The story of this place
Built around 170 AD from massive sandstone blocks fitted without mortar, the Porta Nigra — 'Black Gate' — was the northern entrance to Roman Trier, capital of the Western Roman Empire and the emperor Constantine's northern residence. Most Roman city gates were quarried away for building stone, but the Porta Nigra survived because in the 11th century a Greek hermit, Simeon, walled himself inside; after his death it was consecrated as a two-storey church, which spared it from demolition. In 1804 Napoleon ordered the church stripped away to reveal the Roman gate beneath. The blackened stone, stained by 1,800 years of weathering, still guards the oldest city in Germany.