Column of Trajan

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Column of Trajan Column of Trajan, Carrara marble, completed 113 C.E., Rome Dedicated to Emperor Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus b. 53 , d. 117 C.E.) in honor of his victory over Dacia (now Romania) 101-02 and 105-06 C.E.

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Column of Trajan

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(music playing)
The Column of Trajan is part of the Forum of Trajan, which is one of the Imperial Fora.
We're looking out at a part of the Forum of Trajan.
And unfortunately you cannot have a nice view of the entire square because it has been cut by Medieval walls.
These walls have been cut here, because the excavation in this area has been conducted in the 1990's with new, modern archaeological techniques
meaning that you have to understand the development of a site.
So, even the Medieval aspect of it is important to be preserved.
As I'm looking at this remaining piece of the Forum of Trajan, I'm seeing some large marble fragments that are clearly the parts of a column.
And, if you walk a little further, we can see a little bit of the original flooring.
These remains have been left here instead of being brought inside a museum to really show you a little bit of how lavishly decorated these places were.
If you just look at the flooring, it is quite expensive slabs of marble - green and red.
Together with green columns and red columns and yellows columns.
So even the columns were not all white, they were colorful.
It was about displaying the wealth.
Being able to bring marble from all over the empire into Rome meant being a Roman could permit you to bring the empire to you.
Let's go take a look at the Column of Trajan.
So, the column. There are 22 different layers. They're not panels because they go around.
So, there's a kind of spiral.
And it narrates the two main wars, two main campaigns I should say, that Trajan fought against the Dacians, chronologically.
So it goes from the beginning of the war up to the top part, you can barely see, but at the end there is a sacrifice.
If you're looking at the some of the scenes, you see that they are like building camps, building bridges.
Yes, building the fortifications. And, as we were saying earlier, in a sense, when you're going to bring your army somewhere,
you're going to build the infrastructure that's necessary to actually maintain that place.
Yes, and we know that actually the army was the building force during this war,
because there would be camps that would remain and would be transformed into cities and roads and things like that.
The image of this guy with his back towards us, this building man, is actually a representation of the Danube river, where the campaign started.
In Germany? Yes. What is today more or less Austria, Germany, Central Europe.
So, that's really a personification of the River Danube? Yes.
All rivers are represented as bearded, half-naked men. Usually there are symbols to identify them.
For example, another is for the Nile. The she-wolf and the twins for the Tiber River.
In this case you see there are a series of boats and soldiers on top.
This is the famous description, we know that Apollodorus of Damascus, to be able to cross the Danube, built an entire bridge of boats to do it.
And, this is a faithful narration of what happened.
Can I ask you a little bit about the base.
The base is representation of typical Dacian weapons and carrasses.
So, it's a representation not of the defeated people, you don't see people there.
But, the defeated weapons, so to speak.
The enemy here is treated as a valorous opponent, of course, because if you have a weak opponent your strength is not that impressive.
The base of the column is actually an oak, it's a victory crown.
I'm still struggling with how it is made.
Those are blocks of marble carved. Inside it's something.
You can walk. There's a staircase inside. You can see the small windows. You can go up to the top part.
Right at the neck of the personification of the Danube you can see that that's where two blocks join.
Just to get a sense of scale.
There are 22 layers and each layer is approximately one yard and the base is also huge.
They carved pieces of the band a put them together? Exactly. They carved pieces.
Just painted? It was painted over with colors, and colors would have helped to read it.
But still, there was a percentage that was lost.
But, presumably at least, if you ascended the libraries on either side, you'd be able to gain some elevation.
Absolutely yes. Again it's a celebration of the empire. It's the greatness empire, of the Roman people, to be able to bring civilization.
It's their ingenuity, it's their engineering prowess, it's their discipline. It's their ability to build.
And those are, of course, attributes that last beyond the victory.
And it makes sense to celebrate them here because those are attributes that really take into account the entire grandeur of the city and the culture.
Exactly. And, it's also a celebration not just of a victory but of the entire reign of Trajan, so to speak, because he was able to build something, something lasting.
If you think about the Forum, it's still lasting today.
The idea was celebrate the person in his entirety, not just one of the aspect of his life.
(music playing)

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