Trajan's Column: Rome's First Military Tomb

From Pliny the Younger to Edward Gibbon, writers across the ages have marked the time around the reign of Trajan  (98 – 117 AD) as that in which “the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous.” The Roman Empire was at its greatest territorial expanse; the emperors at its helm were strong, virtuous, and wise (at least according to the surviving propaganda); and those living within its borders could enjoy both the personal civic liberties and economic advantages that accompanied Roman rule. 

It wasn't so great if you lived in Dacia though.

Statue of Trajan outside his forum and markets

Between 101 – 102 and 105 – 107 AD, the emperor Trajan waged a war in the territory that is now Romania and Transylvania, partly to contain the Dacian threat, partly to incorporate their natural resources, and partly to avenge an earlier humiliating defeat that Rome had suffered under Domitian. Rome inevitably triumphed. And doing what a Roman emperor did best, Trajan decided to monumentalise Rome’s victory by literally setting it in stone (or rather marble) on a 30 metre-tall victory column. 

As well as a commemorative monument gloating over a barbarian defeat, Trajan’s Column also doubled up as the emperor’s sepulchre. This was pretty controversial. Burial within the city limits was a rare privilege, and with him being the modest man that he was, we can assume that Trajan wouldn’t have presumed this privilege for himself—even if the Senate did vote him optimus princeps (or “best ruler”). But he hedged his bets by having a tomb built within his column’s base. He guessed right, and his ashes deposited sub columna in a golden urn late in the sweltering summer of 117 AD.

What to see on Trajan's Column

Trajan’s Column is most famous for portraying scenes from the emperor’s Dacian campaigns on its spiralling frieze. It shows a staggering 155 stages of the war (Trajan appearing in 58 of them) and would have stood between two libraries containing his despatches from the frontline. Indeed, Trajan actually wrote a commentary about the war—probably in the style of Caesar’s Gallic Wars—in a work known as the Dacica.

Only five words of Trajan's memoirs have survived—the deeply moving lines inde Berzobim, deinde Aizi processimus roughly translating as, “first we advanced to Berzobim, then we moved on to Aizi.”

Curiously enough, few of the column’s scenes are violent. Depictions of battle feature far less than those of travel, sacrifice, adlocutio (divine summoning) and submissio (the enemy’s submission).

So why, on a monument commemorating military victory, would its designers have decided to tone down the bloodshed? The answer probably lies with the fact that around the time of the column’s completion in 113 Trajan was already planning another campaign in Parthia.

Artist’s reconstruction of Trajan’s Columns

The Parthian campaign would prove far more costly than the campaigns in Dacia and reap far fewer rewards: undertaken principally to enhance Trajan’s prestige as a good old-fashioned military imperator. The decision to represent the Romans as being so militarily superior that their enemies would readily submit was therefore a propagandistic one intended to get the populace on board. Understandably, it was a far better alternative to depicting the harsh realities of attritional warfare which in reality they would have to fight. 

Viewing Trajan's Column in Ancient Rome

As impressive as the column is, scholars have long scratched their heads trying to work out how contemporaries would have been able to piece together its narrative without walking round and round in circles and severely cricking their necks. And that’s when its frieze was still polychrome! You could certainly once get an elevated view of the column from the Basilica Ulpia’s first-floor terrace. But given that this terrace didn’t spiral around the monument, it could quite literally only give you one side of the story.

Ultimately we don’t know how ancient Roman viewers could have pieced together the entire narrative on Trajan's Column. It could simply be that the architect’s blind vision got in the way of the monument’s practicalities.

What’s beyond doubt is the magnificence of the column itself: within the monument is a spiralling staircase, at the base of the column is a dedicatory inscription from the Senate and the People of Rome, and once standing atop the column was a bronze statue of the emperor. But it has long since been lost; stolen along with the earthly remains of the emperor which were looted in the Middle Ages.

Visit Trajan's Column with Carpe Diem

Trajan's Column is the meeting point of our Rome walking tour and a highlight of our Colosseum night tour. Our expert guide will breathe life and colour into the ancient monument, nourish you with knowledge as they provide that all-important context.