The war carved in stone

Chapter

113

Height of the shaft

29.78 m

Scenes

155

Carved figures

2,662

On the morning of 12 May 113, the Forum filled with Romans craning their necks: above them, newly dedicated, the Column unrolled its 155 scenes counted by Conrad Cichorius, winding 23 turns up the shaft in a band some 190 metres long, with 2,662 carved figures – Trajan himself appears 58 times.

The shaft alone stands 29.78 m – 100 Roman feet – 35.07 m with its pedestal, 38.4 m to the statue base; its 19–20 marble drums weigh some 32 tonnes each, in about 29 blocks for the whole monument. The inscription declares the work removed a hill as high as the Column.

Trajan's ashes were buried in the base after his death – Dio 68.16 – an exceptional honour inside the city walls. A gilt-bronze Trajan crowned the top until the Middle Ages; since 4 December 1587 the statue is St Peter.

SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS / IMP CAESARI DIVI NERVAE F NERVAE / TRAIANO AVG GERM DACICO PONTIF / MAXIMO TRIB POT XVII IMP VI COS VI P P / AD DECLARANDVM QVANTAE ALTITVDINIS / MONS ET LOCVS TANTIS OPERIBVS SIT EGESTVS

The dedication inscription (LacusCurtius)

Meanwhile The frieze's 155 scenes were still the standard count when Lepper and Frere re-edited Cichorius.

Chapter

101 – 102

The Danube crossing

101, pontoon bridge

Tapae

101

The peace

102

On the Danube bank, in 101, the engineers were lashing boats together while the legions crossed the pontoon bridge toward Dacian land – the stone one would come later. Dio's trigger is money and pride: Rome paid Dacia annual subsidies, and Trajan “was grieved at the amount of money they were receiving annually”.

At Tapae the Romans won hard: the Buri sent a mushroom-letter urging peace, Trajan tore his own clothes for bandages, and the fallen got an altar with yearly rites. Decebalus sued for peace, granted in 102.

Between the wars Apollodorus of Damascus bridged the Danube in stone at Drobeta, in 103–105: 20 piers by Dio's count, 68.13. Hadrian later removed the superstructure, fearing barbarian crossings.

After spending some time in Rome he made a campaign against the Dacians; for he took into account their past deeds and was grieved at the amount of money they were receiving annually.

Cassius Dio 68.6.1 (Cary transl., 1925)

Meanwhile The mushroom-letter of the Buri is the war's strangest dispatch: peace advice written on a giant fungus.

Chapter

105 – 106

Apollodorus's bridge

103–105

Sarmizegetusa falls

summer 106

Decebalus dies

autumn 106

The trap closed in 105: Decebalus had broken the peace of 102 – rearming, sheltering deserters, rebuilding forts – and the Senate had declared him an enemy again. In the Dacian camp, the general Longinus, lured in and captured, took poison rather than be ransomed – the Longinus episode in Dio's account.

Trajan crossed on the stone bridge and took Sarmizegetusa in the summer of 106 after a hard struggle; the Dacian nobles burned their palace and drank poison. Decebalus fled, was cornered by the cavalry of Tiberius Claudius Maximus, and cut his own throat – scene CXLV, in the autumn of 106.

Dio adds the treasure: gold and silver hidden in the bed of the river Sargetia, its course diverted and restored, revealed by a captive named Bicilis. Dacia became a province in 106, with its capital – Colonia Dacica Sarmizegetusa, founded 106–110 – some 40 km from the Dacian capital.

Decebalus, when his capital and all his territory had been occupied and he was himself in danger of being captured, committed suicide; and his head was brought to Rome. In this way Dacia became subject to the Romans.

Cassius Dio 68.14.3 (Cary transl., 1925)

Meanwhile Decebalus died in the autumn of 106; the Column telling his death was dedicated seven years later.

Chapter

109 – 1972

Adamclisi

108–109

The V&A cast

1864

The MNIR copy

1972

On a windswept plateau in Dobruja stands the wars' other monument: the Tropaeum Traiani at Adamclisi, raised about 108–109 to Mars Ultor for the victory – including the winter battle of 101–102 – with an altar naming some 3,800 fallen.

The Column itself was copied early and often: Napoleon III had it moulded in the early 1860s, and the V&A bought its full plaster cast in 1864; Bucharest's National History Museum has shown a full-scale copy since 1972.

Scholars read the frieze both ways. For J. R. Clarke it stands between documentary history and allegory; for Penelope Davies (AJA, 1997) it foregrounds marching, building, speeches and sacrifice – Trajan proving to Rome that the costly wars were competently run.

Meanwhile The V&A bought its cast in 1864; the Cast Courts housing it were built in 1873.