Columns of Rome. Trajan's Column: a stone chronicle of the rise of the Roman Empire

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In the period from 101 to 106, Emperor Trajan led the actions of tens of thousands of Roman soldiers, crossed the Danube on the longest bridges that man could build in those days, won two victories over powerful empire barbarians on their mountainous land, and then mercilessly erased this empire from the map of Europe.

Trajan's campaign against Dacia, located in modern Romania, was the main event of the emperor's 19-year reign. The chronicler boasted of enviable trophies: 165 thousand kilograms of gold and 331 thousand kilograms of silver, not counting the annexation of a new fertile province to the Roman Empire.
Trajan's Column is one of the main monuments that survived the fall of Rome. And it remains the subject of scientific controversy to this day.

A 38-meter stone column, topped with a bronze statue of the conqueror, rose into the sky above the forum. From top to bottom it is woven with a relief chronicle of the Dacian campaigns in the style of a modern comic book: in 155 scenes, thousands of skillfully carved Romans and Dacians march, build fortifications, sail on ships, sneak up on the enemy, fight, negotiate, beg for mercy and meet death.

Erected in 113, the fantastic column has towered over the city for almost two millennia. The reliefs have suffered greatly from time to time, and apart from a few lower turns of the spiral, little can be seen. All around there are ruins - empty pedestals, broken slabs, headless columns and broken sculptures - reminders of the former splendor of the forum.

Trajan's Column is one of the main monuments that survived the fall of Rome. From century to century, historians have studied reliefs as visual material on the history of wars, where Trajan is presented as a hero, and the Dacian ruler Decebalus is his worthy opponent. Archaeologists looked at the smallest details scenes to gain information about the weapons, uniforms and military tactics of the Roman army.

Modern Romanians also honor the monument: Trajan destroyed Dacia to the ground, and therefore the column, along with the surviving statues of defeated warriors, is a precious evidence of how their Dacian ancestors might have looked and dressed.

As time passed, the great monuments of the past turned into piles of rubble, but the column continued to amaze the imagination. Renaissance artists hung from the top of the column in baskets tied with ropes to view it in detail. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V ordered the monument to be crowned with a statue of St. Peter. At the same time, in the 16th century, the first plaster casts of the column were made. They captured many details that are now lost - air pollution and acid rain have taken their toll.

The column remains the subject of scientific controversy to this day. Sometimes it seems that there are as many hypotheses as there are figures on the reliefs - and there are no less than 2662 of them.

From the bookshelf in the living room of his Roman apartment, archaeologist and art historian Filippo Coarelli takes out his work - an illustrated history of the column. “This is an amazing structure,” he says, flipping through pages of black-and-white photographs of the reliefs. - What's going on here? Dacian women torturing Roman soldiers? Do weeping Dacians take poison to avoid being captured? Looks like a TV series."

Or the memoirs of Trajan, Coarelli adds. The column was erected between two libraries, where a chronicle of military operations as presented by the warrior emperor himself could be stored. According to Coarelli, the relief frieze resembles a scroll - it is possible that Trajan’s war diary was a scroll. “The artist must have carried out the will of the emperor,” the scientist sums up.

Anyway, the team of sculptors was faced with the task of carving an illustrated version of the “Trajan Scroll” on 17 blocks of selected Carrara marble. Emperor – main character stories. He appears in 58 scenes - a visionary commander, an experienced politician and a pious ruler: here he makes a speech, raising the morale of the soldiers, here he thoughtfully listens to advisers, and here he makes sacrifices to the gods. “Trajan wants to appear not only as a warrior,” explains Coarelli, “but also as an enlightened person.”

Of course, this is just a hypothesis. Whatever form Trajan wrote down his memories, they have long since sunk into oblivion. Comparing the reliefs of the column with archaeological finds from the Dacian capital of Sarmizegetusa, scientists are inclined to think that the images indicate the mentality of the Romans rather than real events.

John Coulston, a specialist in Roman iconography, weapons and equipment at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, has a dissenting opinion. For several months in a row, he studied the reliefs at close range, perched on the restoration scaffolding. The collected material was enough for a dissertation. “It’s tempting to imagine the images from the column as a kind of news reel or movie from that time,” says Coulston. “But all these interpretations are typical stretches, behind which there is not a word of truth.”

The scientist claims that the ensemble of reliefs was not subordinated overall plan one master. Minor stylistic differences and obvious oversights - for example, the changing height of the frieze or windows breaking up the scenes - convinced the Scottish scientist that the sculptors carved the reliefs, as they say, on the fly, based on very superficial ideas about the war. “Although it is difficult for art historians to refuse the tempting image of a talented creative personality“, says Coulston, “using the example of Trajan’s Column, we see that the composition is born spontaneously, immediately on pieces of marble under the hands of simple stonemasons, and not at all on the drawing board in the workshop.”

In his opinion, the creators of the frieze were inspired by military events rather than based on them. Take, for example, the main motifs of the reliefs. There is surprisingly little combat in the depiction of the two wars: scenes of sieges and battles take up less than a quarter of the frieze, while Trajan himself never appears on the battlefield.

Legionnaires, the backbone of Rome's military machine, are primarily engaged in building forts and bridges, clearing roads, and even harvesting crops. On top of everything else, you might think that they are also invulnerable - not a single fallen Roman soldier can be found on the entire column!

Some scenes remain unsolved. Why do the besieged Dacians reach for the cup? To take poison and thereby avoid the humiliation of the vanquished? Or do they just want to quench their thirst? How to explain the shocking image of women tormenting scantily clad, bound captives with torches? In the Italian interpretation, it is the wives of the barbarians who torture the captured Romans. But Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, director of the National historical museum Romania, another opinion: “We are clearly seeing captive Dacians, who are tormented by the angry widows of killed Roman soldiers.” Apparently, what we see when looking at the column depends on our sympathies - towards the Romans or towards the Dacians.

Among Roman politicians, the word "dac" was synonymous with a hypocrite. It was about the Dacians that the historian Tacitus wrote: “They were never truly loyal to Rome.” Having concluded a treaty of friendship with Emperor Domitian in 89, the king of Dacia Decebalus, although he received money from the Romans to protect the borders of the empire from raids, himself sent soldiers to plunder the border cities of the allies. In 101, Trajan set out on a campaign against the unreliable Dacians. After almost two years of war, a truce was concluded, but Decebalus soon broke it.

The Romans' patience ran out. During the second invasion, in 105, Trajan did not stand on ceremony - just look at the scenes depicting the sack of Sarmizegetusa. “The campaigns were brutal and destructive,” says Roberto Meneghini, an Italian archaeologist who led excavations at Trajan’s Forum. - Look how the Romans fight, holding severed heads by the hair with their teeth. War is war. Roman legionnaires had a reputation for being fierce and ruthless warriors."

But as soon as the Dacians were defeated, Roman sculptors took up their work. Trajan's Forum was decorated with dozens of statues of stately, bearded Dacian warriors - a proud marble army in the very heart of Rome. Of course, the sculptors were far from sweetening the bitterness of defeat for the vanquished, most of whom were sold into slavery. “No one could come and see the column,” says Meneghini. “The monument was intended for Roman citizens and embodied the power of the imperial machine, capable of conquering such a valiant and warlike people.”

Trajan's Column may be considered an example of propaganda - but, according to archaeologists, there is some truth in its stone record. Newest excavations on the territory of ancient Dacia, including the ruins of Sarmizegetusa, are bringing more and more discoveries. The portrait of a civilization that has crossed the “barbarian” stage of development, despite the contemptuous epithets of the Romans, is being drawn in more and more detail.

The Dacians had no written language, and all our knowledge about their culture passed through the filter of Roman sources. Numerous finds indicate that Dacia reigned over the surrounding lands for hundreds of years, collecting tribute from its neighbors. Knowing a lot about blacksmithing, Dacian miners mined ore and smelted iron, and gold miners panned gold. The culmination of the creations of skilled craftsmen were finely finished jewelry and weapons.

Sarmisegethusa was the political and spiritual capital of Dacia. Its ruins lie high in the mountains in the heart of Romania. The city was separated from Rome by 1,600 kilometers – Trajan’s army marched here for more than a month. Today's visitors have to wade through potholed dirt road through the same inaccessible valley that blocked Trajan's path.

The ruins of Sarmizegetusa were buried in thickets of tall beeches. Even on a hot day, cool shadows creep across the ground. A wide paved road leads from the thick fortress walls, half buried in the ground, to a spacious clearing.

This green oasis - a terrace carved into the rock - was the religious center of Dacia. The remains of buildings have survived to this day - a mixture of ancient stones and concrete reconstructions, reminiscent of an unrealized attempt to recreate the ancient complex. A triple ring of stone columns outlines the contours of the once majestic temple, vaguely reminiscent of the round Dacian buildings on the reliefs of Trajan's Column. Nearby is a low altar - a stone circle with a carved ornament in the form of solar disks - the holy of holies of the Dacian universe.

For the past six years, Romanian archaeologist Gelu Florea from the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj has been spending the summer months excavating at Sarmizegetuz. The cleared ruins, as well as objects confiscated from treasure hunters, indicate that military technologies from Rome penetrated here, and the influence of Greece is also felt - architectural and artistic. “It’s amazing how cosmopolitan they were so high up in the mountains,” says Florea. “It is the largest settlement in all of Dacia, with a surprisingly complex organization.” Using aerial photography, archaeologists have identified more than 260 artificial terraces stretching almost five kilometers along the valley. The total area of the settlement exceeded 280 hectares.

Scientists did not find traces of cultivated fields - but they unearthed the remains of craft workshops and houses, as well as smelting furnaces, tons of iron blanks and dozens of anvils. Apparently, the city was a center for metal production, supplying other Dacian settlements with weapons and tools in exchange for gold and grain.

Today everything here is surrounded by greenery and silence. Not far from the former altar there is a small spring where water could be taken for religious rituals. The ground underfoot, seasoned with grains of mica, sparkles in sun rays. A few tourists talk in low voices.

It is difficult to imagine what kind of ceremonies took place in this city - and what terrible fate befell its inhabitants. Plumes of smoke and shrill screams, robberies and massacres, suicides and panic depicted on the reliefs of Trajan’s Column emerge in the imagination.

“The Romans swept away everything in their path,” says Florea. “No stone was left unturned from the fortress.” They wanted to demonstrate their power: look, we have the strength, the means, we are the masters here.”

The fall of Sarmizegetusa was followed by the destruction of the main temples and sanctuaries of Dacia. Then the Romans set about other cities of the Dacian kingdom. One of the reliefs at the very top of the column represents a bloody denouement - the village was put on fire, the inhabitants fled, only goats and cows roamed the devastated province.

The two wars claimed, according to scientists, tens of thousands of lives. According to a contemporary, Trajan took 500 thousand prisoners, driving about 10 thousand of them to Rome to participate in gladiatorial battles, which were held in honor of the victory for 123 days in a row.

The proud ruler of the Dacians saved himself from the shameful fate of a prisoner. The end of Decebalus is immortalized on the column of his sworn enemy: kneeling under the shade of an oak tree, Dac raises a long curved sword to his own throat.

“His head was taken to Rome,” wrote the Roman historian Cassius Dio a century later. “So Dacia became subject to the Romans.”

A majestic column in, the capital, reminiscent of the past victories and glory of the Romans. The column stands proudly above the ruins of the Roman Forum, while at its base lies the tomb of Emperor Ulpius Trajan and his wife. This victorious structure was erected in honor of the emperor and his victories over the Dacians. Today it is included in the version of our website.

The column was erected in Rome in the 2nd century AD. The architect of the building was Apollodorus of Damascus, revered by the emperor. 20 blocks of Carrara marble were brought for its construction. Today the height of the column is 38 meters and its weight is 40 tons. The inside of the column is hollow. It contains only a spiral staircase leading to the platform on the capital.

The monument on the capital was changed several times. First, there was a sculpture of an eagle, then of Trajan himself, and only in the 16th century a statue of the Apostle Peter appeared, which adorns the column to this day. On the relief ribbon running along the trunk of the column you can see fragments from two battles of Emperor Trajan with the Dacians. A total of 2,500 human figures are depicted, among which the emperor himself is repeated many times.

In addition, on the relief you can see the goddess of victory Nike, the majestic old man of the Danube and other allegorical characters. The attraction is located on Trajan's Forum, not far from Piazza Venice and the famous complex.

Photo attraction: Trajan's Column

Between 101 and 106, Emperor Trajan led tens of thousands of Roman soldiers, crossed the Danube on the longest bridges that man could build at the time, won two victories over a powerful barbarian empire in their mountainous land, and then mercilessly wiped it out. empire from a map of Europe. Trajan's campaign against Dacia, located in modern Romania, was the main event of the emperor's 19-year reign. The chronicler boasted of enviable trophies: 165 thousand kilograms of gold and 331 thousand kilograms of silver, not counting the annexation of a new fertile province to the Roman Empire.

Trajan's Column is one of the main monuments that survived the fall of Rome. And it remains the subject of scientific controversy to this day.

The replenishment of the treasury affected the appearance of Rome. In honor of the victory, the emperor ordered the construction of a forum: a spacious square surrounded by colonnades, two libraries and a large civil building known as the Basilica of Ulpia. According to the Roman historian's enthusiastic description, Trajan's Forum was a creation “the like of which mortals will never again create.” A 38-meter stone column, topped with a bronze statue of the conqueror, rose into the sky above the forum. From top to bottom it is woven with a relief chronicle of the Dacian campaigns in the style of a modern comic book: in 155 scenes, thousands of skillfully carved Romans and Dacians march, build fortifications, sail on ships, sneak up on the enemy, fight, negotiate, beg for mercy and meet death. Erected in 113, the fantastic column has towered over the city for almost two millennia. The reliefs have suffered greatly from time to time, and apart from a few lower turns of the spiral, little can be seen. All around there are ruins - empty pedestals, broken slabs, headless columns and broken sculptures - reminders of the former splendor of the forum. Trajan's Column is one of the main monuments that survived the fall of Rome. From century to century, historians have studied the reliefs as a visual aid to the history of wars, where Trajan is presented as a hero, and the Dacian ruler Decebalus is his worthy opponent. Archaeologists have looked at the smallest details of the scenes to glean information about the weapons, uniforms and military tactics of the Roman army. Modern Romanians also honor the monument: Trajan destroyed Dacia to the ground, and therefore the column, along with the surviving statues of defeated warriors, is a precious evidence of how their Dacian ancestors might have looked and dressed. As time passed, the great monuments of the past turned into piles of rubble, but the column continued to amaze the imagination. Renaissance artists hung from the top of the column in baskets tied with ropes to view it in detail. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V ordered the monument to be crowned with a statue of St. Peter. At the same time, in the 16th century, the first plaster casts of the column were made. They captured many details that are now lost - air pollution and acid rain have taken their toll. The column remains the subject of scientific controversy to this day. Sometimes it seems that there are as many hypotheses as there are figures on the reliefs - and there are no less than 2662 of them. From the bookshelf in the living room of his Roman apartment archaeologist and art historian Filippo Coarelli takes out his work - an illustrated history of the column. “This is an amazing structure,” he says, flipping through pages of black-and-white photographs of the reliefs. - What's going on here? Dacian women torturing Roman soldiers? Do weeping Dacians take poison to avoid being captured? Looks like a TV series." Or the memoirs of Trajan, Coarelli adds. The column was erected between two libraries, where a chronicle of military operations as presented by the warrior emperor himself could be stored. According to Coarelli, the relief frieze resembles a scroll - it is possible that Trajan’s war diary was a scroll. “The artist must have carried out the will of the emperor,” the scientist sums up. Anyway, the team of sculptors was faced with the task of carving an illustrated version of the “Trajan Scroll” on 17 blocks of selected Carrara marble. The Emperor is the main character of the story. He appears in 58 scenes - a visionary commander, an experienced politician and a pious ruler: here he makes a speech, raising the morale of the soldiers, here he thoughtfully listens to advisers, and here he makes sacrifices to the gods. “Trajan wants to appear not only as a warrior,” explains Coarelli, “but also as an enlightened person.” Of course, this is just a hypothesis. Whatever form Trajan wrote down his memories, they have long since sunk into oblivion. Comparing the reliefs of the column with archaeological finds from the Dacian capital of Sarmizegetusa, scientists are inclined to think that the images indicate more about the mentality of the Romans than about real events. John Coulston, a specialist in Roman iconography, weapons and equipment at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, has a dissenting opinion. For several months in a row, he studied the reliefs at close range, perched on the restoration scaffolding. The collected material was enough for a dissertation. “It’s tempting to imagine the images from the column as a kind of news reel or movie from that time,” says Coulston. “But all these interpretations are typical stretches, behind which there is not a word of truth.” The scientist claims that the ensemble of reliefs was not subordinated to the general plan of one master. Minor stylistic differences and obvious oversights - for example, the changing height of the frieze or windows breaking up the scenes - convinced the Scottish scientist that the sculptors carved the reliefs, as they say, on the fly, based on very superficial ideas about the war. “Although it is difficult for art historians to refuse the tempting image of a talented creative person,” says Coulston, “using the example of Trajan’s Column we see that the composition is born spontaneously, immediately on pieces of marble under the hands of simple stonemasons, and not at all on the drawing board in the workshop.” In his opinion, the creators of the frieze were inspired by military events rather than based on them. Take, for example, the main motifs of the reliefs. There is surprisingly little combat in the depiction of the two wars: scenes of sieges and battles take up less than a quarter of the frieze, while Trajan himself never appears on the battlefield. Legionnaires, the backbone of Rome's military machine, are primarily engaged in building forts and bridges, clearing roads, and even harvesting crops. On top of everything else, you might think that they are also invulnerable - not a single fallen Roman soldier can be found on the entire column! Some scenes remain unsolved. Why do the besieged Dacians reach for the cup? To take poison and thereby avoid the humiliation of the vanquished? Or do they just want to quench their thirst? How to explain the shocking image of women tormenting scantily clad, bound captives with torches? In the Italian interpretation, it is the wives of the barbarians who torture the captured Romans. But Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, director of the National Historical Museum of Romania, has a different opinion: “We are clearly seeing captive Dacians being tormented by the angry widows of murdered Roman soldiers.” Apparently, what we see when looking at the column depends on our sympathies - towards the Romans or towards the Dacians. Among Roman politicians, the word "dac" was synonymous with a hypocrite. It was about the Dacians that the historian Tacitus wrote: “They were never truly loyal to Rome.” Having concluded a treaty of friendship with Emperor Domitian in 89, the king of Dacia Decebalus, although he received money from the Romans to protect the borders of the empire from raids, himself sent soldiers to plunder the border cities of the allies. In 101, Trajan set out on a campaign against the unreliable Dacians. After almost two years of war, a truce was concluded, but Decebalus soon broke it. The Romans' patience ran out. During the second invasion, in 105, Trajan did not stand on ceremony - just look at the scenes depicting the sack of Sarmizegetusa. “The campaigns were brutal and destructive,” says Roberto Meneghini, an Italian archaeologist who led excavations at Trajan’s Forum. - Look how the Romans fight, holding severed heads by the hair with their teeth. War is war. Roman legionnaires had a reputation for being fierce and ruthless warriors." But as soon as the Dacians were defeated, Roman sculptors took up their work. Trajan's Forum was decorated with dozens of statues of stately, bearded Dacian warriors - a proud marble army in the very heart of Rome. Of course, the sculptors were far from sweetening the bitterness of defeat for the vanquished, most of whom were sold into slavery. “No one could come and see the column,” says Meneghini. “The monument was intended for Roman citizens and embodied the power of the imperial machine, capable of conquering such a valiant and warlike people.” Trajan's Column can be considered an example of propaganda– but, according to archaeologists, there is some truth in its stone chronicle. The latest excavations on the territory of ancient Dacia, including the ruins of Sarmizegetusa, are bringing more and more discoveries. The portrait of a civilization that has crossed the “barbarian” stage of development, despite the contemptuous epithets of the Romans, is being drawn in more and more detail. The Dacians had no written language, and all our knowledge about their culture passed through the filter of Roman sources. Numerous finds indicate that Dacia reigned over the surrounding lands for hundreds of years, collecting tribute from its neighbors. Knowing a lot about blacksmithing, Dacian miners mined ore and smelted iron, and gold miners panned gold. The culmination of the creations of skilled craftsmen were finely finished jewelry and weapons. Sarmisegethusa was the political and spiritual capital of Dacia. Its ruins lie high in the mountains in the heart of Romania. The city was separated from Rome by 1,600 kilometers – Trajan’s army marched here for more than a month. Today's visitors must navigate a potholed dirt road through the same forbidding valley that blocked Trajan's path. The ruins of Sarmizegetusa were buried in thickets of tall beeches. Even on a hot day, cool shadows creep across the ground. A wide paved road leads from the thick fortress walls, half buried in the ground, to a spacious clearing. This green oasis - a terrace carved into the rock - was the religious center of Dacia. The remains of buildings have survived to this day - a mixture of ancient stones and concrete reconstructions, reminiscent of an unrealized attempt to recreate the ancient complex. A triple ring of stone columns outlines the contours of the once majestic temple, vaguely reminiscent of the round Dacian buildings on the reliefs of Trajan's Column. Nearby is a low altar - a stone circle with a carved ornament in the form of solar disks - the holy of holies of the Dacian universe. For the last six years, Romanian archaeologist Gelu Florea from the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj spends the summer months excavating at Sarmizegetuz. The cleared ruins, as well as objects confiscated from treasure hunters, indicate that military technologies from Rome penetrated here, and the influence of Greece is also felt - architectural and artistic. “It’s amazing how cosmopolitan they were so high up in the mountains,” says Florea. “It is the largest settlement in all of Dacia, with a surprisingly complex organization.” Using aerial photography, archaeologists have identified more than 260 artificial terraces stretching almost five kilometers along the valley. The total area of the settlement exceeded 280 hectares. Scientists did not find traces of cultivated fields - but they unearthed the remains of craft workshops and houses, as well as smelting furnaces, tons of iron blanks and dozens of anvils. Apparently, the city was a center for metal production, supplying other Dacian settlements with weapons and tools in exchange for gold and grain. Today everything here is surrounded by greenery and silence. Not far from the former altar there is a small spring where water could be taken for religious rituals. The ground underfoot, seasoned with grains of mica, sparkles in the sun's rays. A few tourists talk in low voices. It is difficult to imagine what kind of ceremonies took place in this city - and what terrible fate befell its inhabitants. Plumes of smoke and shrill screams, robberies and massacres, suicides and panic depicted on the reliefs of Trajan’s Column emerge in the imagination. “The Romans swept away everything in their path,” says Florea. “No stone was left unturned from the fortress.” They wanted to demonstrate their power: look, we have the strength, the means, we are the masters here.” The fall of Sarmizegetusa was followed by the destruction of the main temples and sanctuaries of Dacia. Then the Romans set about other cities of the Dacian kingdom. One of the reliefs at the very top of the column represents a bloody denouement - the village was put on fire, the inhabitants fled, only goats and cows roamed the devastated province. The two wars claimed, according to scientists, tens of thousands of lives. According to a contemporary, Trajan took 500 thousand prisoners, driving about 10 thousand of them to Rome to participate in gladiatorial battles, which were held in honor of the victory for 123 days in a row. The proud ruler of the Dacians saved himself from the shameful fate of a prisoner. The end of Decebalus is immortalized on the column of his sworn enemy: kneeling under the shade of an oak tree, Dac raises a long curved sword to his own throat. “His head was taken to Rome,” wrote the Roman historian Cassius Dio a century later. “So Dacia became subject to the Romans.”

Carved from marble and surrounded by a spiral frieze with rich carvings, Trajan's Column towers 38 meters above Rome. The stone diary of military operations in 155 scenes tells the story of the emperor's victory over a treacherous but valiant enemy.

That's what it says official version. Between 101 and 106, Emperor Trajan led tens of thousands of Roman soldiers, crossed the Danube on the longest bridges that man could build at the time, won two victories over a powerful barbarian empire in their mountainous land, and then mercilessly wiped it out. empire from a map of Europe.

Photo 2.

Photo 3.

Trajan's Column is one of the main monuments that survived the fall of Rome. From century to century, historians have studied the reliefs as a visual aid to the history of wars, where Trajan is presented as a hero, and the Dacian ruler Decebalus as his worthy opponent. Archaeologists have looked at the smallest details of the scenes to glean information about the weapons, uniforms and military tactics of the Roman army.

Photo 4.

Photo 5.

Or the memoirs of Trajan, Coarelli adds. The column was erected between two libraries, where a chronicle of military operations as presented by the warrior emperor himself could be stored. According to Coarelli, the relief frieze resembles a scroll—it is possible that Trajan’s war diary was a scroll. “The artist must have carried out the will of the emperor,” the scientist concludes.

Photo 6.

Anyway, the team of sculptors was faced with the task of carving an illustrated version of the “Trajan Scroll” on 17 blocks of selected Carrara marble. The Emperor is the main character of the story. He appears in 58 scenes - a visionary commander, an experienced politician and a pious ruler: here he makes a speech, raising the morale of the soldiers, here he thoughtfully listens to advisers, and here he makes sacrifices to the gods. “Trajan wants to appear not only as a warrior,” explains Coarelli, “but also as an enlightened person.”

Of course, this is just a hypothesis. Whatever form Trajan wrote down his memories, they have long since sunk into oblivion. Comparing the reliefs of the column with archaeological finds from the Dacian capital of Sarmizegetusa, scientists are inclined to think that the images indicate more about the mentality of the Romans than about real events.

Photo 7.

Photo 8.

The scientist claims that the ensemble of reliefs was not subordinated to the general plan of one master. Minor stylistic differences and obvious oversights - for example, the changing height of the frieze or windows breaking up the scenes - convinced the Scottish scientist that the sculptors carved the reliefs, as they say, on the fly, based on very superficial ideas about the war. “Although it is difficult for art historians to refuse the tempting image of a talented creative person,” says Coulston, “using the example of Trajan’s Column we see that the composition is born spontaneously, immediately on pieces of marble under the hands of simple stonemasons, and not at all on the drawing board in the workshop.”

Photo 9.

Legionnaires - the backbone of Rome's military machine - are primarily engaged in building forts and bridges, clearing roads, and even harvesting crops. On top of everything else, you might think that they are also invulnerable - not a single fallen Roman soldier can be found on the entire column!

Photo 10.

Some scenes remain unsolved. Why do the besieged Dacians reach for the cup? To take poison and thereby avoid the humiliation of the vanquished? Or do they just want to quench their thirst? How to explain the shocking image of women tormenting scantily clad, bound captives with torches? In the Italian interpretation, it is the wives of the barbarians who torture the captured Romans. But Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, director of the National Historical Museum of Romania, has a different opinion: “We are clearly seeing captive Dacians being tormented by the angry widows of murdered Roman soldiers.” Apparently, what we see when looking at the column depends on our sympathies - towards the Romans or towards the Dacians.

Photo 11.

Photo 12.

Trajan's Column may be considered a piece of propaganda - but archaeologists say there is some truth to its stone record. The latest excavations on the territory of ancient Dacia, including the ruins of Sarmizegetusa, are bringing more and more discoveries. The portrait of a civilization that has crossed the “barbarian” stage of development, despite the contemptuous epithets of the Romans, is being drawn in more and more detail.

Photo 13.

Sarmisegethusa was the political and spiritual capital of Dacia. Its ruins lie high in the mountains in the heart of Romania. The city was separated from Rome by 1,600 kilometers—Trajan’s army marched here for more than a month. Today's visitors must navigate a potholed dirt road through the same forbidding valley that blocked Trajan's path.

Photo 14.

This green oasis, a terrace carved into the rock, was the religious center of Dacia. The remains of the buildings have survived to this day - a mixture of ancient stones and concrete reconstructions, reminiscent of an unrealized attempt to recreate the ancient complex. A triple ring of stone columns outlines the contours of the once majestic temple, vaguely reminiscent of the round Dacian buildings on the reliefs of Trajan's Column. Nearby is a low altar - a stone circle with a carved ornament in the form of solar disks - the holy of holies of the Dacian universe.

Photo 15.

Scientists found no traces of cultivated fields, but they unearthed the remains of craft workshops and houses, as well as smelting furnaces, tons of iron blanks and dozens of anvils. Apparently, the city was a center for metal production, supplying other Dacian settlements with weapons and tools in exchange for gold and grain.

Photo 16.

Photo 17.

Photo 18.

“His head was taken to Rome,” wrote the Roman historian Cassius Dio a century later. “So Dacia became subject to the Romans.”

Photo 19.

And now the unofficial version: the Trojan Column, as it turned out, was erected not earlier, but even later, in the second half of the 13th century. The figures of people depicted on it are a story about a well-known Trojan War, which occurred in the 13th century, i.e. the famous Crusades are what is actually depicted by the masters of the construction. This is not just another guess; there are several weighty arguments that cannot refute this assumption.

Photo 20.

Irrefutable facts about the origin of the Trojan Column:

Here is the result of an analysis of professional photographs of images on Trajan's Column taken in the 19th and 20th centuries. Found out Interesting Facts. Here are some of them.

1) It’s strange that there is NOT A SINGLE INSCRIPTION on the column itself, not a single name, not a single name is mentioned. The only inscription is only on the base, Fig. 8.15, Fig. 8.16. By the way, it is interesting to compare the condition of the base in the 19th century with its appearance in the 20th century, Fig. 8.17. It can be seen that the basement was significantly restored in the 20th century. The fact that there are no inscriptions on the column itself turns the ribbon of images, spiraling around the column from bottom to top, Fig. 8.18, into a long row of “military pictures”. Battles, truces, religious rituals, fires, capture of cities, lines of prisoners, etc. In particular, the statement of historians that some figures depict the Emperor Trajan himself is only a hypothesis, not supported by any specific arguments. We repeat that there are no inscriptions.

2) Most likely, the column and some bas-reliefs on it were cast from marbled concrete, Fig. 8.19. You can see areas where the skin is peeling off, that is, the top thin layer of a more expensive concrete coating, applied to a rough concrete base, falls off, Fig. 8.20, Fig. 8.21. It is possible that some of the images were made on the surface of the column (or panels) that had not yet completely hardened. Perhaps the technique was mixed: concrete castings were intertwined with fragments of natural marble with carvings. Trajan's Column could have been made during the Reformation, but it was probably based on some old images.

Photo 21.

3) Apparently, the bas-reliefs of Trajan’s Column really followed some kind of old tradition. This is indicated by the following bright fact: on many shields of “ancient” Roman soldiers, Ottoman = Ataman crescents, stars and Christian crosses are visible. In the Scaligerian version, the appearance of such symbolism on the “ancient, pagan” weapons of soldiers is categorically impossible. But in our reconstruction this is exactly how it should be. Here are just a few of the many examples: in Fig. 8.22, a crescent moon is visible at the top of the shield. In Fig. 8.23, two crescents are depicted on the shield in the center and on the shield on the right. In addition, stars are depicted on another right shield. In the center of Fig. 8.24 we see four shields at once, on which crescents with stars are depicted. On the shield on the right are Christian crosses. In Fig. 8.25, the crescent moon is visible on the shield in the center and the shield at the bottom right. See also Fig.8.26, Fig.8.27, Fig.8.28, Fig.8.29, Fig.8.30, Fig.8.31, Fig.8.32.

Apparently, the crescents with stars and Christian crosses on Trajan’s Column attracted attention modern historians. And they “strained them” greatly, because they pointed out contradictions within the Scaligerian version. The solution they found was this: stubbornly (very stubbornly) to remain silent about this fact. In any case, in the literature known to us about Trajan's Column on this topic There is complete silence.

4) It is also curious that over the last hundred years Trajan’s Column has been badly damaged. Comparing photographs from the 19th century with photographs from the 20th century clearly shows that the images have noticeably deteriorated. Many gouges, cavities appeared, Fig. 8.33, Fig. 8.34, as well as cracks that are not in the old photographs given in. This remark is consistent with our assertion that Trajan's Column is by no means as ancient as they are trying to convince us today. She is probably not about 1800 years old at all, but more than five hundred years old. The rate of destruction appears to be more or less constant. Over the past hundred years, the reliefs have noticeably deteriorated.

CONCLUSION. The famous Trajan's Column was made in era XVI-XVII centuries based on some old images that have not reached us. Dedicated, most likely, to the famous Trojan War of the 13th century, that is, Crusades at Tsar Grad and the victory of Rus'-Horde with its allies.

Photo 22.

sources

- (Trajan's Column) Marble column standing in Trajan's Forum in Rome. Built approx. 114 in honor of the victory of Emperor Trajan over the Dacians. Covered in spirals with reliefs depicting episodes of the war. The inscription on it that has survived to this day... ... Font terminology

TRAYAN'S COLUMN, marble column in Rome, height approx. 38 m, erected by Emperor Trajan ca. 114 in honor of the victory over the Dacians (see DACI); the trunk of Trajan's column is covered with reliefs with scenes from the wars with the Dacians... encyclopedic Dictionary

Erected by Emperor Trajan in Rome in 111-114. The architect was the Greek Apollodorus from Damascus. The 38 m high marble structure consists of a cubic plinth, a column base and its trunk with a Roman Doric capital. In the beginning, Trajan's Column was... Construction dictionary

Trajan's Column- erected by Emperor Trajan in Rome in 111-114. The architect was the Greek Apollodorus from Damascus. The 38 m high marble structure consists of a cubic plinth, a column base and its trunk with a Roman Doric capital. First, Trajan's Column... Architectural Dictionary

Trajan's Column- Marble column in Rome, erected by Emperor Trajan c. 114 years in honor of the victory over the Dacians. Is classic sample Roman capital letter... Brief Dictionary in printing

Column of Marcus Aurelius (lat. Columna Centenaria Divorum Marci et Faustinae, Italian. ... Wikipedia

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Alexander Column, Saint Petersburg The Victory Column is a column-shaped monument built in honor of the triumph of the troops of a particular state. As a rule, at its top there is a statue of the goddess of victory Victoria. In Germany, a statue... ... Wikipedia

In architecture, a vertical support that has the form of a cylindrical or polygonal column and consists of a base, a trunk and a capital, as well as any column-like support made of any material. In addition to the usual use as column supports... ... Collier's Encyclopedia

Books

Rome. Guide, Olga Chumicheva. Here is an express guide to Rome, containing more than 20 audio tours of the city. The guide will tell you about the most interesting places each district of the capital. Practical, useful audio guide…

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