Finally, we return to the camp for the submission of the defeated (fig. 2.18). The emperor sits on a podium, his attending commander standing behind him. Before him a defeated barbarian, embracing his downcast son, begs for the mercy of the emperor. Soldiers, including three standard-bearers, look on. In the background there are three eagles and a military standard.

Many students of the subject believe that these eight reliefs, together with three others now preserved in the Capitoline Museum (Galleria dei Conservatori), originally belonged to an arch erected in honor of Marcus Aurelius. This arch, furthermore, is identified with the “Arcus Aureus” located on or near the road ascending the Capitoline, the Clivus Capitolinus, at the northwest corner of the Forum. The theory of an arch in this location is supported by the inscription from the Capitoline (or the area of the Capitoline and possibly belonging to the arch) which appears in the medieval pilgrim’s guidebook known as the “Anonymous Einsiedelensis” and by the fact that the three additional reliefs now in the Conservatory Palace were brought there from the Church of S. Martina, which stands beside the Curia near the Clivus Capitolinus in the northwest corner of the Forum.