Arch of Glanum

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Arch of Glanum

The Arch of Glanum (also Triumphal Arch or Augustus Arch of Saint-Rémy , Triumph or Augustus Arch of Glanum ) is a single- gate arch monument from the late Augustus era, which is located across the road from Ernaginum near today's Saint-Gabriel to Glanum near Saint-Rémy-de- Provence rose and marked the beginning of the ancient city in the northwest.

architecture

The single-gate arch, built from local stone, has a preserved height of 7.53 meters, a width of 12.41 meters and a depth of 5.01 meters. The passage is 5.23 meters wide and has a clear height of 6.81 meters. The arch pillars are provided with two fluted half-columns on each side of the passage, with the corner columns as three-quarter columns encompassing the outer narrow sides of the arch. The half-columns stand on pedestals cranked with the bases of the arched pillars , have Attic bases without a plinth and were probably of the Corinthian order . Capitals have not survived and are not documented in early drawings.

Between the half-columns of the north-west and south-east facades of the arch there are reliefs depicting bound barbarians accompanied by other people, the arch gussets are decorated with Victorias floating towards the center of the arch . The archivolts are adorned with lavishly filled garlands of fruits and leaves, their undersides bear vegetable candelabra tendrils . Honeycomb-shaped cassette fields richly decorated with changing profiles and provided with central flowers adorn the underside of the arch in the area of ​​the passage. The narrow sides of the arch were framed on the outside by tendrils pilasters between the three-quarter columns and each had two niches in which further, unpreserved reliefs or inscription panels were embedded.

No remains of the rest of the structure have been preserved. For other monuments of this type, an attic is assumed as the upper end. It cannot be clarified whether the passage area was additionally emphasized with a pre-blinded triangular gable.

  • Views and architectural details

  • Side view

  • Archivolt and Victoria of the southeast facade

  • Coffered ceiling

  • Candelabra

Picture decorations

Among the decorative elements of the arch, the two-figure reliefs on the side of the passages stand out and have always been the subject of discussion and interpretation. A captured barbarian with arms tied behind his back is accompanied by another figure. A tropaion , a victory sign originally placed on the battlefield, occupies the center of all four reliefs. All reliefs are integrated into the spaces between the columns in such a way that the feet of the figures come to rest on protruding cornices about a quarter of the height of the column . These are tapered downwards and give the impression of crowning altar-like statue pedestals, not shown, which served as carriers of the Tropaia.

The left relief of the north-west facade shows next to the man in chains a smaller person dressed in a fringed sagum who places the left hand on the larger barbarian shown on the front of his right shoulder. On the right relief, next to the barbarian depicted from behind in a three-quarter view, a female figure sitting on a heap of weapons can be seen. In contrast, the two reliefs on the south-east facade depict captive barbarians standing upright and turning away from the tropaion as the second person.

There are different approaches to interpreting the figures. If one interpreted all of them equally as captured barbarians, then they were interpreted as Gauls , Teutons or personifications of Roman provinces of the empire . If a distinction was made between male and female figures, the female ones were understood as Roma , Gallia or Britannia . Submission was mostly seen as the central theme of the pictorial program, which is most evident in the gesture of the laying on of hands on the northwest side. Pierre Gros , on the other hand, suggested that this gesture should not be seen as the removal of the defeated opponent, but as a sign of reconciliation, an invitation to participate in the advantages of the Roman Empire, pronounced by an already Romanized Gaul. The other reliefs were then also subjected to an interpretation aimed in this direction. The female figure sitting on the heap of arms is therefore not the defeated Gallia, the Gallia devicta , but the victorious Roma as a symbol of the pax Romana , the lasting Roman peace during the reign of Augustus . However, it was countered that the female figure wears a fringed coat that is atypical for Roma.

Further details of the arch correspond to the contrast between the more peaceful north-west side or the advantages of peace and the south-east side, which prisoners of both sexes see as a threat. The Victorias on the north-western side of the country, which you saw when you entered the city, carry a laurel wreath and palm branch, while the Victorias on the city side carry Roman standards in their hands. Even the fruits of the garlands on the archivolts are different: they are ripe on the country side, some are already open, but less developed on the city side. Peace and wealth are promised by walking towards the city, war and underdevelopment follow leaving the city.

  • Barbarian reliefs on the facades

  • Left relief of the northwest facade

  • Right relief of the northwest facade

  • Left relief of the southeast facade

  • Right relief of the southeast facade

Dating

The arch in Glanum is dated to the decade between 10 and 20 AD because of its structural shape, in particular the formation of the garlands on the archivolts, but also because of the close proximity to decorative details on the Arch of Orange . Based on his dating of the Orange Arch in the late 2nd century, James C. Anderson, Jr. this common dating of the arch in Glanum is also in question. Anderson is forced to question the previous dates of most Roman buildings not only in Gallia Narbonensis , but also in the western provinces, since his time approach of the arc in orange corresponds to what is known about the development of Roman decorative forms, especially the Corinthian capital, but also other elements such as the tendrils and garlands has so far worked out, cannot be reconciled. So far, this has not been successful.

Location and urban context

The "Antiques" from Glanum

Glanum, a since the 6th century BC. A Celtic place populated in the 3rd century BC at an old spring sanctuary, nestled in the range of hills of the Alpilles , which rise south of the city. After an already since the 3rd century BC It was expanded into a Greek- Hellenistic city ​​called Glanon and was built at the end of the 2nd century BC. The Roman occupation of Glanum probably led to the capture of Massalia in 49 BC. BC also to a redesign of the place. At least from the late 1940s BC Chr. Old buildings and facilities gradually replaced by a forum , porticos and temples . These construction measures, largely supported by Agrippa , were implemented primarily in the two decades before the turn of the century and gave the oppidum Latinum a Roman character. After completion of the inner-city work, the arch was erected at the only convenient city access in the north-west and spanned the road coming through the Rhone Valley from Ernaginum, which connected Glanum north of the Alpilles with the important Roman traffic routes.

Post-ancient history

Engraving by NCF de Peiresc, 1610
The "Antiques" in 1792

First mentioned in 1343, the arch was known under the names Portail Sarazin , Arc du trésor and Arc du Sex during the Renaissance . The name Arc du Sex was carried over from the neighboring Julier monument, whose inscription names a SEX (tus).

The arch of Glanum is part of an ensemble of two ancient architectures known since the beginning of the 17th century under the name "Les Antiques", the other element of which is the Julier monument of Saint-Rémy , only 12 meters away . However, the two monuments have no relation to each other, rather the Julier monument with its inscription is oriented towards the ancient road that it consequently flanks.

In 1609, Pierre Rivarel lamented in a poem the condition of the arch and its increasing destruction by rainwater. In 1724, Bernard de Montfaucon published an engraving by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc in the supplements to his L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures from 1610, which for the first time reproduces the bow and its condition in great detail. Accordingly, the structure of the arch was already missing at this point in time, the arch pillars had broken off in irregular steps, but the arch passage was intact and covered by a smooth stone layer above the archivolt.

Nothing changed in this situation until the Comte de Provence and later Louis XVIII visited Saint-Rémy in 1777. On the occasion of this event, the arched pillars were bricked up to such an extent that the rainwater could be drained off with a gable-roof-like shape of the top to prevent further deterioration. At this time, the place that combined the “antiques” into an ensemble was created. In the years 1817–1819, open joints were filled and the arch stabilized. In 1840 the arch was declared a monument historique and thus placed under monument protection as a remarkable building.

Investigations in the 20th century showed that the smooth stone block preserved above the archivolt is not in its original position, the supposed architrave front was merely the abutting surface of a cuboid, which was consequently originally integrated. It is therefore impossible to decide whether a presumable inscription was placed on the architrave or the attic.

literature

  • James C. Anderson: Roman Architecture in Provence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, pp. 75-77.
  • Monique Clavel-Lévêque, Pierre Lévêque: Impérialisme et sémiologie: l'espace urbain à Glanum. In: Mélanges de l'école française de Rome. Volume 94, Issue 2, 1982, pp. 675-698, here: pp. 683-696 ( online ).
  • Pierre Gros : Pour une chronologie des arcs de triomphe de Gaule Narbonnaise (à propos de l'arc de Glanum). In: Gallia. Volume 37, Issue 1, 1979, pp. 55-83 ( online ).
  • Pierre Gros: Note sur deux reliefs des "Antiques" de Glanum  : the problem of the romanization. In: Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise. Volume 14, Issue 1, 1981, pp. 159-172 ( online ).
  • Pierre Gros: L'Architecture Romaine. Volume 1: Les monuments publics. Picard, Paris 1996, pp. 66-69 Figs. 57-59.
  • Fred S. Kleiner: Arch at St-Rémy. In: Nancy Thomson de Grummond (Ed.): An Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archeology. Routledge, New York 1996.
  • Annette Küpper-Böhm: The Roman arch monuments of Gallia Narbonensis in their urban context (= Cologne studies on the archeology of the Roman provinces. Volume 3). Leidorf, Espelkamp 1996, ISBN 3-89646-131-1 , pp. 77-85. 185, plate 20.
  • Henri Rolland : L'arc de Glanum (= Gallia. Supplement 31). Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1977.

Web links

Commons : Arch of Glanum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ For the older discussion with literature see Annette Küpper-Böhm: The Roman Arch Monuments of Gallia Narbonensis in their urban context. Leidorf, Espelkamp 1996, p. 83.
  2. ↑ Pierre Gros: Note sur deux reliefs des "Antiques" de Glanum  : the problem of the romanization. In: Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise. Volume 14, Issue 1, 1981, pp. 159-172.
  3. ↑ Like Pierre Gros: Note sur deux reliefs des "Antiques" de Glanum  : leproblemème de la romanisation. In: Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise. Volume 14, Issue 1, 1981, p. 163.
  4. ↑ Monique Clavel-Lévêque, Pierre Lévêque: Impérialisme et sémiologie: l'espace urbain à Glanum. In: Mélanges de l'école française de Rome. Volume 94, Issue 2, 1982, p. 698 f.
  5. ↑ Annette Küpper-Böhm: The Roman arch monuments of Gallia Narbonensis in their urban context. Leidorf, Espelkamp 1996, p. 84, note 465.
  6. ↑ James C. Anderson: Roman Architecture in Provence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, p. 77 (on the arch in Glanum), 93 (on the arch in orange) and passim.
  7. ^ Fred S. Kleiner: Arch at St-Rémy. In: Nancy Thomson de Grummond (Ed.): An Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archeology. Routledge, New York 1996.
  8. ↑ Pierre Rivarel: Livre contenant la vie de Saint-Remy. 1609, p. 68; quoted by Henri Rolland: Saint-Rémy de Provence. Impr. Générale du Sud-Ouest, Bergerac 1934, p. 223.
  9. ^ Bernard de Montfaucon: L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures. Supplementary volume 4.1. Paris 1724, p. 78 plate 34 ( digitized version )
  10. ↑ Entry No. PA00081438 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French).
  11. ^ Henri Rolland: L'arc de Glanum. Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1977, p. 21 plate 13.
  12. ↑ Annette Küpper-Böhm: The Roman arch monuments of Gallia Narbonensis in their urban context. Leidorf, Espelkamp 1996, p. 78 f.

Coordinates: 43 ° 46 ′ 35.5 "  N , 4 ° 49 ′ 52.4"  E