Arch of Dativius Victor

The structure dates from the middle of the 3rd century and was once the central passageway of a portico (columned hall) of a public building in Mogontiacum.

The founder's inscription, according to which the sons of the deceased decurio (councillor) Dativius Victor had the arch and a portico erected in his honour to the imperial house and the god Jupiter, has been completely preserved.

A copy made from casts was erected on a scale of 1:1 on Ernst-Ludwig-Platz near the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in 1962 on the occasion of Mainz's 2000th anniversary celebrations.

During this work between 1898 and 1911, several architectural elements of the Arch of Dativius Victor were found between the streets "Am Gautor", "Bastion Martin" and "Martinstraße", which had been built into the city wall as spolia.

[2] In addition to the decoration, the existing displacement marks and staple holes on the stones served him and later workers as a guide for a precise fit.

The arched pillars have different widths; the left one is 1.03 m wide and the right one 1.10 m.[5] The individual blocks were worked on anathyrosis and executed without mortar.

The supreme pair of gods of the Roman pantheon is surrounded by four other, unidentifiable deities.The area above the archivolt depicts various sacrificial scenes with two flanking seasonal genii.

The depiction of a local official exercising a priestly office makes the Arch of Dativius Victor unique in the Germanic provinces.

Apart from the individually produced sacrificial scenes, the ancient craftsmen used forms that can also be found on sarcophagi and Mithras reliefs from this period for the design of the other ornaments and figures.

The formula "IN H D D" for "in H(onorem) D(omus) D(ivinae)", meaning "to the divine imperial house", emerged in the middle of the 2nd century and remained a common designation until late antiquity.

Iuppiter Optimus Maximus was worshipped in the Upper Germanic region together with his wife Juno, above all in the cult of Iupiter Dolichenus.

All fragments of the arch were recovered from the foundations of the Roman city wall between the Gautor and Martinstraße together with demolition stones from the Mainz legionary camp.

This can possibly be explained by the official and his family fleeing from the areas on the right bank of the Rhine that had been evacuated due to the threat posed by the Alemanni.

[20] However, other explanations are also possible; for example, the decurio, who also acted as a priest of the imperial cult, could have deliberately chosen the provincial capital of Mogontiacum as the location of the monument for reasons of prestige (see below).

Coin treasures in the Limes region, for example from the forts of Ober-Florstadt[21] and Seligenstadt[22] as well as from Nida-Heddernheim,[23] bear witness to a turbulent time.

A now lost inscription of a collegium iuventutis, possibly a local militia, is known from Altenstadt fort, which is interpreted as a measure taken by the inhabitants of the province on their own initiative.

In addition to the Arch of Dativius Victor, there is another stone monument that could provide evidence of such a retreat to Mainz by a councillor of the Civitas Taunensium.

The Nidensian duumvir Licinius Tugnatius Publius had a Jupiter column re-erected (in suo ut haberet restituit) on his property in Mainz-Kastel in the same year as the Altenstadt inscription (242 AD).