James Joyce and the Golden Gate of Pula

By Sara Whitestone
I stood in Portorata Square in Pula, Croatia, the late afternoon sun shining through the Arc of the Sergii. Today this Roman arch is still sometimes called the Golden Gate, even though the iron bars that had been gilded with gold were destroyed centuries ago.
Was this gate a way to something, or was it a way from something? How many people had marched through it in triumph since its erection in the first century B.C.? How many more had only wandered through by accident?

I hadn’t really planned to come to Pula. I had been visiting a friend in Trieste and decided on a whi...