Completed in 113 AD, the freestanding Trajan's column is most famous for its spiral bas relief, which artistically represents the wars between the Romans and Dacians. Its design has inspired numerous victory columns, both ancient and modern.
The continuous helical frieze winds 23 times from base to capital, and was in its time an architectural innovation. The design was adopted by later emperors such as Marcus Aurelius. The narrative band expands from about 1 metre (3.3 feet) at the base of the column to 1.2 metres (3.9 feet) at the top. The scenes unfold continuously. Often a variety of different perspectives are used in the same scene, so that more can be revealed (e.g., a different angle is used to show men working behind a wall).
The relief portrays Trajan's two victorious military campaigns against the Dacians; the lower half illustrating the first (101–102), and the top half illustrating the second (105–106). These campaigns were contemporary to the time of the Column's building. Throughout, the frieze repeats standardized scenes of imperial address (adlocutio), sacrifice (lustratio), and the army setting out on campaign (profectio). Scenes of battle are very much a minority on the column, instead it emphasizes images of orderly soldiers carrying out ceremony and construction.
The war against Dacia was one of conquest and expansion. Therefore, with the aim of the Dacian Campaigns being the incorporation and integration of Dacia into the Roman Empire as a Roman province, depictions of violent action towards foreign women and children are nonexistent. Wartime violence in general seems to have been downplayed.
Some scholars suggest the lack of battle scenes and large number of building scenes is a propaganda constructed specifically for the urban population of Rome (the primary audience), addressing their fear and distrust of the army by depicting its warfare as one with little collateral damage.
Key specific events portrayed are the first crossing of the Danube by the Roman legion, Trajan's voyage up the Danube, the surrender of the Dacians at the close of the first war, the great sacrifice by the Danube bridge during the second war, the assault on the Dacian capital, and the death of the Dacian king Decebalus.
The two sections are separated by a personification of Victory writing on a shield flanked on either side by Trophies.
Great care is taken to distinguish the men and women from both sides of the campaign as well as the ranks within these distinct groups. The scenes are crowded with sailors, soldiers, statesmen and priests, showing about 2,500 figures in all. It also exists as a valuable source of information on Roman and barbarian arms and methods of warfare (such as forts, ships, weapons, etc.) and costume. The relief shows details such as a ballista or catapult. The precise details create a strong effect of verisimilitude; the designer presents the images as objective historical truth.
The emperor Trajan is depicted realistically in the Veristic style, making 59 appearances as the central hero among his troops. The portrayal of the Roman army as relatively gentle may have been designed to support Trajan's image as a man of "justice, clemency, moderation, and restraint".
Women for the most part occupy and define the margins of the scenes. However, mortal females in Roman state art are so rare, it is remarkable that they are included at all in a war monument. In the male discourse of warfare, women are a visual trope that develops further the idea of subjugation by feminizing the foreign conquered.
However, on the Column is "one of the most unusual, disturbing, and violent depictions of women in Roman art, the torture scene.". In this unusual scene, five Dacian women are depicted torturing three naked men, perhaps to depict female domination increasing the humiliation of the Roman enemy.
Sadly, while Trajan's Column is known to have been designed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus, the names of the stone masons and sculptors who created the reliefs for this masterpiece of Hellenistic-Roman art, remain lost to us for ever.
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