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Together with three panels now in the Capitoline Museum, the reliefs were probably taken from a triumphal monument commemorating Marcus Aurelius' war against the Marcomanni and the Sarmatians from 169 – 175, which ended with his triumphant return in 176.
The main road to the Roman Capitol, the Clivus Capitolinus ("Capitoline Rise") starts at the head of the Forum Romanum beside the Arch of Tiberius as a continuation of the Via Sacra; proceeding around the Temple of Saturn and turning to the south in front of the Portico Dii Consentes, it then climbs up the slope of the Capitoline Hill to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at its summit.
In Book VIII of the Aeneid by Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), King Evander shows Aeneas (the Trojan hero of this epic poem) the ruins of Saturnia and Janiculum on the Capitoline hill near the Arcadian city of Pallanteum (the future site of Rome) (see line 473, Bk. 8).
The Clivus Capitolinus ("Capitoline Rise") turned sharply at the head of the Forum Romanum where this portico of marble and composite material was discovered and re-erected in 1835.
In 1793 the visiting British Prince Augustus Frederick secured permission from the Pope for Fagan to export antiquities.As an archaeologist he was involved in the excavations near Laurentum, which resulted in the discovery of the Venus, now at the Capitoline.