Description
Trajan's Column is a monument about thirty meters tall in the Forum of Trajan, in Rome, next to the remains of the Basilica Ulpia. It was erected to celebrate the emperor's conquest of Dacia, present-day Romania.
It is the first historiated column ever raised, that is, with a frieze winding in a spiral around the shaft. The inscription at the base says something more: it gives the height of the saddle between the Capitoline and the Quirinal, before it was cut away to build the Forum.
The highlight is the spiral frieze: 200 meters of storytelling winding around the column 24 times, with about 2,500 figures. It follows Trajan's Dacian campaigns, between 101 and 106, scene after scene.
You see marches, camps built in great detail, sieges, battles and speeches to the troops. Trajan appears 59 times. The height of the frieze increases as it climbs, from 89 centimeters to 1.25 meters, to correct the distortion of perspective.
It is often compared to a papyrus scroll, but today it is thought to be more like a painted cloth wrapped around a column. Originally the figures were colored, and the soldiers held bronze weapons, now lost.
At the base, on the side of the basilica, is the door of the chamber where the ashes of Trajan and his wife Plotina were placed. From there a spiral staircase of 185 steps, lit by 43 slits, climbs to the top.
At the summit, since 1587, stands not the emperor but St. Peter: the bronze statue was placed there by Pope Sixtus V. Before that there was a statue of Trajan. In 1787 Goethe climbed the stairs to admire the view over Rome.
The column has always remained standing, even when the other buildings of the Forum fell into ruin. As early as 1162 a document of the medieval Senate declared it public property and forbade damaging it.
During the French occupation the commanders thought of shipping the column to Paris. It cost too much, and the project stalled. Napoleon had to fall back on an imitation, the Vendôme Column, erected in 1810.
It is the first historiated column ever raised, that is, with a frieze winding in a spiral around the shaft. The inscription at the base says something more: it gives the height of the saddle between the Capitoline and the Quirinal, before it was cut away to build the Forum.
The highlight is the spiral frieze: 200 meters of storytelling winding around the column 24 times, with about 2,500 figures. It follows Trajan's Dacian campaigns, between 101 and 106, scene after scene.
You see marches, camps built in great detail, sieges, battles and speeches to the troops. Trajan appears 59 times. The height of the frieze increases as it climbs, from 89 centimeters to 1.25 meters, to correct the distortion of perspective.
It is often compared to a papyrus scroll, but today it is thought to be more like a painted cloth wrapped around a column. Originally the figures were colored, and the soldiers held bronze weapons, now lost.
At the base, on the side of the basilica, is the door of the chamber where the ashes of Trajan and his wife Plotina were placed. From there a spiral staircase of 185 steps, lit by 43 slits, climbs to the top.
At the summit, since 1587, stands not the emperor but St. Peter: the bronze statue was placed there by Pope Sixtus V. Before that there was a statue of Trajan. In 1787 Goethe climbed the stairs to admire the view over Rome.
The column has always remained standing, even when the other buildings of the Forum fell into ruin. As early as 1162 a document of the medieval Senate declared it public property and forbade damaging it.
During the French occupation the commanders thought of shipping the column to Paris. It cost too much, and the project stalled. Napoleon had to fall back on an imitation, the Vendôme Column, erected in 1810.