Marble Arch (Libya)

The Marble Arch, also known as the Arch of the Philaeni,Template:NoteTag was a triumphal arch built in 1937 by Fascist Italy in Colonial Libya. Located on the border between the previously-separate colonies of Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, the arch was built to celebrate their unification into a single colony; it also celebrated the completion of the , the first road connecting the east and west of Libya, which passed underneath the arch at the middle of its length.

Designed by leading colonial architect Florestano Di Fausto and incorporating various stylistic influences from classical antiquity, the arch was a prominent symbol of the Italian Empire, designed to invoke a connection between the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, especially the Roman Empire, and the ideological goals of Fascism. The eponymous Carthaginian Philaeni brothers, who according to legend were voluntarily buried alive near the site in order to secure a favourable border settlement, were promoted as an example of Fascist virtue: two bronze statues depicting their deaths were incorporated into the arch, which also featured sculpted reliefs and Latin inscriptions glorifying Fascist Italy.

The arch survived World War II, during which the was the main east-west route used by the armies of the Western Desert campaign. It was eventually demolished by Muammar Gaddafi, ruler of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, in the early 1970s.

Background

Legend of the Philaeni brothers

During antiquity, the two North African states of Carthage, expanding eastwards into Tripolitania, and Greek Cyrene, expanding south and west from Cyrenaica, feuded over territorial and commercial rights, and sought to define the border between them. According to a legend first described by the Roman historian Sallust, in either the fifth or fourth century BCE, the two states decided to set the border with an athletics competition. Two teams of runners would depart simultaneously from their respective states, heading toward each other: the boundary would be placed where the two met. When they did meet, the Philaeni brothers, representing Carthage, had travelled far further than the team from Cyrene. Defeated, the Cyrenaeans accused the Carthaginians of cheating, then offered to set the boundary at the meeting point on the condition that the Philaeni brothers were buried alive there. The brothers agree to sacrifice themselves for their country, the boundary was fixed, and the Carthaginians built altars — the — on the site of the brothers' deaths. The supposed location of the altars, near the southernmost part of the Gulf of Sidra, became the boundary between the regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

Italian colonization

Map of Libya, split into three sections. The north and west, coloured green, is labelled "Tripolitania". South of Tripolitania, extending into the Sahara desert, is Fezzan, coloured red. The entire east of the country is labelled "Cyrenaica" and is coloured grey.

Map of the traditional regions of Libya

In 1911, the Kingdom of Italy, aiming to expand its colonial empire and to strengthen its position in the Mediterranean, invaded Ottoman Tripolitania, starting the Italo-Turkish War. Though the territory was granted to Italy in the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne, by late 1915 strong native resistance and the outbreak of World War I had reduced Italian-held territory to only the coastal towns, a situation that persisted after the end of WW1. However, internal conflicts — particularly between Tripolitanian notables and the Cyrenaica-based Senussi Order — and wartime competition between the Ottoman, Italian, and British empires, had seriously destabilized Libyan society and caused ruptures between the western and eastern halves of the country. From 1922, Italy, predominantly under the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, waged the Second Italo-Senussi War to fully occupy the colony; the war, characterized by escalating brutality against the civilian population, ended in 1932 with Italian victory.

Following the defeat of the resistance, Fascist Italy undertook a program of settler colonization, aiming to Italianize the north of the colony and integrate it into metropolitan Italy as the country's "Fourth Shore". Under Governor Italo Balbo, in 1934 the two colonial administrations of Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were merged into one, named Italian Libya, and began extensive infrastructure projects to support Italian settlement. These projects included construction of the , a long paved highway along the entire Libyan coastline between the Tunisian and Egyptian borders. It was the first road connecting Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, previously linked mainly by a weekly boat. Motivated by the international outcry over the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the completion of the highway, particularly the section through the harsh Sirte desert, was a significant achievement, a symbol of the colony's unification, and served economic, cultural, and especially military objectives. It also represented Fascist Italy's civilizing mission — promoted as an alternative to British and French colonialism in North Africa — and was meant to evoke the roadbuilding of the Roman Empire.Template:Refn

The arch

In order to celebrate the completion of the , and the unification and "rebirth" of Libya as part of the Fascist empire, the Arch of the Philaeni was built at the midway-point of the highway and served as its centrepiece. The site, near Ras Lanuf on the Gulf of Sidra, was some west of the ancient Carthaginian altars. It was designed by architect Florestano Di Fausto, one of the most prominent figures in Italian colonial architecture. Di Fausto, a modernist and proponent of Mediterraneanism, used the fusion of Italian and local vernacular architecture in his designs as a manifestation of Italy's presence in and connection to the land being colonized; he saw the triumphal arch as an especially Roman and Italian construction. It was not the first triumphal arch built under Fascism in Italian Libya: two temporary arches had been constructed in Tripoli in 1928 and 1931 by Template:Ill and Template:Ill respectively.

Colour photograph of two patinaed bronze statues on a plinth in an open-air museum enclosure.

Bronze statues of the Philaeni brothers, 2014

Construction began on 1 August 1936, required 200 workers, and was completed in February 1937. The arch, which straddled the , was tall, with an opening high and wide. It was built of concrete and clad with 350 tonnes of travertine, a material used extensively in Ancient Roman architecture, imported from Tivoli, Italy.Template:Refn Alongside the Roman elements, Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Phoenician motifs were used in the design, symbolic of Fascism's claim to the legacy of classical Mediterranean civilization as a whole. Two large bronze sculptures, each showing one of the Philaeni brothers being buried alive, were placed in rectangular recesses above the openings on each side of the arch. On the inside faces of the arch were two carved bas-relief panels: the first showed the building of the highway, featuring land surveyors, Arab workers, construction machinery, and a caravan carrying barrels of water to the worksite; the second, themed around the Italian Empire, featured Mussolini saluting King Victor Emmanuel III in front of a group of soldiers, as well as depictions of agriculture, the monumented hills of Rome, and trumpeting angels. Inscribed in Latin on the east-facing side of the three-tiered attic was a quote from the Roman poet Horace, popular during the Fascist era and originally written in praise of Emperor Augustus:

Nourishing sun, may you see nothing greater than the city of Rome

— Template:Comma separated entries

Mussolini was keen to emulate Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire and inaugurator of the Pax Romana, the bimillennium of whose birth was widely celebrated in Fascist Italy; other projects to co-opt his image included the restoration of the Ara Pacis and the removal of the Obelisk of Axum to Rome. Two further inscriptions, composed by the journalist Template:Ill, were carved in both Latin and Italian. The first described the monument as a symbol of culture and civilization, a gift given to the people of Libya and the world under the auspices of a Roman Empire reborn by Fascism; the second described the legend of the Philaeni brothers, omitting their status as Carthaginians, and presented Fascist Italy as the vindicator of their sacrifices. Contemporary Fascist interpretations varied regarding the use of a myth valorizing two Carthaginians — Rome's ancient enemy during the Punic Wars — on a monument meant to emphasize the Roman-ness () of Fascist Italy. The deaths of the brothers were taken simply as an exaltation of imperial conquest, or were abstracted, being shown as an example of a generic, "universal" heroic virtue, emblematic of the "New Fascist Men" willing to sacrifice their lives in the service of Fascism.

Inauguration of the arch took place on 15 March 1937 during Mussolini's official visit to the colony, made to assuage the fears of the great powers over Italian warmongering, to honour the work of Balbo, and to receive the Sword of Islam in a gesture of fraternity towards the population of Libya and the wider Arab world. Taking place at dusk, with native Libyan troops lining the road to welcome Mussolini's convoy, the arch was surrounded with flaming tripods, lit up by spotlights, and overflown by aircraft. At the provided seven-course banquet dinner, described by an attending journalist as "like finding a bunch of roses at the North Pole," guests were especially impressed by the inclusion of fresh raw vegetables taken from the gardens of Italian settlers. The ceremony was meant to parallel the richness of Roman Libya and emphasize Fascism's mission to transform and civilize the desert of the colony.

As one of Libya's most prominent tourist attractions during the colonial period, images of the arch appeared on postcards, guidebooks, and in propaganda. Despite the arch becoming an icon of the Fascist empire, few tourists actually visited in person.

Later history

Black and white photograph of the Arch from the front. A paved road can be seen extending from the foreground through the arch, on which several vehicles drive in both directions. A figure can be seen silhouetted at the top of the arch.

British troops at the arch, December 1942

During the Western Desert campaign of World War II, the Template:NoteTag was the main route used to transport troops and equipment through Libya. The British Long Range Desert Group were able to find a route into Libya through the Great Sand Sea — thought by the Axis to be impassable — in order to observe and disrupt Axis forces on the road. From a site east of the arch, traffic was watched, recorded, and transmitted back to Middle East Command from 2 March until 21 July 1942, when the Axis capture of Tobruk allowed materiel to be sent directly to Cyrenaica; the watch at the arch was briefly resumed from 30 October to 15 November 1942 during the Axis retreat following the Second Battle of El Alamein. The monument — nicknamed the "Marble Arch" by British troops — and its adjacent airfield were captured by the 2nd New Zealand Division on 17 December 1942.Template:Refn

Following the country's independence from Italy and the establishment of the Kingdom of Libya in 1951, the arch's Latin inscription was replaced with one in Arabic, written by Libyan poet Ahmed Rafiq al-Mahdawi:

The aggressors constructed a building aspiring to immortalize Rome, but the will of God for them was to be defeated and fallen. What did Rome have to do with these people of Arab origins, people who believed in the best man ever [Mohammed] and followed his rightful path. This is my homeland protected by Islam's guidance, and the call for the prayer 'Allahu Akbar' is echoing in its horizons.

Muammar Gaddafi, who had come to power in the 1969 Libyan revolution and considered the landmark an unwelcome symbol of Italian colonialism, demolished the arch in the early 1970s.Template:NoteTag The bas-reliefs and bronze statues were removed to a museum at Madina Sultan, near Sirte, where they remain, in poor condition, as of 2024.

See also

• Bolzano Victory Monument, a similar triumphal arch build by Fascist Italy in Bolzano, South Tyrol.

References

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External links

• Il Duce in Libia Italian propaganda film about Mussolini's 1937 visit to Libya. The inauguration of the Arch of the Philaeni is shown between 26:45 and 28:18. , 1938.