The Arch of Constantine (Italian: Arco di Costantino) is a triumphal arch in Rome dedicated to the emperor Constantine the Great. The arch was commissioned by the Roman Senate to commemorate Constantine's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in AD 312. Situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill, the arch spans the Via Triumphalis, the route taken by victorious military leaders when they entered the city in a triumphal procession. Dedicated in 315, it is the largest Roman triumphal arch, with overall dimensions of 21 m (69 ft) high, 25.9 m (85 ft) wide and 7.4 m (24 ft) deep. It has three bays, the central one being 11.5 m (38 ft) high and 6.5 m (21 ft) wide and the laterals 7.4 m (24 ft) by 3.4 m (11 ft) each. The arch is constructed of brick-faced concrete covered in marble.
The three-bay design with detached columns was first used for the Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum (which stands at the end of the triumph route) and repeated in several other arches now lost.
Though dedicated to Constantine, much of the sculptural decoration consists of reliefs and statues removed from earlier triumphal monuments dedicated to Trajan (98–117), Hadrian (117–138) and Marcus Aurelius (161–180), with the portrait heads replaced with his own. The resulting mixture of sculptural styles has given rise to much discussion among art historians.
The arch, which was constructed between 312 and 315, was dedicated by the Senate to commemorate ten years (a decennia) of Constantine's reign (306–337) and his victory over the then reigning emperor Maxentius (306–312) at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on 28 October 312, as described on its attic inscription, and officially opened on 25 July 315. Not only did the Roman senate give the arch for Constantine's victory, they also were celebrating decennalia: a series of games that happened every decade during the Roman Empire. On these occasions they also said many prayers and renewed both spiritual and mundane vows. However, Constantine had actually entered Rome on 29 October 312, amidst great rejoicing, and the Senate then commissioned the monument. Constantine then left Rome within two months and did not return until 326.
The location, between the Palatine Hill and the Caelian Hill, spanned the ancient route of Roman triumphs (Via triumphalis) at its origin, where it diverged from the Via sacra. This was the route taken by the emperors entering the city in triumph: it started at the Campus Martius, led through the Circus Maximus, and around the Palatine Hill; immediately after the Arch of Constantine, the procession would turn left at the Meta Sudans and march along the Via sacra to the Forum Romanum and on to the Capitoline Hill, passing through both the Arches of Titus and Septimius Severus. Jones argues that its placement in relation to the Circus Maximus, the Temple of Venus and Rome, and the base of the Colossus indicates a deliberate Constantinian urban design concept, rather than reuse of an earlier arch on that spot.
During the Middle Ages, the Arch of Constantine was incorporated into one of the family strongholds of ancient Rome, as shown in the painting by Herman van Swanevelt, here. Works of restoration were first carried out in the 18th century, with the latest excavations in the late 1990s, just before the Great Jubilee of 2000. The arch served as the finish line for the marathon athletic event for the 1960 Summer Olympics.
The arch was damaged after a direct lightning strike on 3 September 2024.
There has been much controversy over the origins of the arch, with some scholars claiming that it should no longer be referred to as Constantine's arch, but is in fact an earlier work from the time of Hadrian, reworked during Constantine's reign, or at least the lower part. Recent scholarship considers the monument primarily a senatorial commission, with the Senate responsible for initiating the project while remaining compatible with Constantine’s own political image. Another theory holds that it was erected, or at least started, by Maxentius, and one scholar believed it was as early as the time of Domitian (81–96). Some recent historiography also argues that the influential model proposed by L’Orange and von Gerkan in 1939 may itself have been shaped by the Fascist political climate in Rome during the 1930s, when Mussolini promoted visual links between ancient and modern Rome.
Maxentius's reputation in Rome was influenced by his contributions to public building. By the time of his accession in 306 Rome was becoming increasingly irrelevant to the governance of the empire, most emperors choosing to live elsewhere and focusing on defending the fragile boundaries, where they frequently founded new cities.
These factors contributed to Maxentius' ability to seize power. In contrast to his predecessors, Maxentius concentrated on restoring the capital; his epithet was conservator urbis suae (preserver of his city). Thus, Constantine was perceived as the deposer of one of the city's greatest benefactors, and needed to acquire legitimacy. Much controversy has surrounded the patronage of the public works of this period. Issuing a damnatio memoriae, Constantine set out to systematically erase the memory of Maxentius. Consequently, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the patronage of early fourth century public buildings, including the Arch of Constantine, which may originally have been an Arch of Maxentius.
Modern scholarship has also examined how the arch functioned visually within the surrounding topography of the Colosseum Valley. Marlowe argues that the designers adjusted the building’s position relative to the ancient triumphal road and to nearby monuments such as the Meta Sudans fountain and the Colossus of Sol. She notes that the arch was set “not over the road but rather a bit further north,” and that it was shifted “about 6½ feet (2 meters)” to the east. According to Marlowe, this meant that “the tall cone of the fountain was almost completely hidden behind the arch’s second pier,” and that this small displacement “framed a different ancient monument in the Colosseum Valley: the (now-lost) colossal bronze statue of the sun god Sol.”
Constantine's Arch is an important example, frequently cited in surveys of art history, of the stylistic changes of the 4th century, and the "collapse of the classical Greek canon of forms during the late Roman period", a sign the city was in decline, and would soon be eclipsed by Constantine's founding of a new capital at Constantinople in 324. The contrast between the styles of the re-used Imperial reliefs of Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius and those newly made for the arch is dramatic and, according to Ernst Kitzinger, "violent", that where the head of an earlier emperor was replaced by that of Constantine the artist was still able to achieve a "soft, delicate rendering of the face of Constantine" that was "a far cry from the dominant style of the workshop". It remains the most impressive surviving civic monument from Rome in Late Antiquity, but is also one of the most controversial with regards to its origins and meanings.
Kitzinger compares a roundel of Hadrian lion-hunting, which is "still rooted firmly in the tradition of late Hellenistic art", and there is "an illusion of open, airy space in which figures move freely and with relaxed self-assurance" with the later frieze where the figures are "pressed, trapped, as it were, between two imaginary planes and so tightly packed within the frame as to lack all freedom of movement in any direction", with "gestures that are "jerky, overemphatic and uncoordinated with the rest of the body". In the 4th century reliefs, the figures are disposed geometrically in a pattern that "makes sense only in relation to the spectator", in the largesse scene (below) centred on the emperor who looks directly out to the viewer. Kitzinger continues: Gone too is the classical canon of proportions. Heads are disproportionately large, trunks square, legs stubby ... Differences in the physical size of figures drastically underline differences of rank and importance which the second-century artist had indicated by subtle compositional means within a seemingly casual grouping. Gone, finally are elaboration of detail and differentiation of surface texture. Faces are cut rather than modeled, hair takes the form of a cap with some superficial stippling, drapery folds are summarily indicated by deeply drilled lines.