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O Divine Titus! A Roman Triumph |
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written
by zihengxu / 09.05.2004 |
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During the Roman Republic people too built arches, but often times for less significant reasons. Sometimes a rich man would raise an arch in the middle of road just to show off his wealth. Such arches were named fornices and were despised by Augustus. He reasoned that such magnificent structures should only be used in remembrance of great events. Augustus ordered that all future arches would be only used in the Etruscan way: they shall be triumphal arches to remember the honours of the Emperors. And so they were.
One other important function of the Roman arches were as base support for statues, but during the Dark Ages most of the bronze statues were taken down and melted to build something more pious by the Catholic Church. There is hardly any written record on what statues were on the Arch of Titus, and over time the arch itself became more important as a historical monument.
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