Columna Traiani
About
38 m (with pedestal) freestanding marble victory column between the Basilica Ulpia and the twin libraries, its shaft wrapped in a continuous helical relief depicting the Dacian Wars; dedicated 12 May 113 CE. Newly erected and gleaming in 117 CE; Trajan's ashes were interred in its base after his death in August 117.
What happened here
A single shaft, standing alone, carrying a statue or a story. The freestanding column is a Roman way of putting one thing above everything else in a crowded skyline, and where it is set matters as much as what is on it. Some carry a spiral relief read from the ground with difficulty and never meant to be read closely — the point is the sheer weight of narrative. Others carry a portrait, and the portrait is replaced when the politics change while the column stays. The drums are hollowed for an internal stair in the ambitious ones. At the base there is usually an inscription and, often enough, a burial. Around it, day to day, people sell things and arrange to meet.
In ancient writing
- Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.16.3
The column is set up in the forum both to mark how high the ground stood before the hill was cut away, and as the emperor's tomb.
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 →