<P> Triumphal arch is also the name given to the arch above the entrance to the chancel of a medieval church where a rood can be placed . </P> <P> The development of the triumphal arch is often associated with ancient Roman architecture . Roman aqueducts, bridges, amphitheaters and domes employed arch principles and technology . The Romans probably borrowed the techniques of arch construction from their Etruscan neighbours . The Etruscans used elaborately decorated single bay arches as gates or portals to their cities; examples of Etruscan arches survive at Perugia and Volterra . </P> <P> The two key elements of the Roman triumphal arch--a round - topped arch and a square entablature--had long been in use as separate architectural elements in ancient Greece, but the Greeks preferred the use of entablatures in their temples, and almost entirely confined their use of the arch to structures under external pressure, such as tombs and sewers . The Roman triumphal arch combined a round arch and a square entablature in a single free - standing structure . What were originally supporting columns became purely decorative elements on the outer face of arch, while the entablature, liberated from its role as a building support, became the frame for the civic and religious messages that the arch builders wished to convey through the use of statuary and symbolic, narrative and decorative elements . </P> <P> The modern term "triumphal arch" derives from the notion that this form of architecture was connected to the award and commemoration of a triumph to particularly successful Roman generals, by vote of the Roman senate . The earliest arches set up to commemorate a triumph were made in the time of the Roman Republic . These were called fornices (s . fornix) and bore imagery that described and commemorated the victory and triumph . Lucius Steritinus is known to have erected two such fornices in 196 BC to commemorate his victories in Hispania . Another fornix was built on the Capitoline Hill by Scipio Africanus in 190 BC, and Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus constructed one in the Roman Forum in 121 BC . None of these structures has survived and little is known about their appearance . </P>

Which is not a feature of roman triumphal arches