Mogontiacum (Mainz)

Reconstructed honorific arch from Mainz (Germany). Photo Jona Lendering.

Mogontiacum: Roman city, capital of Germania Superior, important military base, modern Mainz.

Arch of Dativius Victor

From the mid-third century survives a small honorific arch, dedicated to the imperial family by a man named Dativius Victor. This is a copy; the real monument is in the Landesmuseum. The inscription, included in the Corpus Inscription Latinarum as 13.6705, reads:

IN Honorem Domus Divinae Iovi Optimo Maximo CONSERVATORI

ARCVS CVM SIGNIS

QVOS DATIVIVS VICTOR DECurio CIVITatis TAVNENSis VICANIS MO
GONTIACENSIBVS PROMISIS VICTORIVS VRSVS ET VICTORIVS LVPVS
FILIi ET HEREDES CONSUMMAVERVNT (more...)

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The honorific arch in the Landesmuseum Mainz (Germany). Photo Marco Prins.

This means that Dativius Victor, decurio in the town of the Taunus people (i.e., Frankfurt) and former provincial chief priest of the imperial cult, dedicated the arch with its decorations to Jupiter, the greatest and best of the gods, to honor the divine imperial dynasty, as he had promised to the people of Mainz. The monument was finished by Victorius Ursus ("the bear"), grain merchant, and Victorius Lupus ("the wolf"), Victor's sons and heirs.

The emperor who was thus honored remains unidentified, but Valerian (253-260) is a good guess, because his son was Gallienus was co-ruler and visited Mainz.

The top of the arch in the Landesmuseum. You can see the signs of the Zodiac, and in the center the supreme god Jupiter and his wife Juno. To the left and right are sacrificial scenes. The stones survived because they were included in the second Roman city wall that was built in the mid-fourth century.