Arch of Constantine site features

The Arch of Constantine is a three-opening block of marble standing free in open ground, and it is busier with carving than any other arch in Rome. A wide central passage is flanked by two narrower ones, with four Corinthian columns on each face standing clear of the wall on tall projecting bases.

The surfaces are crowded, and the crowding is the subject. Above the two lateral arches run narrow bands of relief; above those sit large circular panels in pairs; above those again, an attic of rectangular panels and a long inscription. Almost nowhere is there blank stone.

Eight standing figures look down from the top. The eight Dacian statues in the attic, brought from the Forum of Trajan, stand above the columns on either side of the inscription — bearded, trousered, arms folded, in a darker stone than the panels behind them.

Look at the faces in the panels and they do not match the scenes. The sculpture belongs to three earlier reigns, but the emperors in it are Constantine: their heads were recut, and the nimbus marks them. Once you notice, the whole monument reads as a reassembly rather than a composition.

The carving is not all of one quality either, and the joins show. Second-century panels sit directly above fourth-century friezes cut in a flatter, blunter manner, and the difference in depth and finish is visible from the ground.

Lower down, the spandrels hold reclining figures. River gods lean out of the triangular spaces beside the arches, half-draped, propped on an arm, carved deep enough to throw real shadow in afternoon light.

At the base, the column plinths are carved too, with allegorical figures — the part of the monument closest to eye level and the part most worn.

It stands apart, fenced, with the Colosseum immediately behind it. Railings ring the monument at a few metres' distance, so it is seen from all round but not walked under, and the Colosseum's outer wall fills the view beyond on one side.

And in the grass beside it there is a circle of low masonry. That is what survives of the Meta Sudans, and most people photograph it without knowing it is there.

The eight Dacians

In the attic, above the columns, brought from the Forum of Trajan, flanking the inscription.

The Hadrianic roundels

Paired circular panels above the lateral arches, with hunting and sacrifice scenes.

The Marcus Aurelius panels

Large rectangular reliefs in the attic with episodes of the German war.

The Constantinian frieze

The narrow band above the smaller arches, telling Constantine's deeds in the campaign against Maxentius — the only sculpture made for this monument.

The recarved faces

All the emperors in the reused reliefs were given Constantine's features, with the nimbus for imperial majesty.

The spandrel river gods

Reclining figures in the triangles beside the arches, deeply cut.

The column bases

Carved with allegorical figures, at eye level.

The Meta Sudans

A Flavian-age monumental fountain beside the arch — conical like a circus turning post, hence meta, and sudans for the water it gave. On coins of 80–81, in use to the fifth century, demolished in the 1930s for via dei Trionfi.