![]() The events taken from the victorious campaigns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius celebrated the present (the victory over Maxentius) in the context of a solid tradition of glory and power. The images of the past – the wars and triumphs of the great protagonists of the Empire – were the sign of an authority to which Constantine had to appeal to legitimize his power and guarantee the solidity of his government and his political consensus. Diocletian had done the same thing before him, composing the so-called Arcus Novus on Via Lata with plundered decorations. In the last two scenes Constantine appears in the middle of the composition, disproportionately larger than the other figures, ranged symmetrically on either side and facing him, clearly indicating them subordination.Įmperor Constantine designed it to narrate his victories and crown his role in power, but decided to decorate it with older images taken from the memory of other buildings. The great storied frieze running along the middle of the smaller sides of the arch and above the side-openings represents the Emperor’s feats: his departure from Milan the siege of Verona, where he is crowned by a winged Victory the defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian bridge his entry into Rome his speech to the population and a distribution of money. The wars and triumphs of great emperors of the past cast an aura of legitimacy round his power and provided the political consensus needed for maintaining a stable government. The inscription on the front of the arch represents Constantine as the restorer of the Empire, guided by divinity. ![]() In the panels from the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the head is Trajan’s and was inserted during the eighteenth-century restoration.įamous Triumphal Arch of Constantine in Rome at night with stars, Italy Arch of Constantine: The Political Use of Images of the PastĬonstantine the Great wanted to be acknowledged and celebrated as the legitimate victor over his tyrannical rival, Maxentius, and the new arbiter of Rome’s future, and to this end chose a traditional monument that was deeply rooted in imperial history: the triumphal arch. The face of Licinius, the emperor of the East, appears in the rondels with sacrificial scenes. The faces of all the emperors portrayed in the reliefs were remodelled to resemble Constantine, with a nimbus connoting imperial majesty. The reliefs of Marcus Aurelius - to which three other panels of similar size and subject are now on display in the Palazzo dei Conservatori – come from the Arcus Panis Aurei on the slopes of the Capitoline hill, an honorary arch celebrating the emperor’s triumph over the Germanic tribes. It has recently been suggested that the rondels from Hadrian’s reign originally decorated the entrance arch of a sanctuary dedicated to the heroic cult of Antinoo, the young man loved by the emperor, who in effect appears in various hunting and sacrificial scenes. The four panels from Trajan’s time originally made up a continuous frieze and must have decorated the Forum of Trajan as part of the facing of the attic of the Basilica Ulpia.
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