The Arch of Constantine and a new Rhetoric of Images Dedicated in 315 AD
“No device more effectively generates the effect of a doubling or bending of time than the work of art, a strange kind of event whose relation to time is plural. The artwork is made or designed by an individual or by a group of individuals at some moment, but it also points away from that moment, backward to a remote ancestral origin, perhaps, or to a prior artifact, or to an origin outside of time, in divinity. At the same time it points forward to all its future recipients who will activate and reactivate it as a meaningful event.”
Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood
The Arch and the Past Roman triumphal arches Arch of Titus, 83 CE, Commemorates siege of Jerusalem
Arch of Septimius Severus, 203 CE, Commemorates Parthian victories
Celebrating the Constantine as Roman Emperor
Liberalitas, clementia Adlocutio, lustratio
Trajan 53-117 AD
Hadrian r. 117-138 AD
Marcus Aurelius 121-180 AD
Constantine 272-337 AD
What’s the importance of spolia on the arch? “Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell The Many Heads of Constantine
Ex-Trajan Ex-Trajan Ex-Hadrian Ex-Hadrian
Emperor Nerva ex-Domitian Why would you do this? “The effect is to compress time, so that the past - the eras of Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus - becomes assimilated into the present."
The Arch: its present and future
Buildings as timebenders What does the arch say? IMPERATORI CAESARI FLAVIO CONSTANTINO MAXIMO PIO FELICI AVGVSTO SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS QVOD INSTINCTV DIVINITATIS MENTIS MAGNITVDINE CVM EXERCITV SVO TAM DE TYRANNO QVAM DE OMNI EIVS FACTIONE VNO TEMPORE IVSTIS REMPVBLICAM VLTVS EST ARMIS ARCVM TRIVMPHIS INSIGNEM DICAVIT
To the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus, the Greatest, pious, fortunate, the Senate and people of Rome, by inspiration of divinity and his own great mind with his righteous arms on both the tyrant and his faction in one instant in rightful battle he avenged the republic, dedicated this arch as a memorial to his military victory. What is the arch’s relationship with time?
“sed ego, quae monumenti ratio sit, nomine ipse admoneor. ad memoriam magis spectare debet posteritatis quam ad praesentis temporis gratiam.”
“But I will tell you what is the reason for a monument: it should be more concerned with the memory of posterity than with the interests of the present time”
Cicero Rome vs. Constantinople Redeploying the Material Matrix of Empire Apollo or Sol?
Troy or Jerusalem?
Constantine as Christ Spolia and relics Collection as Map
“At the foot of the column was a sanctuary which contained relics claimed to be from the crosses of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus Christ at Calvary, the baskets from the loaves and fishes miracle, an alabaster ointment jar belonging to Mary Magdalene and presumably used by her for the washing of the feet of Jesus, the palladium of ancient Rome a wooden statue of Athena from Troy.” A thorn from Jesus’ crown, “rescued” from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade (1204)
“Proud statues of brass were exposed to view in all the public places of the imperial city. Here a Pythian, there a Sminthian Apollo excited the con- tempt of the beholder, while the Delphic tripods were erected in the Hippodrome and the Muses of Helicon in the palace. In short, the city which bore his name was everywhere filled with brazen statues of the most exquisite workmanship, which had been dedicated in every province, and which the deluded victims of superstition had long vainly honoured as gods with numberless victims and burnt sacrifices, though now at length they learned to think rightly, when the emperor held up these very playthings to the ridicule and sport of all beholders.”
Eusebius