mail: Bill Thayer

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Trajan's Column:

A Record of the Dacian Campaign and a Monument to Logistics

SW     20‑23 19‑21 17‑18 15‑16 13‑14 11‑12 9‑10   7‑8   5‑6   3‑4 1‑2 NE   22‑23 21‑22 19‑20 17‑18 15‑16 13‑14 11‑12 • 9‑10 7‑8 5‑7 4‑6 3‑5   1‑3   0‑2

You are fa­cing NW and looking at the column from ground level in the Basilica Ulpia to the SE of it. If the column were transparent, you would be pretty much looking down the Via Flaminia towards the Milvian Bridge: in Roman times, that road would take you to Umbria and finally the Adriatic coast at Fano and Rimini.

The Forum Romanum is offscreen, somewhat behind you, to your left. Trajan's Markets are a few steps to your right and a bit behind you as well. Between them, straight behind you, the Imperial Fora.

For information about the statue at the top, click anywhere on the platform or higher; or here.

For a full-height view of the column from the steps up to the Largo Magnanapoli to the NE, click on the sky to the right (NE) of it, or here.

The base of the column — click anywhere on it — or here — is a sort of gallery of military dress and armor.
[ 1 page, 6 images: some are particularly good ]

Most of the photos here, however, are of the reliefs that spiral up the column itself. I took two sets of pictures; one up the SW face and one up the NE face; clicking anywhere on the column (or on the numbers in the margins, which indicate the registers shown) will send you to a large detailed photo of that area in another window. For now, just the pictures; I do hope to provide text fairly soon, though. For one thing, there's Apollodorus's bridge somewhere in all this stone, and that surely deserves commentary.
[ 25 images: bullets • indicate those where you can zoom in even further ]

Click on the modern buildings in the picture, or here, for the full original of this photo, showing the column somewhat larger and in context, between the churches of S. Maria di Loreto and SS. Nome di Maria.

Finally, a few stray photos haven't got linked yet to the map above; among which this clear shot of two men loading barrels onto a boat.

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