Hadrian's Arch Greece

Legendary

A grand gateway between the old city of Athens and the new.

Photo by psyberartist

Two short sentences are carved into this arch, one on each side, and they seem to argue with each other. Face the Acropolis and read "This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus." Walk through, turn around, and the other side answers: "This is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus."

Theseus was the legendary hero who Athenians believed founded their city. Hadrian was a living Roman emperor.

Putting the two names on the same monument was a bold thing to do. Nobody is entirely sure what the Athenians meant by it.

For a long time people assumed the arch marked a boundary line, with the old Greek city on one side and Hadrian's new Roman district on the other. Later excavations showed that wasn't the case.

The arch went up in AD 131, built to honour Hadrian and to celebrate his visit to Athens. It was probably paid for by the citizens themselves.

Hadrian loved Greek culture. He funded buildings across the city and finally completed the enormous Temple of Olympian Zeus next door, a project that had been unfinished for around 600 years.

The whole arch is made of Pentelic marble, quarried from a mountain about 18 kilometres northeast of the city. It's the same white marble used to build the Parthenon.

It stands about 18 metres tall and 12.5 metres wide. The lower half is a single arched gateway, and the upper half is a row of slim columns.

It has survived remarkably well for nearly 1,900 years. It sits right beside a busy modern road, so traffic rushes past a monument that predates almost everything around it.

Stand on the northwest side, where you can frame the Acropolis in the distance through the archway. Read both inscriptions and decide for yourself what the Athenians meant. Walk a few steps to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the building Hadrian finished, with its enormous columns still standing.