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.
Carved from marble and entwined with a spiral frieze with rich carvings, Trajan's Column rises 38 meters above Rome. The stone diary of military operations in 155 scenes tells the story of the emperor's victory over an insidious but valiant enemy.
This is what the official version says. 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 a man could build at that time, won two victories over the powerful barbarian empire on their mountainous land, and then mercilessly erased this empire from the map of Europe.
Trajan's campaign to Dacia, located on the territory of modern Romania, was the main event of the 19-year reign of the emperor. The chronicler boasted of enviable trophies: 165 thousand kilograms of gold and 331 thousand kilograms of silver, not counting the joining of a new fertile province to the Roman Empire.
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The replenishment of the treasury was reflected in 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 Ulpia Basilica. According to the enthusiastic description of the Roman historian, Trajan's Forum was a creation "like which mortals will never create again."
A 38-meter stone column, crowned with a bronze statue of the conqueror, rose into the sky above the forum. From the bottom to the top, a relief chronicle of the Dacian campaigns in the manner of a modern comic strip entwined it: in 155 scenes, thousands of skillfully carved Romans and Dacians march, build fortifications, sail on ships, sneak up on the enemy, fight, negotiate, pray for mercy and meet death.
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The fantastic column, erected in 113, has been standing over the city for almost two millennia. The reliefs have been badly damaged by time and, apart from a few lower turns of the spiral, little can be seen. Around the ruins - empty pedestals, split slabs, decapitated columns and broken sculptures remind 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 represented as a hero, and the Dacian ruler Decebalus is his worthy enemy. Archaeologists examined the smallest details of the scenes to gain information about the weapons, uniforms and military tactics of the Roman army.
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The monument is also revered by modern Romanians: Trajan destroyed Dacia to the ground, and therefore the column, along with the surviving statues of defeated soldiers, is a precious evidence of how their Dacian ancestors could look and dress.
As time went on, the great monuments of the past turned into heaps of rubble, and the column still boggled the imagination. Renaissance artists in baskets tied with ropes hung from the top of a column in order to examine it in every detail. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V ordered to crown the monument 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 of the details 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 no less hypotheses than figures on reliefs - and there are no less than 2662 of them.
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From the bookshelf in the living room of his Roman apartment, archaeologist and art historian Filippo Coarelli pulls out his work, an illustrated history of the column. “This is an amazing structure,” he says, flipping through pages of black and white reliefs. - What's going on here? Do Dacian women torture Roman soldiers? Do weeping Dacians take poison to avoid being captured? Sounds like a TV series."
Or Trajan's memoir, adds Coarelli. The column was erected between the two libraries, where the chronicle of hostilities in the presentation of the warrior emperor himself could be kept. According to Coarelli, the relief frieze resembles a scroll - it is possible that Trajan's war diary was just a scroll. "The artist must have fulfilled the will of the emperor," the scientist sums up.
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Either way, the sculptors' team was tasked with carving an illustrated version of Trajan's scroll on 17 blocks of selected Carrara marble. The Emperor is the protagonist of the story. He appears in 58 scenes - a far-sighted commander, an experienced politician and a pious ruler: here he makes a speech, raising the morale of the soldiers, here he pensively 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. In 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 Sarmisegetuza, scientists are inclined to think that the images testify rather to the mindset of the Romans than to real events.
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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 forests. The collected material was enough for a dissertation. “It is tempting to present the images from the pillar in the form of a news feed or movie of the time,” says Coleston. "But all these interpretations are typical exaggerations, behind which there is not a word of truth."
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The scientist claims that the ensemble of reliefs was not subordinated to the general design of one master. Small stylistic differences and obvious oversights - for example, the changing height of the frieze or the windows breaking the scenes - convinced the Scottish scientist that the sculptors carved reliefs, as they say, on the go, based on very superficial ideas about the war. "Although it is difficult for art historians to abandon the tempting image of a talented creative person," says Coleston, "in 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 by no means on a drawing board in a workshop.
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In his opinion, the creators of the frieze were more likely inspired by military events than based on them. Take, for example, the main motives of the reliefs. There is surprisingly little fighting in the depiction of the two wars: scenes of sieges and battles take up less than a quarter of the frieze, and Trajan himself never appears on the battlefield.
Legionnaires - the backbone of Rome's war machine - are predominantly involved in building forts and bridges, clearing roads, and even harvesting crops. On top of that, you might think that they are also invulnerable - not a single fallen Roman soldier can be found on the entire column!
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Some scenes remain unsolved. Why are the besieged Dacians reaching for the bowl? To take poison and thus avoid the humiliation of the vanquished? Or do they just want to quench their thirst? How can one explain the shocking depiction of women tormenting half-naked, bound prisoners with torches? In the interpretation of the Italians, it is the wives of the barbarians who torture the captive Romans. But Ernest Oberlander-Tarnovianu, director of the National Historical Museum of Romania, has a different opinion: “Before us is definitely the captured Dacians, who are tormented by the angry widows of the killed Roman soldiers.” Apparently, what we see looking at the column depends on our sympathy - for the Romans or 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 the 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, he himself sent soldiers to plunder the border cities of the allies. In 101, Trajan went on a campaign against the unreliable Dacians. After almost two years of war, an armistice was concluded, but Decebalus soon violated it.
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The patience of the Romans ran out. During the second invasion, in 105, Trajan did not stand on ceremony - just look at the scenes depicting the plunder of Sarmisegetuza. “The campaigns were brutal and destructive,” says Roberto Meneghini, an Italian archaeologist and excavation leader at Trajan's Forum. - See how the Romans fight, holding severed heads with their teeth by the hair. War is war. The Roman legionaries had a reputation for being fierce and ruthless."
But as soon as the Dacians were defeated, Roman sculptors took over. Trajan's Forum was decorated with dozens of statues of stately, bearded Dacian warriors - a proud marble army in the 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 dak could have come to see the column,” says Meneghini. "The monument was intended for Roman citizens and embodied the power of an imperial machine capable of conquering such a valiant and warlike people."
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Trajan's Column can be considered a model of propaganda - but, according to archaeologists, there is some truth in its stone chronicle. The newest excavations on the territory of ancient Dacia, including the ruins of Sarmisegetuza, bring more and more discoveries. The portrait of a civilization that has stepped over the "barbarian" stage of development is drawn in more and more detail, despite the contemptuous epithets of the Romans.
The Dacians had no written language, and all our knowledge of their culture passed through the filter of Roman sources. Numerous finds indicate that Dacia reigned over the surrounding lands for more than one hundred years, collecting tribute from its neighbors. Knowing a lot about blacksmithing, Dacian prospectors mined ore and smelted iron, and gold miners washed gold. Finely crafted jewelry and weapons were the culmination of the creation of skilled craftsmen.
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Sarmisegetuza was the political and spiritual capital of Dacia. Its ruins rest high in the mountains in the heart of Romania. The city was separated from Rome by 1600 kilometers - Trajan's army marched here for more than a month. Today's visitors have to make their way along a dirt road pitted with potholes through the very inaccessible valley that blocked Trajan's path.
The ruins of Sarmisegetuza sank in the thicket of tall beeches. Even on a hot day, cool shadows creep across the ground. A wide paved road leads from the thick, half-buried fortress walls to a spacious clearing.
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This green oasis - a terrace carved into the rock - was the religious center of Dacia. 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 discs - the holy of holies of the Dacian universe.
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For the past six years, Romanian archaeologist Gelu Florea of the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj has spent the summer months digging in Sarmizegetuz. The cleared ruins, as well as items confiscated from treasure hunters, testify that military technologies penetrated here from Rome, and the influence of Greece - architectural and artistic - is felt. “It's amazing how cosmopolitan they were so high 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 nearly 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 billets and dozens of anvils. Apparently, the city was the center of metal production, supplying other Dacian settlements with weapons and tools in exchange for gold and grain.
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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, flavored with grains of mica, sparkles in the sun. A few tourists are talking in an undertone.
It is difficult to imagine what kind of ceremony took place in this city - and what a terrible fate befell its inhabitants. Puffs of smoke and shrill screams, robberies and massacres, suicides and panic, depicted on the reliefs of Trajan's column, emerge in the imagination.
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“The Romans swept away everything in their path,” says Florea. - There is no stone left of the fortress. They wanted to demonstrate their power: look, we have forces, means, we are the masters here."
The fall of Sarmisegetuza was followed by the destruction of the main temples and sanctuaries of Dacia. Then the Romans took up other cities in the Dacian kingdom. One of the reliefs at the very top of the column represents a bloody denouement - the village is on fire, the inhabitants flee, and only goats and cows wander around the devastated province.
Scientists believe that the two wars have claimed 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.
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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 canopy of an oak tree, Dak brings a long curved sword to his own throat.
“His head was taken to Rome,” wrote the Roman historian Cassius Dion a century later. "So Dacia became subject to the Romans."
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And now the unofficial version: the Trojan Column, as it turned out, was erected not earlier, but even later than the second half of the 13th century. The figures of people depicted on it are a story about the well-known Trojan War, which took place in the 13th century, i.e. the famous Crusades - this is what the construction masters actually depict. This is not just another guess, there are several weighty arguments that cannot refute this assumption in any way.
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Irrefutable facts about the emergence 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. Interesting facts came to light. Here are some of them.
1) It is strange that on the column itself there is NOT ANY INSCRIPTION, not a single name is mentioned, not a single name. The only inscription is only on the plinth, fig.8.15, fig.8.16. By the way, it is curious to compare the state of the socle in the 19th century with its appearance in the 20th century, fig. 8.17. It can be seen that in the 20th century, the basement was significantly restored. The fact that there are no inscriptions on the column itself turns the ribbon of images, spiraling around the column from top to bottom, Fig. 8.18, into a long row of "war pictures". Battles, truces, religious rituals, fires, the capture of cities, lines of prisoners, etc. In particular, the statement by historians that some of the figures depict 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 of the bas-reliefs on it were cast of concrete "marbled", fig. 8.19. Areas are visible where the skin "peels 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 not yet completely solidified surface of the column (or panels). Perhaps the technique was mixed: concrete castings were intertwined with fragments of natural marble with carvings. Trajan's column could have been made in the era of the Reformation, but at the same time, they probably relied on some old images.
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3) Apparently, the bas-reliefs of Trajan's column really followed some old tradition. This is indicated by the following vivid 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 "antique, pagan" weapons of soldiers is absolutely impossible. But this is exactly how it should be in our reconstruction. To cite just a few of the many examples, in Figure 8.22 a crescent moon is visible at the top of the shield. In Figure 8.23, two crescents are depicted on the shield in the center and the shield on the right. In addition, stars are depicted on another right shield. In the center of Figure 8.24 we see four shields at once, which depict crescents with stars. On the shield to the right are Christian crosses. In Figure 8.25, the crescent moon is visible on the shield in the center and the shield on the lower right. See also figure 8.26, figure 8. Figure 27, Figure 8.28, Figure 8.29, Figure 8.30, Figure 8.31, Figure 8.32.
Apparently, crescents with stars and Christian crosses on Trajan's column have attracted the attention of modern historians. And they strongly "strained them", since they indicated contradictions within the Scaligerian version. We found a way out: stubbornly (very stubbornly) to keep silent about this fact. In any case, in the literature we know about Trajan's Column, there is complete silence on this topic.
4) It is also curious that Trajan's column has been badly damaged over the past hundred years. A comparison of 19th century photographs with 20th century photographs clearly shows that the images have noticeably deteriorated. There are a lot of chinks, caverns, Fig. 8.33, Fig. 8.34, as well as cracks that are not present in the old photographs given in [1069: 1]. This remark is consistent with our assertion that Trajan's Column is by no means as ancient as we are being led to believe today. She is probably not at all about 1800 years old, and not 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 grown.
OUTPUT. The famous Trajan's column was made in the epoch of the XVI-XVII centuries based on some old images that have not come down to us. Devoted, most likely, to the famous Trojan War of the 13th century, that is, the Crusades to Tsar-Grad and the victory of Russia-Horde with its allies.
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