Trajan's Column

Trajan's Column (Columna Trajani) was a column located in Trajan's Forum that was completed in 113 C.E.. The column was erected by order of the Senate to tell the story of the two Dacian wars and commemorate Emperor Trajan (Chronicle of the Roman Emperors - Chris Scarre, Roman Art and Architecture - Mortimer Wheeler). In the modern world, the column has inspired other columns of the same style called the Great Trajanic Frieze. Such columns include Nelson's Column and the Vendome Column (Khan Academy). Trajan's Column was originally built out of 20 big blocks of Carrara marble (Chronicle of the Roman Emperors - Chris Scarre). Distinguishing features of the column are the frieze spiraling up around the column for 625 feet which many scholars believe was initially painted. The frieze has 155 scenes depicting the two Dacian Wars and of those scenes, 58 of them featured Trajan(Khan Academy). At the top of the column was a statue of Emperor Trajan, but in 1587 Pope Sixtus V replaced the statue of one of St. Peter who is looking toward the Vatican (Lacus Curtius). The column is located in Trajan's Forum. The only historical figure I could find associated with the column is Emperor Trajan (Chronicle of the Roman Emperors - Chris Scarre). Some interesting facts about the column are: the column is hollow with a staircase spiraling up to the top, the frieze depicts around 2,500 human figures, the base of the column has a number of small rooms with the innermost being Trajan's tomb with his cremated remains in an urn of gold, the column wasn't originally meant to be seen from the ground but from the galleries of the buildings around it, the bottom half depicts the first Dacian War and the top half depicts the second Dacian War, the frieze shows in detail the progress of campaigns, and gives detailed information about Roman military equipment and strategies(Khan Academy, Lacus Curtius, Chronicle of the Roman Emperors - Chris Scarre, Roman Art and Architecture - Mortimer Wheeler).

Andrew Sincovec