Trajan’s Forum (Foro di Traiano) (112 AD)
Trajan’s Forum is a beautiful monument of monumental architecture created by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus, who was in the service of the emperor himself. The Forum stretches 300 meters long and 185 meters wide. Its erection began in 106 and lasted almost seven years, and before construction began it was necessary to remove the slopes of the Quirinal and Capitoline Hill, which enclosed the valley.
About halfway from the Colosseum to Piazza Venezia, the Street of the Imperial Forums splits. Its left arm continues straight ahead and under the same name, while its right arm leaves at an acute angle, being called first Via Alessandrina (in memory of the demolished quarter) and then simply Foro Traiano.
Both these streets dissect the imperial fora in a living way. If it were possible to walk along the triangle formed by them on the former level, we would find ourselves at the triumphal arch in the area of the modern statue of Augustus. The exit through a relatively narrow passage into a gigantic square (90 by 120 meters) is an incredibly spectacular architectural device. On the arch, from which nothing has survived but images on coins, Emperor Trajan ruled six gilded horses.
Unlike other imperial forums, Trajan’s Forum had no temple – its space (5) was gigantic and empty. On the sides rose colonnades (one of them was called “purple portico” (porticus purpuretica), probably because the columns were made of red Egyptian porphyry) with exedras – semicircular deep niches with seating along the walls, and in the center stood the equestrian statue of Trajan (6). The pedestal of this statue was recently discovered, and it shows that it was huge, three times larger than the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol.
In addition, there was a multi-columned basilica building (4) in the forum. It bore the name “Basilica Ulpius”, after Trajan’s family name. The Roman basilica was a secular structure designed for court proceedings and other bureaucratic affairs. Its floor was elevated a meter from the level of the square, with yellowish marble steps leading up to it, and the multicolored columns were jarring to the eye.
In the upper part stood quadriga and statues of triumphators, and the great hall was decorated with 96 columns of white and yellow marble. Some of the columns of the Ulpian Basilica still stand today, but this is only a tiny fraction of the former opulence. The roof of the building was covered with gilded bronze tiles.
At the exit from the basilica on the other side stood a huge, 100 Roman feet (30 meters) column (2) with a gilded statue on top. It was flanked by two small library buildings (3). What was beyond the column is debatable. More recently, during the construction of the subway line, traces of a magnificent building (1) were discovered there, and some archaeologists believe it to be the Athenaeum, an academy founded by the emperor Hadrian.
Opposite the column stands the Church of the Most Holy Name of Mary in Trajan’s Forum (Santissimo Nome di Maria al Foro Traiano). It is likely that somewhere in this part of the forum Emperor Hadrian built a temple in honor of his deified predecessor. For a long time it was thought that the foundations of the temple were buried under the Palazzo Valentini, a small elegant palace from the late 16th century. But excavations there have revealed only the remains of villas and a small bath complex.
Trajan’s Column
But Trajan’s Column is well preserved and has become one of the main attractions of Rome. It is a giant two-part narrative dedicated to the conquest of Dacia, a Black Sea region in the lower reaches of the Danube, which roughly corresponds to present-day Romania. Its dedication took place in the year 113.
The two parts correspond to the fact that the Dacians had to be fought twice. Between the halves of this marble narrative, the sculptors placed an image of the Goddess of Victory. Both campaigns are described in detail, from the first skirmishes, to the building of bridges across the Danube, to the hand-to-hand fighting and the triumphant return.
Emperor Trajan himself, depicted as a simple man, appears among his soldiers 59 times. In all, about two and a half thousand human figures (not counting horses, mules, sheep, ships, buildings, trees and siege machines) are carved on the frieze of the column. The narrative follows a continuous spiral from bottom to top. The frieze wraps around the column 23 times. If it is unfolded in a single line, it stretches for almost two hundred meters.
The monumental narrative is impossible to read from beginning to end. Going around the column, you can see in quite detail several of its lower tiers, but the closer to the top – the worse the reliefs can be seen. Apparently, this decision showed reverence for the gods and the state.
The erection of the column was an act of piety, not the creation of a tourist attraction. A similar motivation was expressed by the great Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. He responded to criticism of the indistinguishable details of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia Cathedral from the ground by saying, “They will be viewed by angels.”
Despite its impracticality, Trajan’s Column is a unique monument. It is made up of twenty giant cylindrical blocks of Carrara marble, each weighing about forty tons and 4 meters in diameter. The column was first assembled and then began to carve a sculptural frieze on it. The edges of the ribbon make sometimes sharp zigzags, its width varies arbitrarily. The combination of the cylindrical blocks with the spiral narrative was problematic in some places. The blocks were fastened together with heavy metal brackets, which of course were taken out in the Middle Ages.
Trajan’s Column is not only an artistic monument, but also a literary one. It serves as a unique source of information about the life, composition and mode of action of the Roman army of the 2nd century AD. Of course, one should treat the propaganda column as a source of information with caution, but “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
The column is interesting not only from the outside. Inside it is an engineering marvel, a marble spiral staircase with 185 steps leading all the way to the top. The rare windows along the spiral are designed so that only the sky can be seen in them. On top of the column in those days stood a gilded statue of Trajan. It disappeared at the same time as the metal brackets – in the Middle Ages. At the end of the 16th century, Pope Sixtus V installed there a bronze figure of St. Peter, which still stands on the column today.
Complete casts of reliefs of the column are preserved in three museums in the world – the Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome’s EUR district, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest. Several websites are also devoted to detailing and explaining the images on the column.
At the base of the column is a door leading to the hall where the golden urns containing the ashes of Trajan and his wife Pompeii Dam were placed. Of course, they haven’t been there for a long time. The Latin inscription on the pedestal recalls the scope and complexity of the work that accompanied the construction of the column and forum: “to declare how high the hill and the place so [im works] ami were removed”.
In 1989, type designer Carol Twombly took the typeface of this inscription as the basis for the Trajan typeface she designed for Adobe.
The ruins of the so-called Trajan’s Market (Mercatus Traiani), a huge arc-shaped structure that includes many niches that served as market stalls in the past, have also been preserved. This market was also designed and erected by Apollodorus of Damascus to strengthen the Quirinal hill, which could collapse at any time after the neighboring hill was partially torn down during the construction of the forum.
Trading posts in Roman forums have existed for centuries, but here for the first time in Rome was built a real shopping center – tiered, made of decorative brick with travertine. If you walk between Trajan’s Column and the Church of the Most Holy Name of Mary, you can see a staircase going up the slope of the Quirinal.
This is the Via Magnanapoli. Going up it, you will pass a street called via Biberatica, the “street of the drunkards”, which is modern to the market. Its name comes from the wine shop that was discovered here. It is one of the few places in the world where multi-story ancient buildings have been preserved.
