11/23/2023 0 Comments Arch of constantine rome![]() Let’s take a look at some of Rome’s most famous surviving arches. ![]() They functioned as a kind of monumental messageboard, displaying the militaristic achievements of prestigious Romans past and present and becoming more and more competitive as time when on. The earliest arches we know about (none of which survive) were erected on the Capitoline Hill and in the Roman Forum. Spoils of war would be paraded, coins would be thrown to those who had gathered, and the triumphant general, borne in a chariot with a slave behind him whispering a reminder in his ear that he was just a mortal, would make his way up the Capitoline Hill to make dedications at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Part religious, part propagandistic, the Roman triumph was essentially a victory parade in which victorious generals would adorn the costume of a god and parade through the city to the adulation of the crowds. The reason we call these arches ‘triumphal’ is because the SPQR (Senate the People of Rome) awarded them to victorious generals returning to Rome to celebrate their Triumph. What did the Roman triumphal arch symbolize? And that so many triumphal arches have been reinterpreted and replicated across the ages – from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to the Soldiers and Sailors Arch in New York City – speaks volumes about how this form of cultural expression was not unique to Rome, but repeats itself across humanity. Few structures pay stronger testament to Rome’s bellicose nature than its triumphal arches. ![]() Even the Colosseum, funded from spoils of war looted from Jerusalem, shouted Roman success and supremacy with the scale of the structure and the spectacles it hosted.įrom its earliest days, Rome was militaristic to the core, driven to expansion by existential threats posed by her neighbors. Rome has no shortage of monuments commemorating military victories. ![]()
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