Opinion | The History Behind Trumps Arch

The triumphal arch was a Roman innovation conceived to honor those of good deed who “should be lifted up,” wrote Pliny the Elder, “above the rest of mortals.” Only later did it become associated with victorious generals returning from battle, a symbolic city gate through which triumphators passed.Among the first was the Arch of Titus, built around A.D.81 to commemorate the victory of Titus and Vespasian in the siege of Jerusalem a decade earlier.

Its panels depict spoils taken from the Second Temple in victory — including the curved menorah featured on the national emblem of Israel.Much later came the Arch of Constantine, from 315, adjacent to the Colosseum on the Via Triumphalis.It was the largest Roman arch, built to honor Constantine’s victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

Over the centuries, the arches of Titus and Constantine became archetypes replicated around the world for a gamut of glorious purposes.Not coincidentally, the words arch and archetype share the same Greek root: Arkhein, to rule, and arkhos, chief.

Triumphal arches enact a vision of power.Sometimes that is a vision founded in reality; at others, it is aspirational, even deceptive, a gesture made to tell a false tale about a country’s place in the world.

President Trump’s proposed arch is just another chapter in the long history of heroic architecture pressed into the service of ideology....