Arch of Hadrian

Stand still for a moment and listen. Cars and scooters roar past on the wide avenue, and buses sigh at the lights. Then look up. A gateway of pale, honey-coloured marble rises out of the traffic, rough where the weather has worn it and smooth where it has been sheltered. It has stood here for close to two thousand years. The roads around it keep changing, but the arch stays.

This is the Arch of Hadrian. It was built in the second century of the common era, most likely around 131 or 132. It honours the Roman emperor Hadrian, one of the great admirers of Greek culture in the ancient world. Nobody knows for certain who designed it or who paid for it. Many historians think the people of Athens raised it themselves, as a public thank-you to an emperor who gave their city a great deal.

First, a word about the man. Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire in the early second century. He travelled more than almost any emperor before him, and Athens held a special place for him. He visited the city more than once. He wore a beard in the Greek style, which was unusual for a Roman ruler. He also funded buildings, a library, and new neighbourhoods. To many Athenians, he was more than a distant ruler. He felt like a patron.

Now look at the shape of the monument. It has two levels. The lower part is a single wide opening, framed by flat pilasters with leafy Corinthian tops. A pilaster is a column flattened against a wall. Above that sits a lighter upper storey with three openings. The central opening carries a small triangular pediment, like the roof line of a temple. There are no doors, and there never were. This was a ceremonial passage, not a fortified gate.

The marble comes from Mount Pentelikon, the mountain on the northeast edge of the Athens plain. It is the same family of stone that the ancient Athenians used for the Parthenon. Fresh Pentelic marble is bright white. Over centuries, the small amount of iron in the stone slowly turns it a warm golden colour. That is why the arch glows in late afternoon light. It is also why the Acropolis, on the hill behind you, has the same soft tone.

Here is the detail that most visitors walk past. Look along the band of stone just above the main opening, on both sides. Each face carries a short inscription in ancient Greek. On the side facing the Acropolis, the words say: This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus. On the opposite side, facing away from the old city, the words say: This is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus.

Theseus was the legendary hero-king of Athens. In myth, he united the villages of Attica into one city, and he killed the Minotaur in Crete. So the two inscriptions draw a line. On one side lay the old city of heroes and legends. On the other side lay the new district that grew up under Roman rule. Scholars still discuss the exact tone. Was it proud? Was it diplomatic? Either way, the arch marks a boundary between two ideas of Athens.

The arch did not stand alone. It stood on an ancient road that ran from the heart of the old city toward the east. Just beyond it, behind the railings, you can see the tall columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Work on that temple began centuries before Hadrian, in the sixth century before the common era. Then it stopped, and started, and stopped again. Hadrian finally completed it. Many historians link the arch to the dedication of that temple.

Turn toward those columns for a moment. Only a small group still stands today, but once there were more than a hundred. The temple was one of the largest in the Greek world. Walk through the arch in your mind, and you can imagine the procession in Hadrian's time. Priests, officials, and citizens passed under this marble and moved toward a vast forest of columns. The arch was a frame for that view.

The monument also survived many later chapters. After the Roman era came Byzantine rule, then Frankish lords, then the Ottoman centuries. In the late Ottoman period, the arch was built into a new defensive wall around the town, and it served as one of its gates. That wall is gone now. But this practical reuse is one reason the arch survived while so many other ancient buildings were taken apart for their stone.

Modern Athens grew up around the arch in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The city became the capital of an independent Greece, and broad avenues were laid out across the old ground. Today, the arch sits on the edge of one of the busiest roads in the centre. It is a strange and honest picture. A Roman monument and modern traffic share the same space, and the city simply flows around the old stone.

Take a slow walk around the base, if the pavement allows. Notice the joints between the blocks, cut so precisely that they still fit closely. Look for the chips, cracks, and darker patches where rain and pollution have marked the surface. On some blocks, you can see newer, whiter stone. These are restoration pieces, added to protect the structure. They show how much care it takes to keep an ancient building upright in a modern city.

Before you move on, stand on the side that faces the Acropolis, and look up through the opening. On a clear day, you may frame the sacred rock in the distance. Then turn and look the other way, toward the columns of Zeus. You are standing exactly where the inscriptions placed the line between two cities. Behind you lies the Athens of Theseus. Ahead lies the Athens of Hadrian. And all around you, the Athens of today keeps moving.