Louros in the mountains near Ioannina to two cisterns in Nikopolis over a distance of fifty kilometers, nearly the entire current region of Preveza. It consisted of a pipe, which was constructed in three ways: by carving a ditch, tunneling the area and constructing columns bridging the pipe over valleys. This ‘water pipeline’ is considered being one of the most important structures of the Roman period in northwestern Greece.

In the second half of the 5th century the aqueduct stopped functioning. From 1978 till 1980 the arches near Agios Georgios were restored. The aqueduct bridge over the Louros is one of the very few remaining in Greece today.