Rome’s Lost Triumphal Arches

Triumphal arches are among the most iconic and influential monuments of ancient Roman architecture. These arches were erected by victorious generals and, later, by emperors to commemorate important military achievements. They often formed part of a triumph, the elaborate victory procession that wound through the streets of Rome. During these celebrations, victorious commanders paraded with their troops, prisoners of war, captured spoils, and painted scenes of their campaigns before receiving public honors. Triumphal arches served as lasting monuments to these achievements long after the celebrations had ended.

The best-known triumphal arches still standing in Rome today are the Arch of Titus, the Arch of Septimius Severus, and the Arch of Constantine. However, these are only a small fraction of the arches that once decorated the city. Many others were built during the Roman Empire but have since disappeared. One of the earliest was the Arch of Augustus, which once stood in the Roman Forum. Although the monument no longer survives, it is known through ancient literary sources and a depiction in the background of the Anaglypha Traiani, a series of reliefs dating to the reign of Trajan. The arch commemorated Augustus‘ recovery of the Roman military standards lost to the Parthians after Crassus’ disastrous defeat at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE. Although Augustus secured the standards through diplomacy rather than warfare, he presented the achievement as a military triumph, using the monument to reinforce his image as Rome’s victorious leader.

Augustus’ successor, Tiberius, also erected a triumphal arch in the Roman Forum. It celebrated the recovery of military standards lost in Germania following the catastrophic Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. Like the Arch of Augustus, it survives only in ancient texts and in the Anaglypha Traiani. Not every lost arch disappeared through the passage of time. Some were deliberately destroyed during antiquity itself. The arches of Nero and Domitian, for example, were demolished after the Senate condemned the emperors’ memories through the practice of damnatio memoriae, an official attempt to erase disgraced rulers from public memory.

Other monuments disappeared for different reasons. A triumphal arch dedicated to Marcus Aurelius was dismantled, and many of its sculptural reliefs were reused on the Arch of Constantine. Some of the reused figures were even recarved so that Marcus Aurelius resembled Constantine. Rather than insulting the earlier emperor, this artistic recycling deliberately associated Constantine with Marcus Aurelius, who was widely regarded by Late Antiquity as one of Rome’s greatest rulers.

Together, these lost monuments remind us that ancient Rome’s architectural landscape was once even more magnificent than the ruins that survive today.

Bibliography

• Beard, Mary. The Roman Triumph. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
• Claridge, Amanda. Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Richardson, Lawrence, Jr. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.