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In corroboration of the date thus assigned to the monument, it may be added that the only Imperial statue placed over the Porta Aurea was that of Theodosius the Great, while the group of elephants which formed one of the ornaments of the gate was supposed to represent the elephants attached to the car of that emperor on the occasion of his triumphal entry into the city.^[221]

There is, however, an objection to this view concerning the age of the Porta Aurea, which, whatever its force, should not be overlooked in a full discussion of the subject. The inscription describes the monument as a gateway, “Qui portam construit auro.”^[222] But such a designation does not seem consistent with the fact that we have here a building which belongs to the age of Theodosius the Great, when the city walls in which the arch stands did not exist, as they are the work of his grandson. How could an isolated arch be, then, styled a gateway? Can the difficulty be removed by any other instance of a similar use of the term “Porta”? Or is the employment of the term in the case before us explained by the supposition that in the reign of Theodosius the Great the city had spread beyond the Constantinian Wall, and reached the line marked by the Porta Aurea, so that an arch at that point was practically an entrance into the city? May not that suburban district have been protected by some slight fortified works? Or was the Porta Aurea so named in anticipation of the fulfilment of the prediction of Themistius, that the growth of the city under Theodosius the Great would ere long necessitate the erection of new walls?^[223] Was it built in that emperor’s reign to indicate to a succeeding generation the line along which the new bulwarks of the capital should be built?