KOSTOLAC, SERBIA—The square foundation footprints of a triumphal arch have been discovered in Serbia on the main street in Viminacium, the ancient capital of the Roman province of Moesia, according to a Reuters report. The excavation team also uncovered a pillar, beams, and a fragment of a marble slab engraved with the letters CAES/ANTO, which suggest that the arch was dedicated to the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or Caracalla, who reigned from A.D. 198 to 217. “This is the first such triumphal arch in this area…It can be dated to the first decades of the third century A.D.,” commented archaeologist Miomir Korać. The fortified city of Viminacium featured a hippodrome, a forum, a palace, temples, an amphitheater, aqueducts, baths, and workshops, and was home to about 45,000 people between the first and sixth centuries A.D. Korać hopes that more pieces of the triumphal arch will be found. To read about a flat-bottomed ship found in a strip mine near Viminacium, go to "Roman River Cruiser."
