Arch of Trajan
About
Dedicated in 110 CE, this arch is the first monument at Leptis Magna to record the city's promotion to a full Roman colony, Colonia Ulpia Traiana Lepcitanorum, named for the emperor himself. It stood at the northeast corner of the Chalcidicum, over the crossroads of the Cardo and the road to the theatre. Trajan died at Selinus in Cilicia on 11 August 117 CE, just seven years after his name went up here, making this arch one of the newest standing monuments anywhere in the empire on this map's own date.
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, Dedicatory inscription, Arch of Trajan, Leptis Magna tribunician year 14 (109/110 CE)
Names the Colonia Ulpia Traiana Lepcitanorum council and assembly as dedicators, the earliest record of the city's colonial status.
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 →