Trajan's Column

The Trajan Column was built in the Forum of Trajan in the second century AD (110-113). It commemorates the two victorious military campaigns that Trajan led against Dacia, showing all the main events of that conquest. It was also designed to be as high as the hill that was there before it was levelled during the construction of the Forum. It also raised the fancy bronze statue of Trajan for people to see later, and acted as a tomb for the bones of two great rulers: Trajan and Plotina, who helped choose Hadrian as Trajan's successor. It stood in a small courtyard behind the Basilica Ulpia, between two libraries.

On both sides for reading above and below, complemented by a double loggia right opposite it was the Temple of the Divine Trajan. A 'condensed' reading was possible without having to walk around the column to get the whole story, but rather by following the scenes in a downward sequence&ndash as their connections within the various spirals seem to follow one another in some kind of logical order. Some casts of this monument, which are kept in the Museum of Roman Civilisation, allow us today to fully appreciate the beauty of the representations.

The memorial column is an ancient way of honouring great people, and there are no earlier examples. Historical evidence shows that the Romans used individual columns, often many, to decorate their most important roads with golden bronze statues on top— loose columns rising up, topped with a shield or a golden god. But the size and decoration of the Trajan Column is different from both the decorative and ceremonial columns that preceded it. Like all Roman sculptures and bas-reliefs, it was once brightly painted, of which only faint traces remain. One can imagine that if it had been wrought in various polychrome shades and decorated with gold accents, as was the custom in Roman art, it would have been much more striking in its presentation than it is to the modern eye.

The Style

The Column was a brilliant innovation that became the most creative achievement of Roman historical relief.
For the first time in Roman art, a creativity appeared that was completely independent in all respects, even though sculpture in Rome continued the traditions of Greek and Etruscan art. A chronological presentation contains great artistic quality, both in composition and in the mastery of the rhythmic flow, which is maintained at the same level throughout, with the excellence of the reliefs.

The great sculptor, generally thought to have been Apollodorus of Damascus, who was an individualist inspired by Hellenistic culture in his approach to style, used special means to achieve the visual impression he wanted. He ignored the actual proportions of figures (hitherto applied only to gods and emperors), as well as those of buildings and foliage, magnifying the main subjects while minimising all secondary elements.

The "Great Frieze of Trajan" the panels of which were reused for the Arch of Constantine, is almost certainly by the same master. Some scholars have suggested that the scenes on the column may have been drawn by this artist from direct experience, because of the accuracy of detail and minutiae. It is well known that the Romans made themselves warriors before they could be artists, while the Greeks produced men of single trades in all forms of art. Great examples of this can be seen in the lives of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Apollodorus of Damascus.

Comments

Several themes are included, not fixed, but dominant enough that they were probably already part of triumphal paintings: the departure, the building of roads and fortifications, religious ceremonies, speeches to the troops, sieges and battles, the conquest of the vanquished— then the spoils. The spoils include goods, art and slaves, which will be discussed below. Most of these scenes seem to record a great deal of cruelty and plunder on the part of the victors - a real record of the extermination of a people. Modern ethics may rightly criticise such callousness and brutality, but modern ethics must also note that styles have changed little in war, past or present.

On the other hand, the Romans possessed a "clementia" (mercy) perhaps unmatched by any other people: they did not use torture to amuse or intimidate their enemies, and they spared cities if the victors restrained their men from looting and pillaging. This sum was sufficient both to pay the taxes due and to feed the Roman army. In fact, surprisingly, not a single painting depicting the emperors shows any gesture of praise or recognition. Even in the great scene of conquest at the end of the second battle of the First World War, the seated emperor in profile looks more like a judge than a victor. These scenes were ethically and politically different from those on the Antonine Column.

While the Antonine Column depicts the slaughter and humiliation of the enemy, coins of fourth-century Christian emperors show colossal, albeit Christian, figures crushing their defeated foes. Although there were already columns of honour in Rome, the idea of an entire column with symbolic reliefs had never been heard of. The artist showed great artistic skill, as can be seen in the frieze of the Arch of Constantine. The Popes saved the Arch of Constantine from iconoclasm only because it was dedicated to a crude statue of St Peter, replacing the true image of the great Emperor Trajan.

It was broken with the tombs of Trajan and Plotinus, both of the houses were long time by centuries’ pilgrims—much to the Church’s ability. Bernini himself acknowledged that Trajan's Column was "the source of the power and grandeur of all the designs of great men." The Column has been criticised by artists other than Bernini. Francesco Algarotti, a collector of literature and art, responded to this criticism in a letter written in 1763 by saying that the "Master of Trajan" had made some of the sculptures larger than usual so that the most important figures would be presented as symbols and also so that they would be more visible to those standing below.

Of course, there was no scaffolding for them to see the reliefs up close. Modern critics consider this answer to be valid. We know that Raphael admired the reliefs of the Column so much that he drew inspiration from them for his war scenes (for example, those in the Vatican "Feast of Constantine", depicting the victory of Christianity over paganism). "But such are not the sculptures that cover the remains of the Column, Trajan and Antoninus Pius IV, great in skill and precision.The ingenious idea of a column decorated from top to bottom with spiral reliefs was common in antiquity, from the Aurelian Column in Rome to the Columns of Theodosius and Arcadius in Constantinople to the Column in the Place Vendocirc;me in Paris.

This bronze column was inspired by the marble Trajan's Column in Rome. For centuries Italy suffered plunder from all sides - from the sale of art by popes abroad to the spoils of war. Even Trajan's Column is in danger in 1865 - fortunately the cost of shipping it is so high that Napoleon III has to pay for it. Large-scale looting of the Column of the Virgin Mary was abandoned and limited to the removal of plaster bas-reliefs. During the looting, they found bits of gold glaze and cinnabar on the pillar, along with some blue lacquer.

The Author

A number of factors have fuelled the debate about the column's authorship. One view is that Decebalus, the leader of the Dacians, is glorifying this king who fought for the independence of his people. He runs away through the woods with a few people, while the Romans lead horses laden with what appear to be very valuable vessels from the royal treasury - taken by traitors - which seems to speak not badly of him, but rather highly of him. Decebalus roamed the woods talking to his best friends, some of whom killed themselves.

Found, captured and then run down by soldiers on horseback from Rome, the image evokes emotion, not anger. His head, set in a large block of stone, was later given to the Romans as a prize. Although the column shows scenes from two battles, war scenes are not the main focus of the frieze. Rather, it depicts the pacification and reorganisation of the territory, shows Trajan's ability to govern and emphasises Rome's role in bringing about civilisation.

This objective view and such details mean two things—first, that the sculptor saw the battle with his own eyes; second, that he was not a sycophant to the powers that be, but rather their true feelings based on what they saw and heard. It is reminiscent of Trajan's favourite artist, Apollodorus, who was willing to take on Trajan's exploits and set down a true record of them in imposing forms.

He was no sycophant; indeed, it may have been because of him that the milder and more reserved Hadrian took the throne (whether he died at the hands of the emperor is now highly uncertain). Bianchi Bandineli used the word "sympathy" to describe the master's attitude towards the Dacians. Sympàtheia - emotional empathy, includes pity. He wondered if it might not be an "expression of the artist's personal feelings."

Description

The column is 29.78 m high, with a total height of 40 m, including the high base and the statue above, which is 39.86 m. It is in the Tuscan order, with a wreath of laurel leaves, a shaft made up of 17 drums in beautiful Carrara marble, a capital and a base with a smooth base that merges into a grooved part. The base has four sides decorated with a frieze depicting the spoils of defeated enemies in very low relief and is surmounted by a cornice decorated with garlands supported by four eagles in each corner.

The building is made up of eighteen huge blocks of marble, weighing around 40 tonnes and measuring around 3.83 metres in diameter. An inscription on the side facing the Basilica Ulpia, written in lapidary script and supported by figures of victory, says that the column was erected by the Senate and the people of Rome, which means that the column marks how high the saddle between the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills was before Trajan dug out so much earth to build his Forum. On the south-east side of the base, a door leads to a spiral staircase in the hollow shaft of the column—185 steps lit by 43 regularly spaced slits, open in the frieze but not part of the original design. At the top are three small rooms, the innermost of which contains two golden urns containing the ashes of Trajan and his wife Plotina.

This makes the monument both celebratory and funerary. To achieve both stability and appearance, the column has a diameter of 3.20 metres at the top and bottom. It also has a very slight entasis, or bulge, in the shaft at about a third of its height. This optical device accentuates the shape of the column, like the bulge of a forearm muscle under strain, mainly due to the column's response to the pressure it bears. The thinning of the upper column enhances the entasis effect, which is already quite strong due to the 24 flutes that stop short under the echinus, a cushion-like element placed under the abacus and decorated with ovals and darts. Around the column is a 200 metre long frieze depicting scenes from the two Dacian wars. This ribbon winds around itself, giving the column the name "coclide".

It was, in fact, the first coclide column ever built. There are more than 2,500 figures and 155 scenes depicting different phases of the wars in the band of the column. At the top of the band, the images become taller as one ascends from the base to the top, because their actual height increases at the top compared to the bottom, being proportional to what a viewer sees from a distance. The same principle was used in the design of Doric temples. The relief is small, called pictorial so as not to get lost in the many images, and was done with a drill. The erection of this monument required an ingenious method and a great deal of local organisation, which would be difficult to match even today. Lifting and placing the blocks, each weighing around 40 tonnes, was no easy task, given that the reliefs were first roughly sculpted and then improved on site; moreover, the internal spiral steps had to be cut before the blocks were placed.

Preservation

Ammianus Marcellinus relates how, in 357, Flavius Julius Constantius, Emperor of Constantinople at the time, paid a visit to Rome and saw fit to express his admiration for the Forum of Trajan, and in particular for the equestrian statue of the Emperor which stood in the centre of the Forum. This architectural complex was left intact until the IV century, when it was shamefully used as a quarry for the material used to build countless buildings and decorate many private houses and gardens, ending up in private collections and later in the Church.

What remains of the Great Forum is Trajan's Column, from the 4th century AD, with reliefs showing who the Dacians were, together with Dacian statues that were later placed on the Arch of Constantine (315 AD). Then came the barbarian invasions, and in 663 the bronze statues were removed by the Byzantine emperor Constantine II Heraclius - possibly including the gilded bronze statue of Trajan that once stood atop the column and has since mysteriously disappeared. Some sources say the church removed the statue of the emperor because pilgrims saw it as something to worship. In the early 11th century, a small church called San Niccolò de Columna was built at the base of Trajan's Column. This shows how keen the Catholic Church was to build churches and chapels on or inside any pagan monument that was difficult to dismantle.

The carved imprint is still visible today as a roof has been placed over the doorway, destroying part of the ancient inscription on this monument. Most likely, the church was demolished during Emperor Charles V's stay in Rome in 1546. In the Middle Ages, the great coloured marbles were stolen and used for new sculptures. The Column of Trajan is protected by a decree of the Roman Senate of 27 March 1162, which made it clear that anyone who destroyed or damaged the monument - which some saw as a legacy of imperial Rome to the Holy City - would be immediately executed. The edict saved Trajan's Column, but not the rest of Trajan's Forum, which was sadly plundered again and again, especially in the 16th century, to make way for new churches.

The story inscribed on the column

It begins with the river god Danube, breaks between the two wars to show a winged victory at the end, and then night falls. The sense of relief was enhanced by a very large palette of colours, mostly blue, white and crimson, usually associated with names of places and people. Also included were a number of miniature bronze weapons, the variety of forms rarely seen in sculpture, such as swords and spears among the figures, though now completely lost. The gilded bronze weapons would have stood out against the column, making it glow in the sunlight.

As with many monuments, the bronze was probably removed to be melted down for use in something else. It is set in a real environment, with stones, trees and buildings relating to specific events that the artist remembered very clearly. He is said to have taken part in these events. Some scenes, such as the wheat harvest (scene 83), tell us the time of year when the fighting took place: it was summer when all the events of the second campaign of this final war took place. Trajan appears sixty times, and the narrative always focuses on him, as do the other characters’ gazes. He is often shown in profile at the head of marching columns, his cloak blowing in the wind. He is seen overseeing the construction of the camps, making sacrifices to the gods, speaking to the soldiers, leading them into battle, receiving the surrender of the barbarians and watching executions.

The bravery of the Roman army and the mastery of its emperor run through the whole work. It takes place in the midst of a varied series of scenes that are at times frenetic, festive, and then quietly contemplative &mdash but only for a short time, as dramatic and almost apocalyptic sequences with fast pacing and changing themes soon follow. In the end, however, reading the column, it seems that Trajan is portrayed realistically: at home as a just man; generous and respectful to the humble; brave in the defence of the Empire; able and industrious as a general; feared by his enemies but loved by his soldiers. It moves from bottom to top and from left to right, starting with the Romans crossing the Danube on a pontoon bridge. This is the beginning of the great wars with Dacia in modern Romania that would put the Roman Empire on a war footing.