1
Arches, honorific
and triumphal
DAVID MCCLISTER
The arch (Latin fornix or arcus) was a
monument decorated with statuary, relief
sculpture, and inscriptions, and was normally
built to honor a great achievement by a Roman
public official. Arches that commemorated
military victories are triumphal arches, and
those commemorating non-military achieve-
ments (such as public works projects) are
often called honorific arches. While there is
debate over whether the Romans invented the
arch, their widespread use of it in public com-
memorative architecture, and on a monumen-
tal scale, made it a highly recognizable symbol
and expression both of Roman power generally
and of the status of the honorees specifically.
The public nature of commemorative arches
was integral to their dual function of creating
and proclaiming the social prominence of the
honorees and of converting particular histori-
cal deeds into lasting, public proclamations of
Roman sovereignty.
The earliest Roman commemorative arches
were possibly those of L. Stertinius, built in
Rome in ca. 196 BCE (Livy 33.27). According
to Pliny (HN 34.27), the honorific arch was
a development of the practice of placing
honorary statues atop columns, to symbolize
the elevated social status of the persons they
depicted. It is not surprising, then, that the
emperors used arches to promote their own
greatness, and their construction flourished
in the imperial period. Fewer were built as
Rome declined, and the last honorific arch
was commissioned by the Senate in ca. 405 CE.
There does not seem to have been a linear
evolution of the style and form of honorific
arches. The most common forms were the
single arch and the triple arch (with the central
archway larger than the openings on either
side of it). Some arches were extensions of
city gates, which naturally provided a prime
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 631–633.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah19176
location for honorific display, but the free-
standing arch became the most common
type. The arch and its piers supported
a horizontal section (called the attic) atop
which stood gilt statues that portrayed the
honoree in a chariot along with other figures,
human or divine. The façades of the piers were
often decorated with columns (either engaged
or freestanding) and with relief sculpture that
depicted scenes from the event that demon-
strated the honoree’s greatness. On the face of
the attic was an inscription, in Latin, declaring
the name of the honoree and the official deci-
sion of the Roman Senate and people to
acknowledge his status. However, this dedica-
tory inscription seems to have been character-
istic of imperial arches but not of those from
the republican period, which the honorees
built for themselves for their own promotion.
Either through ruins, literary texts, or
depictions on coins or artwork, over four hun-
dred and fifty monumental arches are known
to have existed throughout the Roman Empire.
There were over sixty of them in the ancient
city of Rome itself. Many triumphal arches
stood on or near the Sacred Way (the Via
Sacra) in Rome, the route of triumphal
processions. Among these were the arches of
TITUS, SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, and CONSTANTINE I,
which still stand in their original places today.
SEE ALSO: Architecture, civic, Roman Empire;
Rome, City of; Triumph.
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
De Maria, S. (1988) Gli Archi onorari di Roma
e dell’Italia romana. Rome.
Kleiner, F. (1985) The arch of Nero in Rome: a
study of the Roman honorary arch before and
under Nero. Rome.
Kleiner, F. (1989) “The study of Roman triumphal
and honorary arches 50 years after Kähler.”
Journal of Roman Archaeology 2: 195–206.
Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1990) “Roman arches and
Greek honors: the language of power at Rome.”
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society
36: 143–81.
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Figure 1 View of the Arch of Septimus Severus. Roman Forum, Rome. © Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of
the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali.