Porta San Sebastiano and the Arch of Drusus
Why is it significant?
Stop in front of the lonely arch that spans the road, then look past it to the colossal gate beyond: two towers of white stone and brick, as tall as an apartment block, framing a single passage. This is the largest and best-preserved gate in the Aurelian Walls.
Key Facts
| Place | Porta San Sebastiano and the Arch of Drusus |
|---|---|
| Address | Via di Porta San Sebastiano 18, 00179 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.87360, 12.50140 |
| Part of Walk | Queen of Roads: Rome's Appian Way from the Baths of Caracalla to the Catacombs |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop in front of the lonely arch that spans the road, then look past it to the colossal gate beyond: two towers of white stone and brick, as tall as an apartment block, framing a single passage. This is the largest and best-preserved gate in the Aurelian Walls. For most of the last two thousand years, Rome simply ended here.
The arch first. Everyone calls it the Arch of Drusus, after the brother of the emperor Tiberius. It almost certainly has nothing to do with him. Most scholars think that, at least in the form you see, it was part of the aqueduct branch that carried water over the Appian Way to the Baths of Caracalla, where you started. The marble dressing made it look triumphal. The water made it useful.
The walls were built in a hurry. In 271 AD, with barbarian raiders striking deep into Italy, the emperor Aurelian ordered Rome, which had felt no need for walls for centuries, to be enclosed again, in about nineteen kilometres of brick. This gate was then called the Porta Appia. Around the year 400 the emperor Honorius strengthened and heightened the defences, and much of what you see is his. Only in the Middle Ages did it take the name of the martyr whose basilica waits further down the road, Sebastian.
Walk under the archway and look closely at the marble jamb of the inner gate. Scratched into the stone is the Archangel Michael spearing a dragon, with a Latin inscription beside him. It celebrates a battle fought on 29 September 1327, Michael's feast day, when Roman militiamen drove off troops sent by King Robert of Naples. Medieval graffiti, signed by the city itself.
In 1536 the emperor Charles the Fifth rode in through this gate in a triumphal procession after his victory at Tunis, and a whole route through the ruins was cleared for him. Today the towers hold the Museum of the Walls, and you can walk along a stretch of the battlements. Now step through the gate and out of ancient Rome. From here on, the old road under your feet is the Via Appia Antica itself.