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Arch of the Sergii

Slavoluk Sergijevaca, Arco dei Sergi, Porta Aurea

site · Istria County, Croatia

What it is
The Arch of the Sergii is a small, richly carved Roman arch that a widow of Pula paid for in honour of her family, built against the inside of the town's main gate in the reign of Augustus.
What you’ll see
The arch is complete up to its attic. All of its decoration faces the town; the back, which leant against the gate, is plain.
Worth the trip?
It is not a trip on its own, but it is one of the things Pula is worth the trip for, and it costs nothing. Take a few minutes over the carving on the underside; it is easy to walk past with your head down.
Getting there & cost
The arch stands in the old town at the end of Sergijevaca street, the main street of Roman Pula, a short walk from the forum and the Arena.FreeHours, tickets and parking
A single-arched Roman gateway of weathered stone standing at the end of a busy pedestrian street, between tall yellow and cream town houses with café awnings.
The arch at the end of Sergijevaca street, the main street of the old town. · Photo: Reinhard Kraasch · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
A Roman arch of pale, weathered limestone seen head on, with paired fluted columns on each side, a carved frieze and an inscription below a heavy attic, and a sunny square visible through the opening.
The town-facing side of the arch, where all its inscriptions and figured decoration are. · Photo: Sailko · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Looking up at the underside of the arch, a coffered stone vault carved with small panels, against a pale sky and the upper floors of a yellow building.
The underside of the arch, carved with coffers, rosettes and fantastic creatures. · Photo: Michael Newman · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The Arch of the Sergii is a small, richly carved Roman arch that a widow of Pula paid for in honour of her family, built against the inside of the town’s main gate in the reign of Augustus. It stands at the end of the old town’s main street, and you can walk through it.

What is there today

The arch is complete up to its attic. All of its decoration faces the town; the back, which leant against the gate, is plain. The piers are carved with acanthus and vine scrolls, with mating birds and a bird pecking at grapes hidden in the vine on the northern pier. The underside of the arch is covered in coffers with rosettes and palmettes, framed by sphinxes, griffins, sea monsters, hippocamps, a dog and a panther, with an eagle seizing a snake — a symbol of a hero’s apotheosis — at the centre. Winged Victories carrying a wreath and a trophy fill the corners above the arch (the museum).

Five inscriptions name three men and a woman of two generations. The frieze carries the name of Salvia Postuma, who married into the Sergii and paid for the arch with her own money after the other members of the family had died; the three bases on the attic once held statues of her husband, her son Lucius Sergius Lepidus, a military tribune of the Twenty-Ninth Legion, and her brother-in-law, facing into the town (the museum; en.wikipedia).

Is it worth the trip?

It is not a trip on its own, but it is one of the things Pula is worth the trip for, and it costs nothing. Take a few minutes over the carving on the underside; it is easy to walk past with your head down. It has drawn artists from Michelangelo to Piranesi (en.wikipedia).

Getting there

The arch stands in the old town at the end of Sergijevaca street, the main street of Roman Pula, a short walk from the forum and the Arena. It is in a public street, open at all times and free, and the museum notes that visitors with limited mobility can reach it. A bus stop is mapped about 80 m away (OpenStreetMap).

Visiting details

Tickets
Free
Parking
None at the arch; the nearest mapped car park is about 200 m away, and a bus stop about 80 m (OpenStreetMap).
On foot
At the parking

History

Pula’s walls had many gates — the museum counts twelve, English Wikipedia ten — and the Golden Gate was the main entrance to the colony. Under Augustus it was rebuilt as a triple gate with round towers, and the Sergii arch was built against its inner side (the museum). The gate itself was demolished in the middle of the 19th century; the arch survived (the museum).

Lucius Sergius Lepidus, the man at the centre of the monument, was an aedile of Pola and a tribune of the Twenty-Ninth Legion, disbanded after the battle of Actium; he fought on Octavian’s side in the civil war and died young, at the start of a senatorial career, and his grieving mother raised the arch at the main entrance to her town near the end of her life (the museum). English Wikipedia dates the arch to about 29–27 BC from Lepidus’s career; the museum dates it to the end of the 1st century BC or the start of the 1st century AD.

Nearby

  • The ruined corner of a Roman temple built of large squared stone blocks, carrying fragments of a carved cornice, standing on a lawn among old stone houses.

    Photo: Maesi64 · CC0 · Commons

    45 km · city · Istria County

    Parentium – Poreč

    The town plan still shows the shape of the Roman castrum, and the two main streets, the Decumanus and the Cardo Maximus, keep their original lines.

  • The apse of a church covered in gold-ground mosaics, a row of standing apostles above an arch framed with round portrait medallions, and in the semi-dome below the Virgin enthroned with the Child between saints and angels.

    Photo: Carole Raddato · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Commons

    45 km · site · Istria County

    Euphrasian Basilica

    The whole episcopal complex survives: the basilica itself, an atrium surrounded by porticoes with a collection of carved stones, an octagonal baptistery, the bishop's palace and a later bell tower (en.wikipedia).

Straight-line distances.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Pleiades 471437511CC BY
Wikidata Q952381CC0
OpenStreetMap way/203755793ODbL
Wikipedia (en) — Arch of the SergiiCC BY-SA 4.0
Arheološki muzej Istre — Slavoluk Sergijevacalicence not recorded
Arheološki muzej Istre — Gradske zidine s vratimalicence not recorded