Cicero is the first author who speaks of this arch, and he alludes to
it several times. In "Verres" (i. 7) he says: "He (Caius Curio) sees
Verres in the crowd by the Fornix Fabius. He speaks to the man, and
with a loud voice congratulates him on his victory." Asconius,
commenting on this passage, says: "Fornix Fabius arcus est juxta
Regiam in Sacra Via a Fabio censore constructus, qui a devictis
Allobrogibus Allobrox cognominatus est, ibique statua ejus posita
propterea est."
In "Pro Plancio" (vii.) Cicero says: "When I am hustled in a crowd,
and pushed against the Arch of Fabius, I do not complain to the man
who is at the top of the Sacra Via, but to him who pushes me." Again
("De Orat." ii. 66) he says: "Crassus said in a speech to the people
that Memnius, though himself so great a man, as he came into the
Forum, stooped his head at the Arch of Fabius."
Seneca ("De Constantia Sapientis," i.) says: "Cato was dragged from
the (old) Rostra to the Arch of Fabius"--that is, nearly the whole
length of the Forum. Trebellius Pollio ("Saloninus Gallienus," i. 10)
says: "There was at this time at the foot of the hill Romulus
(Palatine) a statue, that is before the Sacred Way, between the
Temples of Faustina and Vesta, near to the Arch of Fabius." This
exactly describes the site.
We have two views of this arch preserved to us on ancient reliefs. The
first, from the Arch of Marcus Aurelius, now on the stairway of the
Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol, represents the arch on the
left of the Temple-Tomb of the deified Cæsar. The second, a relief on
the monument of Marcus Aurelius on the Comitium, nearest the Arch of
Septimius Severus, depicts the Arch of Fabius to the right of the
Temple of Castor and Pollux.
_Under the bank of earth to the right of Cæsar's Temple-Tomb stood_