THE BREATHTAKING TRAIAN COLUMN
Trajan’s Column, with a statue of St Peter commissioned by Pope Sixtus V, rises above the ruins of Trajan’s Forum, which once housed two libraries and a grand civic space paid for by the spoils of war from Dacia.
It is 38 metres high, carved from marble and decorated with an intricate spiral frieze with 155 carved scenes. It’s a war diary that towers over Rome. The story on the column tells how the emperor defeated a fierce but valiant enemy.
In the wars that followed in quick succession between 101 and 106 AD, Emperor Trajanus amassed a Roman army of tens of thousands of soldiers, crossed the Danube River on two of the longest bridges the ancient world had ever known, twice defeated the mighty barbarian empire on its own mountainous soil, and then systematically wiped it off the face of Europe.
Trajan’s war against the Dacians, a civilisation living in what is now Romania, was the defining event of his nineteen-year reign. The spoils he brought back were staggering. One contemporary chronicler boasted that the outbreak yielded nearly a quarter of a million kilograms of gold and nearly half a million kilograms of silver, not to mention a fertile new province.
The loot changed the face of Rome. To commemorate his victory, Traianus had a forum built, which consisted of a spacious square surrounded by colonnades, with two libraries, a grand civic space known as the Basilica Ulpia, and possibly a temple. As one ancient historian enthusiastically put it, the Forum was a work “unique under heaven” that “cannot be described” and which “mortal men can never again imitate”.
It was dominated by a 38-metre-high stone column topped by a bronze statue of a conqueror. The story of the Dacian campaigns spirals around the column like a modern cartoon series: thousands of ingeniously sculpted Romans and Dacians march, build, fight, sail, sneak, negotiate, defend and die in 155 scenes. The column, completed in 113, has stood for more than 1,900 years.
Today, tourists raise their heads to it as guides explain its history. The eroded reliefs are barely recognizable except for the first few steps of the spiral. All around are ruins – empty pedestals, broken paving stones, broken pillars and shattered statues hint at the splendour of Traian Forum, now fenced off and closed to the public, a testament to a bygone imperial glory.
The column was a major influence as the inspiration for later monuments in Rome and throughout the empire. While other landmarks in the city crumbled over the centuries, the column continued to captivate and awe. One Renaissance pope replaced Traian’s statue with one of St. Peter to consecrate this ancient creation. Artists descended in baskets from the top to examine the column in detail. Later, the column became a popular tourist attraction: in 1787, the German poet Goethe climbed the 185 internal steps to “enjoy the incomparable view”. From the 16th century onwards, plaster casts of the column were made, preserving details that had been disturbed by acid rain and environmental pollution.
The design of the column, its significance and, most importantly, its historical accuracy are still debated. Sometimes it seems as if there are as many interpretations as there are figures carved on it – and there are 2,662 of them.
Source: National Geographic
Author: National Geographic | Published: 23.05.2022
