The monuments commemorative of individuals do not, as in Greece, deserve to be treated in the section upon sculpture; in Rome the architectural pedestal was more important than the statuesque carving, and, indeed, the image was frequently supplanted altogether by inscriptions. Statues were often placed upon columns. These were often provided with characteristic decorations—as is the case with the prows of vessels upon the shaft of Duilius, erected in 260 B.C.—and were often of gigantic dimensions, thus withdrawing the figures upon their summits from close inspection. The most sumptuous example of these monuments is presented by Trajan’s Column, the base of which contained the sarcophagus of that emperor. The surface of the shaft was either covered with reliefs of many figures which, like the interior staircase, ascended spirally upward, as upon the Columns of Trajan and of Marcus Aurelius, or were merely treated with architectural forms like the granite column of Antoninus Pius, the relief upon the pedestal of which is given below. (Fig. 304.) There are similar shafts, dating from the Roman occupation, at Cussi in France, at Alexandria, Constantinople, and Ancyra. In all these works the portrait was far exceeded in importance by the monument; sculpture was rendered subordinate to architecture. This was the case in a still greater degree in the triumphal and commemorative arches. As the equestrian statues and quadrigas have disappeared from all the works of this kind now preserved, it might easily be forgotten that these figures were in reality the principal part of the composition, and the arches beneath them little else than pedestals placed above the streets, and consequently provided with passages. Festive portals constructed of light timbers and decorated for gala-days doubtless afforded the prototype for these works. Triumphal arches were comparatively rare in the time of the republic, but very common under the emperors. They express the nature of Roman art better, perhaps, than any other class of structures: the mass of masonry, encased in columns and entablatures which were merely ornamental features without constructive functions; the reliefs of small figures crowded together as in a chronicle; the numerous decorative statues above the columns as well as upon the top; the extended inscriptions upon the attic above the arches, which thus formed, in a more restricted sense, the pedestal of the crowning group—these all express characteristic tendencies, and present the best example of the solid but ostentatious construction which predominated in Roman architecture, subordinating ideal beauty to the temporary purpose. Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian were the chief builders of these monuments, which have remained in all the provinces of Rome: at Benevento, Ancona, Rimini, Susa, and Aosta in Italy; at St. Remy, Orange, Besançon, Cavaillon, and Rheims in France; at Alcantara, Merida, Bara, and Caparra in Spain; at Theveste and El Casr in Africa, etc. There are four of these arches in Rome—two with a single passage (those of Drusus and of Titus [Fig. 285]), and two (those of Septimius Severus [Fig. 286] and of Constantine) with additional openings on either side. The Arch of Constantine surpasses its known predecessors in beauty of composition and proportion only because it was patterned after an arch of Trajan, and even built with the same materials. This arch is at once the memorial of one of the most important victories recorded by history, the battle near the Milvian Bridge, and of that unexampled poverty of artistic invention, or rather want of productive energy, which characterized all Roman intellectual life after the time of Constantine.
The so-called Janus portals were erected above the streets and squares of Rome, much in the same manner as the triumphal arches. They were commonly simple, like the three Jani upon the Forum Romanum, but were increased at street-crossings to extensive quadrifrontes, or structures presenting the same face upon all four sides. The former bore two-faced Jani upon their summits, the latter a four-faced combination like that upon some figures of Hermes—an image well adapted to represent the watcher over the crowded thoroughfares. The Janus Quadrifrons upon the Forum Boarium (Fig. 263) is, with exception of the attic, particularly well preserved; it was richly ornamented by the statues of deities, no less than thirty-two niches being provided upon its walls.
