The Arch of Trajan in Benevento draws visual cues from the Arch of Titus at Rome. This arch, built between 114 and 117 CE, was erected over the Via Appia, one of Rome’s most ancient roads through southern Italy, as the road entered Beneventum.

Like the Arch of Titus, the Arch of Trajan is ornately decorated with scenes of conquest and the deeds completed by Trajan. On both sides of the arch is a dedicatory inscription. The exterior is decorated with engaged columns and reliefs of Trajan’s military conquest of Dacia, the extent of the Roman empire, and allegorical scenes of imperial power, as well as Trajan’s good deeds as both a builder of public works and as the founder of a charitable institution for children in Roman Italy.

The two interior relief panels depict the religious activity of Trajan. One shows him making a sacrifice in one of Rome’s oldest fora, the Forum Boarium, which was home to some of the city’s oldest temples. The other panel depicts Trajan being welcomed after his apotheosis by the Capitoline Triad. These two scenes depict Trajan’s piety as well as the approval given to him by the three most important gods in the Roman pantheon.