Tropaeum Traiani
About
Trajan raised this 40-meter drum-shaped monument to commemorate his hard-won Dacian War victories, ringed with 54 carved metopes of Roman soldiers battling Dacians and their allies. Unlike the battles it memorializes, the monument itself is a living structure still standing on its hilltop in 117 CE, dedicated to Mars the Avenger. It replaced an earlier altar honoring Roman dead from a costly battle fought nearby. Travelers on the road from Tomis could see it for miles.
What happened here
A Roman army fights the way it camps: in lines, by drill, on ground chosen if possible. The legions form up in cohorts with gaps that let ranks rotate, throw a volley of heavy javelins at close range, and then close with the short sword, pushing behind the shield. Auxiliaries hold the flanks and do most of the cavalry work and most of the skirmishing. Battles are short and decided by whether one line breaks, and the killing happens in the pursuit rather than the fighting. The camp is dug and palisaded every night regardless. Afterwards the dead are stripped and the field is looted for days; the ground is remembered locally long after the campaign is a paragraph in someone's history.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →