Arco di Settimio Severo, Rome

Arco di Settimio Severo is the marble triumphal arch marking the Forum’s northwestern edge. It was dedicated in two hundred and three to celebrate Septimius Severus and his sons, Caracalla and Geta, after campaigns against the Parthians. Its three passageways rise from a travertine platform that ancient visitors reached by stairs.

Study the crowded carvings around the openings: winged Victories, captives, soldiers, and spoils turn this monument into a public declaration of conquest. The large sculpted panels narrate Severus’s Mesopotamian campaigns in scenes arranged to be read upward. Above the inscription, the arch once bore an imperial chariot group with Severus and his sons.

The inscription also records a brutal family rupture. Caracalla had his brother Geta murdered, then ordered Geta’s images and name removed from monuments, including this arch. You can still see where the surviving text was altered to erase him.

This arch endured because a medieval church and related buildings were built against it. It later stood partly buried until excavation under Pope Pius the Seventh brought the monument fully back into view.