Arch of Septimius Severus
About
A four-way triumphal arch raised around 203 CE to mark Septimius Severus's visit to his native city as reigning emperor, carved with reliefs of his family and their armies. It rises nearly a century past this map's 117 CE snapshot, when Leptis Magna's grandest arch is still Trajan's, dedicated only seven years before. Severus himself would not be born for another 35 years.
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.
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 →