The Column of Trajan
Trajan’s Column
is a memorial to one of the Roman Empire’s greatest military leaders. Under
Trajan and his military prowess, the Roman Empire reached its greatest
expansion (Scarre 90).
Map of the Roman Empire under the rule of
Trajan (“Map”)
Bust of Trajan (“Trajan”)
The Column in Context {Trajan’s Forum}
The column was
part of Trajan’s forum which featured porticos on the South, East, and West
sides. The entrance on the south side of the courtyard was later adorned with a
decorative arch in 117 A.D. The North side of the forum featured a large
basilica and a two branched library, one area for holding Latin works and the
other for Greek. The column which would later hold the great emperor’s remains
lay between the two libraries (Roberts). The forum was dedicated on January 1,
112 A.D. and the column in May of 113 A.D. After Trajan’s death on August 9,
117 A.D. the emperor was cremated and his ashes placed in the base (Scarre
96-97).
The Column
The column was originally
topped with a bronze statue of Trajan (Lancaster 419), though it is now topped
with a statue of Saint Peter which dates back to 1558 (Scarre 92). It is
composed of 29 blocks of marble which weigh from 25-77 tons. One of the
heaviest of the blocks is the capital, which had to be raised the full height
of the column; total the column weighs more than 1100 tons. The column stands
roughly 95 feet tall and is situated on a 20 foot tall pedestal. Inside the
column is a spiral stair case (lit only by 40 small window slits) which leads
to a balcony just below the statue. The outside of the column is completely
covered in a helical low-relief frieze (Lancaster 419 & 426). The frieze
varies in width from 2.8-4.8 feet and has a total length of just over 656 feet.
The sculptor of the frieze did not lay out a plan for the images, but simply
worked his way from the bottom up, depicting the images as he saw fit
(Hornblower).
The Column of Trajan (Davies 43)
The Story in the Frieze
The details of
the frieze are important in that they tell a story to the fullest and most
accurate extent possible given the circumstances. The artist and the emperor
sponsoring the great monument wanted to be sure that everyone coming to visit
the forum would be able to understand the importance of the piece and the story
it tells. The majority of the images depict Trajan’s military conquests in the
Dacian Wars but they do so in a variety of ways. The artist employs three main
types of illustration in the frieze: episodic, continuous, and panoramic. The
episodic is usually a relatively short scene which is separated from the surrounding
scenes by an object, such as a tree, which stretches the full width of the
band. The continuous style features an unchanging background and uninterrupted
foreground. The panoramic style depicts a series of specific events which are
meant to tell a larger story and so requires the audience to have basic
background knowledge of the events. Using these methods, the sculptor tells
tale of the first two Dacian Wars which occurred from 102-103 A.D. and 105-106
A.D. The scenes depicted on the column are greatly varied. The artist includes many
images of battles and conquest and an image of Trajan addressing his troops. Another
scene shows Trajan in a religious ritual, making sacrifices to the gods (Jones 436-439).
It is important to remember that the
frieze, like other sculpture of the time period would have been completely painted,
this is a small section of the frieze with the paint restored (“Painted”).
Scholarly Debate
Many scholars
argue about the initial purpose of Trajan’s column; some argue it was designed
as a war memorial and only later turned into a funerary monument, while others
argue that this was its purpose from the start. Those who argue it was initially
designed only as a war memorial point to the fact that protocol at the time denied
an emperor the honor of public burial unless decreed by the senate, a decree which
could only be issued after the emperor’s death. However, other scholars point
out the symbolism within the column’s design as evidence to the contrary. Many
of the images within the frieze have double meanings; they not only depict
Trajan’s literal victory in battle, but also alluded to victory over death and the
importance of remembering the dead. Also, some argued the purpose of the helical
nature of the frieze is to force the audience into a type of funeral ritual
which involved circling of the grave. The Romans’ believed that circles had
almost magical qualities and by encircling an object or person, one’s focus and
attention on the object would be concentrated and greatly magnified. Finally, the
structure of the column more closely resembles other Roman funeral monuments
than war memorials. For example, the base is designed to resemble the Roman
funeral alter. Furthermore, the column built to honor Marcus Aurelius’ war
conquests does not feature the hollow base which held Trajan’s ashes in his own
column. The most widely accepted view among scholars, currently, is that Trajan
designed the column with the idea that it would hold his remains, but did not
reveal the plan as it was not within his power to make such a decision and the
senate later made the decision independently (Davies 45-48 & 54).
The base of Trajan’s Column (Bazzani)
Significance
The column of
Trajan was important to the Roman culture because it, like other funerary
memorials, was meant to help the dead achieve a type of immortality. If the
living world continued to honor their memory, then the dead were never truly gone;
real death comes when one is forgotten (Davies 49). Memorials of a person’s
accomplishments help them achieve this immortality in memory by reminding the
living of the deceased. Trajan’s column (like many other emperors’ funerary
monuments) was in a public space, so that the public would constantly be reminded
of Trajan. The frieze detailing his accomplishments also helped to make sure
that the public remembered him as a great man and would continue to honor his
memory.
THE FOLLOWING
VIDEO DEPICTS THE COLUMN’S FRIEZE IN ITS ENTIRETY (Personne)
Sources:
Bazzani, Luigi. [Picture] (20th
century) The Art Archive. Retrieved February
28, 2014 from EBSCO Art Museum Image Gallery
Davies, Penelope J. E. “The Politics of
Perpetuation: Trajan’s Column and the Art of Commemoration.” American Journal of Archeology. Vol. 101,
No. 1 (Jan 1997) p. 41-65. Retrieved February 20, 2014 from JSTOR
Hornblower, S., Spawforth, A., Eidinow,
E. “Trajan’s Column” The Oxford Classical
Dictionary. (4th ed.). (2012) Retrieved February 28, 2014 from
Oxford Reference Online
Jones, Stuart H. “The Historical
Interpretation of the Relief’s of Trajan’s Column.” Papers of the British School at Rome. Vol. 5, No. 7 (1910), p. 435-459
Retrieved February 20, 2014 from JSTOR
Lancaster, Lynne. “Building Trajan’s
Column.” American Journal of Archeology.
Vol. 103, No. 3 (Jul 1999), p. 419-439 Retrieved January 3, 2014 from JSTOR
Map of Roman Empire [Picture] Retrieved March
2, 2014 from http://www.roman-empire.net/maps/empire/extent/trajan.html
Painted Column Frieze [Picture] Retrieved
March 2, 2014 from http://westernparadigm.wordpress.com/tag/trajan-column/
Personne, Bill. [Video] “Colonna
Traiana-Colonne Trajane” YouTube.
Retrieved on January 3, 2014 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1i_slq8IZA
Roberts, John. “Forum Traiani” Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World.
(2007) Retrieved March 1, 2014 from Oxford Reference Online
Scarre, Chris. (1995). Chronicle of the Roman Emperors. London,
England: Thames and Hudson Ltd.
“Trajan” [Picture] The Art Archive. Retrieved February 20, 2014 from EBSCO Art Museum
Image Gallery
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