Ein Ehrenbogen für Hadrian in Rom: Würdigung eines vielseitigen Kaisers am Ende seines Lebens
In: Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma: 115, 2016
Permalink: http://digital.casalini.it/3443969
To date, scholarship has noted with puzzlement and uneasiness that Hadrian, to whom honorific
arches were erected throughout the provinces, never seems to have received such honor in the city of
Rome. This is all the more surprising, seeing that in recent years sholarship has shed considerable
light on the extent of the threat, which the renewed Jewish uprising under Bar Kochba had posed to
the very existence of the Empire. The circumstances had been such that its quelling literally called
for the placement of a commensurate structure in the metropolis itself. And indeed, Hadrian, during
the last years of his reign, was honored there too through the erection of several built structures, one
of them being a monumental archway placed alongside the Via Flaminia where it was about to enter
the city.
This archway served as the entrance to a cult precinct located to the West of it, initiated by
Hadrian himself and completed by Antoninus Pius through the construction of a temple dedicated to
his deified predecessor. The arch was decorated with panel reliefs whose content served the purpose
of establishing a permanent and appreciative record summarizing Hadrian’s merits as the emperor’s
life was close to its end.