The Column of Trajan

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)

Link to Frieze Video

Sources:

Bazzani, Luigi. [Picture] (20^th 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. (4^th 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