Arch of Trajan
About
The Senate and People of Rome dedicated this triumphal arch in 114 CE to mark the opening of Trajan's new road to Brindisi. Carved from Parian marble, the 15.6-meter gate rose exactly where the Via Traiana split from the Via Appia at the town's edge. Its reliefs show Trajan founding colonies, funding the alimenta child-support program, and receiving Dacia's submission. Only three years old at Trajan's death, it survives today essentially untouched by time.
What happened here
It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.
In ancient writing
- Dedicatory inscription, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum CIL IX 1558
The arch's own attic inscription titles Trajan with his full imperial style — Germanicus Dacicus, Pontifex Maximus, holding tribunician power for the eighteenth year — and records the Senate and People of Rome as dedicators.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →