Roman arches

A Roman arch of this kind is a free-standing monumental gateway. In its simplest form it is two massive piers joined by an arch and crowned with an upper storey that could carry a statue or an inscription, and it is often covered in carvings and reliefs. The Romans effectively invented the form, and raised such arches for victorious generals and for public events: the founding of a colony, the building of a road or a bridge, the death of a member of the imperial family, the accession of an emperor. Archaeologists set the true triumphal arch, built for a triumph voted by the Senate, apart from the honorary arch and the grand city gate, and most of the arches that survive belong to the last two.

In Pula the Arch of the Sergii is a small, richly carved arch that a widow paid for in honour of her family, built against the inside of the town’s main gate in the reign of Augustus; you can walk through it. Thessaloniki’s Arch of Galerius, built around 300, still carries reliefs of the emperor’s war against the Persians, and in Athens an arch probably raised by the citizens honoured Hadrian, perhaps for the dedication of the Temple of Olympian Zeus that he had completed.