Trajan's Column, completed in 113 CE, carries a helical relief winding around the shaft, narrating the Dacian wars in some hundred and fifty scenes. It stood between libraries in Trajan's Forum, and the emperor's ashes were placed in its base.
It is the fullest pictorial source we have for the Roman army on campaign — marching, building, fortifying, crossing rivers, treating wounded. A great deal of what modern reconstructions of Roman military equipment show comes from it.
It is also a state victory monument, and it idealises. Its soldiers are more uniformly equipped than excavation supports, its scenes are composed for legibility, and the upper spirals are difficult to see from the ground, which raises the question of who the narrative was for. Using it as a photograph of the army is the standard error.
What the evidence supports
The column's frieze is the fullest pictorial source for the Roman army.
Some 155 scenes covering march, construction, siege and battle. Casts taken in the nineteenth century preserve detail since lost to pollution.
It idealises equipment and formation.
Uniformity of armour on the column is not matched by the archaeological record, where equipment varies considerably.
Whether the upper spirals could be read is argued.
Visibility from ground level is poor. Explanations include viewing from the flanking library balconies, or that legibility was never the point.
Examples
The evidence level on each answers how we know what the building looked like, not whether it existed.
- Evidence level: Documented
Rome · Completed 113 CE
Trajan's Column
Attributed to Apollodorus of Damascus. The bronze statue of Trajan on top was replaced by a figure of St Peter in the sixteenth century. Standing complete, with nineteenth-century casts preserving detail since lost to pollution.
- Evidence level: Documented
Rome · Late 2nd century CE
The Column of Marcus Aurelius
Modelled on Trajan's, with deeper carving and a markedly harsher depiction of the fighting. Standing complete in the Piazza Colonna.
Primary sources
Roman state monument, Trajan's Column reliefs in situ
A carved narrative of the Dacian wars, and a primary source that is also state propaganda.
How to read the evidence labels
- Evidence level: Documented
- Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
- Evidence level: Probable
- Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
- Evidence level: Disputed
- Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
- Evidence level: Literary
- Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
- Evidence level: Mythological
- Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
- Evidence level: Unknown
- The available evidence is insufficient to decide.
These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.