Arch of Tiberius
About
Governor Gaius Rubellius Blandus raised this limestone arch across the Cardo Maximus in 35 or 36 CE, marking a street-paving project funded with land confiscated after the Tacfarinas revolt in Numidia. Its bilingual inscription names both the governor and the deputy who oversaw the work. Eighty years on, in 117 CE, the arch still frames the city's main north-south street.
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, Bilingual dedicatory inscription, Arch of Tiberius, Leptis Magna in situ
Names the governor Gaius Rubellius Blandus and his legate.
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 →