Trump’s triumphal arch is a monument fit for an emperor

On Oct. 28, President Donald Trump fired all six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency with an important but often overlooked job: To review construction projects in and around Washington, D.C., including government buildings, monuments and memorials. Established by Congress over a century ago, the commission would have reviewed plans for the elaborate ballroom Trump is erecting at the White House, as well as another project — his proposed triumphal arch. 

The abrupt dismissal comes after Trump also removed all appointees named by former President Joe Biden from the National Planning Commission in July. Such a heavy-handed approach will make it easier for Trump to implement his personal aesthetic vision in the capital region. It will shock nobody to learn that the owner of Trump Tower has a somewhat narrow architectural focus. When he unveiled his plans on Oct. 15 for the triumphal arch, which will ostensibly celebrate 250 years of American independence, the president revealed its true subject: “Me.” 

The triumphal arch, which will stand near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery and across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial, is the perfect monument for Trump’s self-aggrandizing and increasingly authoritarian tendencies. Although examples exist in the United States, the architectural design originated in ancient Rome and was broadly imitated in later European monuments. The most famous triumphal arches have unavoidable associations with autocratic power and imperial violence. Trump’s favored monumental style, with its visual and ideological connections to authoritarian and expansionist regimes from the past, is no accident. 

The best known triumphal arch may be the Arc de Triomphe, the iconic Parisian landmark that was constructed on Napoleon’s command during his campaign to bring all of Europe under his own control as emperor of the First French Empire. He issued those orders the day after an event of national significance, his army’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz. But the first stone was laid on a day of personal significance — Aug. 15, 1806, his own birthday. 

Although nobody should be surprised that Trump’s vainglorious monument will evoke an authoritarian and imperial regime, it is disturbing nevertheless. The president is not the only autocratic-leaning ruler to favor the Napoleonic style triumphal arch. Mussolini constructed the Arch of the Philaeni to glorify fascist Italy’s colonial projects in North Africa. Spain’s fascist ruler Francisco Franco erected the Arco de la Victoria to celebrate his victory over the Second Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Plans for Trump’s triumphal arch, according to an artistic rendering he posted on Truth Social, show a monument topped off by a winged statue of Victory, bringing it into dialogue with Franco’s monument. 

Trump’s arch, like all triumphal arches, invokes a history of violence and conquest. Consider the ancient Roman precedents. The word and concept of the “triumph” itself, embedded in the very notion of the triumphal arch, evoke a specifically Roman military and imperial context; the triumph was a ritual procession granted by the Roman Senate to victorious generals. All surviving triumphal arches are from Rome’s imperial period (BC 27 – AD 476). Naturally, such arches tend to glorify the emperor.

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Like the Arc de Triomphe, Trump’s proposed monument resembles the Arch of Titus, the oldest surviving triumphal arch in Rome, which is located near the Roman Forum. The Arch of Titus makes an explicit and graphic connection between the architectural form of the triumphal arch, autocratic leadership and violent conquest.

Constructed around 81 CE by the Emperor Domitian to honor his brother, the Emperor Titus, who had recently died, it celebrates Titus’ victorious siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, which brought an end to the First Jewish Revolt and led to the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem. The sculptural program of the Arch of Titus depicts a triumphal march that displays the spoils of this conquest, including treasures taken from the Jerusalem Temple, like the seven-branched Menorah, a key symbol of ancient and modern Judaism. Like Trump’s arch, it also contains images of a winged Victory accompanying Titus on his triumphal procession. 

The violent imagery of the Arch of Titus — which depicts conquest for the aggrandizement of the autocratic ruler of Rome — is not unique. The Arch of Septimius Severus (203 CE), on the Roman Forum, celebrates Roman victories over the Parthians of modern Iraq and Iran. In addition to winged Victories like that shown in the mock-up Trump’s arch, the sculptural program of the Arch of Severus includes depictions of four major battles in Parthia and the spoils of war. At its base, in a position of figurative support, are enslaved Parthians in the custody of their new Roman masters. Like the Arch of Titus, this monument glorifies the destruction and subjugation of a conquered people.

When Trump held up little models of the arch during the announcement, it was tempting to dismiss this as simple vanity, something akin to Trump’s self-memorializing real-estate ventures. But one cannot deny the historical context of such architecture. Roman triumphal arches were built to glorify the immense, violent power of autocratic leaders. As Trump moves to concentrate more and more power in the hands of the executive, equating the process of government with personal caprice, his choice of monument provides a concrete symbol of that increasingly authoritarian style.

Like his June military parade, which transformed the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army into a celebration of his own birthday, Trump’s triumphal arch turns American glory into a grotesque cult of personality. It is a backward-looking symbol of violence and authority that aligns his regime with its predecessors in Napoleonic France — and the modern fascist regimes of Franco and Mussolini.