Arch of Caracalla
About
A local prefect named Gaius Cornelius Egrilianus funded this four-fronted triumphal arch by testamentary bequest, and the city dedicated it in 216 CE to Caracalla, Julia Domna, and the deified Septimius Severus. Carved reliefs of Oceanus, Minerva, and the personification of the city still survive on its faces. Byzantine builders later folded the arch into their city wall as a gate. In 117 CE this monument did not yet exist.
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 →