Bible Synapse
Arch of Titus
relief · c. AD 81 · The early church
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. AD 81 (the arch's building)
- Found
- Via Sacra, Rome, Italy. Has stood on the Via Sacra since antiquity. Raffaele Stern and then Giuseppe Valadier restored it between 1817 and 1821, rebuilding the missing parts in travertine so that the ancient marble stands out from the new work.
- Now
- At the site, Rome
- Passages
- Luke 19:41–44, Luke 21:20–24, Mark 13:1–2
What it is
A marble triumphal arch on the Via Sacra in Rome. Domitian put it up after his brother Titus died in AD 81; it marks Titus's deification and the Flavian victory over the Jewish revolt. One inner relief shows soldiers carrying spoils from the Jerusalem Temple in Titus's triumph: the seven-branched lampstand, the table for the showbread and trumpets.
How it connects to the Bible
The Gospels report Jesus' warning that Jerusalem would be surrounded by its enemies and that not “one stone upon another” of the Temple buildings would be left. In AD 70 Titus's army took the city and the Temple was burned. The arch shows its treasures being paraded through Rome, as the historian Josephus also describes.