ARCUS PIETATIS
*mentioned only in the Mirabilia (23) and the Anon.
Magl. It stood on the north side of the Pantheon, perhaps in the
line of the enclosing porticus. Hulsen (
RAP ii. 19; cf. HCh 437) places
it close to the church of the Maddalena, connecting it with the wall
enclosing the precinct of the
TEMPLUM MATIDIAE (q.v.). Rushforth
(
JRS 1919, 37-40, 53-54) conjectures that it is the arch of Augustus
described in the twelfth century by Magister Gregorius as bearing the
inscription '
ob orbem devictum Romano regno restitutum et r. p. per
Augustum receptam populus Romanus hoc opus condidit,' and mentioned
by Dio Cassius (li. 19) as decreed to be set up in the forum in 29 B.C.
(but not actually erected) and afterwards placed here. The inscription,
though it cannot be a literal transcript, may be the echo of a genuine
one (see ARCUS AUGUSTI). A relief on this arch is said (Anon. Magl.)
to have represented a woman asking a favour of Trajan,
1 and about this
scene a legend was woven, one form of which appears in Dante (
Purg.
x. 73 ff.). This arch cannot be identified with any of those known to
us from other sources (
AJA 1904, 34; HJ 590; Boni in Nuova Antologia,
1st
Nov. 1906, 36).
