Focus on the “Art” of War: “Trajan’s Column as War Memorial and Primary Source”

In 106 CE the Roman Emperor Trajan (r.98-117) crossed the Danube River heading south at the head of the victorious army, returning from a campaign in what is now Romania and Moldova. The region, incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Dacia, proved difficult to subdue. Trajan had bridged the wide river twice and campaigned there in what history remembers as the First and Second Dacian Wars (101-102 and 105-106), finally defeating and killing the Germanic Dacian leader King Decebalus (r.87-106) in a campaign that earned the emperor the honorary title Dacicus. To commemorate his victory, Trajan ordered the construction of the column that bears his name---an impressive structure that is at once a war memorial, instrument of imperial propaganda, and important primary source for our modern understanding of a Roman legion on campaign.

Right: Modern statue of Emperor Trajan in front of Roman-era walls at Tower Hill, London. A surviving section of the ancient London Wall, at Tower Hill, with a replica statue of Roman Emperor Trajan (98-117); some of the lower parts of the wall do date back to Roman times, around 200AD. Source: Wikimedia.

Designed by the talented architect and military engineer Apollodorus of Damascus, Trajan’s Column was erected in 113 CE and consists of a 131-foot-tall marble column set on top of a massive rectangular base. The column itself is made of seventeen hollow blocks of Carrera marble and was topped by a gilded statue of Emperor Trajan twenty feet in height. That statue fell victim to an earthquake in the medieval era and was replaced by a statue of Saint Peter in 1588 by order of Pope Sixtus V (p.1585-1590). A chamber was carved into the base to house the emperor’s ashes, while from that chamber a spiral staircase containing 185 steps wound upward within its hollow marble shaft to the viewing platform on top just below the emperor’s statue. Interestingly, the ascent was illuminated by forty-three arrow slit windows. The column’s exterior was decorated with a continuous sculpted freeze, wrapping itself twenty-three times in a helical design left-to-right ascent from base to capital, depicting the events of both Dacian wars. The marble frieze is 656 feet long and contains 2,500 figures cut in shallow relief with each of the figures about two thirds life-size. It consists of 114 vignettes each illustrating a specific event. The frieze is separated by campaign, with the first fifty-seven panels chronicling the First Dacian War, while the second fifty-six panels illustrate the second conflict. When first constructed, the entire freeze was originally painted as a sort of classical era graphic novel detailing the exploits of Trajan as a conquering general in a foreign land.

Emperor Trajan is depicted fifty-eight times in the winding marble friezes, slightly larger in perspective than the men he commands. He is portrayed as emperor, general, high priest, and lawgiver. As general, he is betrayed, leading his men at the head of a cavalry charge. He is also depicted chairing war councils, receiving embassies, addressing his troops before combat, and accepting either the submission of enemy chieftains or the presentation of their severed heads as trophies after defeat. As Pontifex Maximus or high priest of the Roman state religion, Trajan carries the crooked staff or lituus in hand, offering sacrifices after his victories and rites for his soldiers who died during the campaigns. His adversary, King Decebalus is depicted three times; surrendering the first time to Trajan after the conclusion of the First Dacian War in 102, leading an attack on a Roman camp during the second campaign, and finally hunted down by the Romans at the end of the Second Dacian War. Decebalus committed suicide rather than be captured, but his severed head was returned to the Roman camp as proof of his death. Roman deities are also portrayed in the friezes, most notably Jupiter Maximus, the winged goddess Victoria, and the river deity Danubius.

The scenes on Trajan’s Column illustrate the entire range of Roman military activity, from soldiers marching and engineers building bridges to the art and science of siegecraft, the horrors of combat, along with the destruction of enemy populations. Here, the logistical prowess of the Romans is on full display, with bridges and boats built, rivers crossed, and enemy fortifications reduced in a relentless ascent up the column. Many of the routine activities of a Roman army on campaign are portrayed numerous times, such as tree felling, road clearing, and camp building. Topographical features are also present in the frieze, cataloging the land the legions passed through and subdued during their campaigns. Each vignette details the movements of individual soldiers, down to the arms, armor and military standards of Roman legionaries and auxiliary units and those of their Germanic adversaries, making the column itself an important primary source on both the Roman legion and their barbarian foes at war. Much of this detail is undoubtably due to the presence of Apollodorus on campaign with Trajan during the second conflict.

Right: Trajan’s Column, Rome. Note the intricate carvings in the close-up photograph at right. Click to enlarge. Source: Wikimedia.

The frieze uses standardized conventions throughout its length. The Dacians are seen with long hair in typical Germanic fashion and are carved moving right to left to engage the invading Romans. When combat is portrayed, the Romans are often seen crushing their barbarian foes in disciplined attacks, and while legionaries are shown wounded, they are never shown killed. While the Dacian population is often shown killed or taken away as slaves.  Interestingly, the column also depicts Romans torturing Dacians, and Dacian women torturing Roman captives in a wordless depiction of the cruelty of classical warfare.

Bottom right: Close-up of frieze depicting Roman legionaries building a camp with Trajan looking on, Trajan’s column, Rome. 

Trajan’s victory over the Dacians resulted in the incorporation of a very wealthy region of Europe into the Roman imperium, rich with extensive gold and silver mines. In fact, during Rome’s two century occupation they extracted five hundred tons of gold alone. The war treasure from Trajan’s initial victories were enough to refill imperial coffers and rebuild or expand Roman roads, aqueducts, temples, and basilicas (lawcourts) across the empire. Furthermore, this treasure helped finance the expansion of Roman legions to thirty, which were utilized by Trajan to expand the size of the empire to its largest territorial extent by his death in 117. The Roman Empire now stretched from the British Isles in the northwest to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco to the littoral surrounding the Black Sea and the region of Mesopotamia, encompassing some 1.9 million square miles. Because of his unwavering support of the Roman military, Trajan is remembered as a “soldier’s emperor” and his column a fitting war memorial and marble chronicle of the Roman war machine in action.

Suggested Readings:

Primary sources

Leper, Frank, and Shepard Frere. Trajan's Column: A New Edition of the Cichorius Plates, Introduction, Commentary and Notes. Sutton Publishing, 1988.

Secondary sources

Bennett, Julian. Trajan: Optimus Princeps (Roman Imperial Biographies). Routledge, 2003.

Breeze, David, J. The Frontiers of Imperial Rome. Pen and Sword, 2019.