Damaged section of the Arch of ConstantineColosseum Archaeological Park
Damaged section of the Arch of ConstantineColosseum Archaeological Park
Well that’s kind of ominous. Wonder what the Romans would’ve said.
Glad it wasn’t struck too badly!
https://archaeology.org/issues/march-april-2022/features/rome-constantine-arch/
I like clicking the links in the articles....The part about Nero [Sol Invictus] added a new perspective for me...
Things like this were destroyed by lightning occasionally during Roman times. Lightening rods now protect most structures nowadays.
The 82-foot-tall arch was constructed to celebrate the victory of Constantine the Great over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312.Only a couple of minutes before I saw this thread/news, I had been thinking about Constantine. Not exactly someone who comes to mind very often, yet here he was, again, mere seconds later. 🤔
The context of the thoughts had to do with the Nicene Creed, now in its 1700th year. Here's that and the above date, all rolled together in one place:
Although Constantine lived much of his life as a pagan and later as a catechumen, he began to favour Christianity beginning in 312, finally becoming a Christian and being baptised by Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian bishop, although the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church maintain that he was baptised by Pope Sylvester I. He played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared tolerance for Christianity in the Roman Empire. He convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Milvian_Bridge#Vision_of_Constantine
The thought was more of a passing question, as in what would have to happen to upend literally 1700 years of settled doctrine. Doctrinal debates certainly don't accomplish anything useful, or they would have done so already. Therefore, nobody but nobody is going to battle 1700 years-worth of established beliefs (much less anything more ancient than that) by using the doctrinal debate methodology, because every debater already knows everything already. They're only there to make other people see the light.
Anyway, I then sat down to peruse the news, and discovered that
Rome's triumphal Arch of Constantine was struck by lightning during a storm that also felled trees and flooded streets, as more than two inches of rain fell in less than an hour.
Shame it wasn’t Titus’s arch. I’d love for it to be destroyed by act of G-d.
I ate at a McDonald’s in Trastevere near where my mother and grandmother used to live. I hope those arches are okay.
It’ll buff out. The Eye-ties have had extensive experience piecing old historical monuments back together.
In 1527, when Michelangelo’s statue of David was standing outside the Medici palace (just where the replica now stands), someone* threw a chair out of a palace window and broke his left arm in three places. But they mended it so expertly that the damage isn’t noticeable today.
* One story claims this was the result of a cat fight between two of the Medici famously volatile women. YMMV.
