Arcus Hadriani
About
The city raised this triple arch in 129/130 CE for Hadrian's winter visit, 37 metres wide and 21 metres tall. Its Greek inscription counts the year 192 of the local era and names Flavius Agrippa as the man who willed it. Acanthus wreaths bulge from the column bases, a local flourish found nowhere in Italy. It postdates the 117 CE snapshot by twelve years and stood half a kilometre outside the walls, waiting for a city that never grew to meet it.
What happened here
It carries no gate and defends nothing. An arch marks a threshold — a boundary, a road junction, the entrance to a forum — and it exists to make you look up while you pass under it. The attic carries the dedication in bronze letters set into cut sockets; the letters go missing and the sockets stay. The panels beneath show the campaign being celebrated, arranged so that the version of events the emperor prefers is the one at eye level. Traffic goes through it all day, ox carts scraping the jambs. A triumph passes under it once, if at all; the rest of its working life is as a landmark, a meeting point and a shaded spot for someone selling something.
In ancient writing
- Anonymous, Greek dedicatory inscription of the Arch of Hadrian, Gerasa year 192 of the local era, 129/130 CE
Dedicated by the city of the Antiochenes on the Chrysorhoas, formerly the Gerasenes, for Hadrian's safety.
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 →