Arches of Trajan

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The Arches of Trajan are triumphal arches built all over the Roman empire by the Roman emperor Trajan during his reign. Intriguingly, however, when it came to commemorating his achievements in Rome itself, he chose a column rather than the more standard arch.

The Arches of Trajan include ones at

• Ancona: The arch is built of marble and stands 18.5 m high. It was erected in 114/115 as an entrance to the causeway atop the harbour wall in honour of Trajan's creation of the harbour there. Most of its original bronze enrichments have disappeared. It stands on a high podium approached by a wide flight of steps. The archway, only 3 m wide, is flanked by pairs of fluted Corinthian columns on pedestals. An attic bears inscriptions. The format is that of the Arch of Titus in Rome, but made taller, so that the bronze figures surmounting it, of Trajan, his wife Plotina and sister Marciana, would be a landmark for ships approaching Rome's greatest Adriatic port.[1]
• Benevento. The arch was erected in honour of Trajan by the senate and people of Rome in 114. It has important reliefs relating to his civil and military deeds and virtues and the history of the Via Traiana (whose entrance into Beneventum it marked). It was enclosed in the walls on its construction but it is now free-standing at the end of a vista.
• Mérida, Spain.
• Timgad, Algeria.