Arch of Constantine
Rome, Italy
Dedicated 315 AD
TEXT Beneath Illustrations
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Arch of Constantine
Rome, Italy
Dedicated 315 AD
TEXT Beneath Illustrations
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Egg-and-dart
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After the death of his father (Constantine the Great), Constantine I invaded Italy in AD. 312 and defeated and killed his chief rival, Maxentius, at a battle at the Milvian Bridge at the gateway to Rome - a victory that Constantine attributed to the aid of the god of the Christians.
In 313, he and Licinius, Constantine's co-emperor in the East, issued the Edict of Milan, ending the persecution of Christians.Immediately after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine erected a great triple-passageway arch in the shadow of the Coliseum to commemorate his victory over Maxentius. The arch was the largest to be erected in the capital since the end of the Severan dynasty nearly a century before, but the achievement is less impressive when it is revealed that much of the sculptural program of the arch was taken from earlier monuments of Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius, and that the columns and other architectural members also date to an earlier era. The second-century reliefs were, however, refashioned to honor Constantine by recutting the heads of the earlier emperors with the features of the new ruler and by adding labels to the old reliefs.
The reuse of second-century sculptures by the Constantinian artists has frequently been cited as evidence of a decline in creativity and technical skill in the waning years of the pagan Roman Empire. While such a judgment is in large part deserved, it ignores the fact that the reused sculptures were carefully selected in order to associate Constantine with the "good emperors" of the second century.
However, the long and narrow friezes that run right round the arch are of Constantine's time and differ from the others in artistic concept. They portray various episodes in the Emperor's campaign against Maxentius; they no longer obey realistic rules of perspective, but the figures are frontally placed and their dimensions are dictated by their position in the hierarchy; the Emperor stands out from the rest because of his much larger size.
Sources:
- "Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Tenth Edition," by Richard G. Tansey and Fred S. Kleiner. Harcourt Brace College Pub. 1996
- Leonardo B. Dal Maso, "Rome: From the Palatino to the Vaticano." 1992
- Leonardo B. Dal Maso, "Rome of the Caesars"
