Trajan’s Column stands in Rome, where it was completed in the year 113 CE, after being commissioned by the Roman Senate to commemorate Emperor Trajan’s victories in what came to be known as the Dacian wars. Since its construction, the column has become a world famous landmark, mainly on account of the detailed and spiraling frieze, which depicts events that happened throughout Trajan’s conquests. While triumphal columns were a common monument type in the Roman Empire, the detail and style of Trajan’s Column make it a somewhat unique commemorative structure. The fact that such a monument exists in a modern city raises questions about how the intended audience viewed and thought about the column, and how the modern audience does the same. As the city around it changes, surely also must the views and perceptions of the column by the inhabitants of that city. Did the Roman Empire have such a nationalistic and patriotic mindset that they took the events depicted on the column as the gospel truth, or were they more wary of the messages the government was working hard to project on them, and view the column as simply a piece of propaganda? This essay will assert that Trajan’s Column from its construction up to modernity has been considered by Roman’s not to be an accurate historical depiction, but rather an assertion of empirical power, though the way in which that message has been received has varied and evolved over time.
The Dacian wars began because of both the military threat that the Dacian’s posed, and the ever expanding Roman Empire’s need for conquest. Two wars were waged over five years, at the end of which, the Roman Empire expanded to its furthest boundaries. Upon claiming victory, Trajan also declared one hundred twenty three days of celebration, shortly after which, the Senate commissioned that Trajan’s Column be erected. Monuments have commonly been used throughout history as propaganda pieces that attempt to assert power, legitimacy, or glory. This is especially true when it comes to the Roman Empire, which has many examples of using monuments as an expression of political power, such as with the famous examples of the Augustus Prima Porta or the Altar of Augustan Peace. Generally, the erection of these monuments simultaneously creates interest and inspires awe in the mind of the viewer, with the aim being to garner support for past and future attempts for the political elite to preserve their power both abroad and domestically. Trajan’s Column is no different, its intent being first to paint the emperor Trajan in the best possible light, and the second to continue public support of waging wars in the name of expanding empire. Furthering this assertion, Penelope Davies points out in her essay, that the spiral frieze which requires viewers to walk around the column repeatedly and look up at it was likely designed with the intention of keeping viewers captivated by the column for long periods of time, therefore increasing the influence that it had over public opinion. Much like with other monument that are gifts of the government, the column was received well, and had the effect of bolstering Roman morale and patriotism. The question still remains, however, did Roman citizens at the time of the column’s erection believe the events shown on the column were all entirely true, or did the understand that the column, as a piece of propaganda, may have taken some liberties with how it represented the valor of their emperor? While Roman citizens were sure to have been energized by the successes that they had in war and the vast wealth that it brought to the Empire, they likely would have been aware that their government sometimes tried to manipulate the truth as a way of maintaining influence over the citizens. This presents a complicated and nuanced view of how Roman citizens’s, the intended audience of Trajan’s Column, thought about it’s intended message. That is, that on the whole it is likely that most Roman citizens agreed with its message of empire and conquest, while still being aware that the information being presented was coming from what may have been considered an unreliable source, their own government. While at first glance this relationship may seem to be paradoxical, it is demonstrative of a significant idea, that the views and perceptions of intended audience of a piece of art may be affected by their existing relationship with the artist or the patron.
Nearly four hundred years after Trajan’s column was finished, the Western Roman Empire fell to Barbarian forces. This was after the Emperor Constantine had already moved the capitol of the Empire to Constantinople, after his conversion to Christianity. In the centuries that followed, a few different peoples and political regimes would come to rule Rome, all of which Trajan’s Column survived. Perhaps the most telling and notable example of how changing political and social structures force new interactions with art and monumental celebration came during the Italian Renaissance, when Christianity had become the most significant and influential ruling body not just in Italy, but in all of Europe. There are accounts of Trajan’s letters which show that he was anti-Christian, as he wrote a letter to Pliny in which, referring to Christians, he said, “These people are not to be sought for; but if they be accused and convicted, they are to be punished; but with this caution, that he who denies himself to be a Christian, and makes it plain that he is not so by supplicating to our gods, although he had been so formerly, may be allowed pardon, upon his repentance.” Here, Trajan can be seen reacting quite harshly to the notion of Christians living under his rule. This rather strong condemnation of Christendom was not surprisingly considered to be incompatible with the Catholic influences that ruled Italy in the sixteenth century. In response to being made aware of Trajan’s views on Christianity, Pope Sixtus V made the decision to top the column with a statue of St. Peter, sculpted by Leonardo Sormani and Tommaso della Porta, thereby establishing the monument from there on out as a celebration of Christianity, rather than a refutation of it. The Christian practice of reutilizing pagan structures for new Christian functions was not unique to the column, and there are in fact many examples of pagan temples being transformed into churches, often through the use of spolia, which is the repurposing of old building materials for new structures. While the addition of the statue may appear to be a rather small change to the column, it carries with it a great deal of information about the context of the city in 1587, when the statue was added, in addition to informing modern observers how people of the Renaissance thought about and dealt with the views of antiquity that were incompatible with their own. Pope Sixtus V made the conscious choice to repurpose a monument that had been originally intended to preserve a power that worked in opposition to his own, that is, Trajan against Christianity. First is the fact that the statue of St. Peter now stands on top of the Column, symbolizing the supremacy of the church over any earthly rulers. He could have decided that a monument to such a man was simply incompatible with Christian rule and had it taken down, but instead he made the choice to add a statue of the Saint, and in doing so, changed the public perception of the monument to one that favored his own political interests. This choice reflects the power of monuments and public art to have influence over people and their ability to reinforce the legitimacy of established political and social power. This subtle change also reflects how as the context around a monument, such as Trajan’s Column, changes, so too does the perception of the monument and what it comes to signify.
A few hundred years later, in the early twentieth century, the political landscape of Italy drastically changed once again. Benito Mussolini began his rise to power, in which he would eventually become the dictator of Italy, and one of the most important figure of the second world war. Mussolini was a fascist, who believed in returning Italy back to the strength it formerly had under the Roman Empire. He seems to have had what may have been a bit of a fascination with the imagery and artifacts of the Empire, and he often used stylistic elements of Roman temples and monuments in his building projects. He once said,”By isolating the monuments of Ancient Rome the relation between the ancient Romans and the Italians is made more beautiful and suggestive.” It is clear that visual representation of power and engaging with the Roman classical tradition were both ideas that were often of Mussolini’s mind. By making it a point to establish parallels between the Roman Empire, and the fascist Italian government, Mussolini was able to use the long established tradition of the Roman’s, along with the many cultural artifacts that still remained in Italy, to justify the enterprise and expansion of Italy. Because Italy was both home of the Roman Empire and Christianity, Mussolini thought that it was natural that Italy should have the right to once again rise to being the world’s main power. Of Rome, he exclaims, “It has seen in the course of centuries imperial armies defeated under its walls. It has witnessed the decay of the strong and the rise of universal waves of civilization and of thought. Rome, the coveted goal of princes and leaders, the universal city, heir to the old empire and the power of Christianity!” He goes on to claim that Rome “is destined to become once more the city which directs the civilization of the whole of Western Europe.” What these quotations show is that Mussolini was very much willing to, and set out to exploit the tradition and cultural capital that existed in Italy as a means of legitimizing his rise to power along with his claims of Italian supremacy. His claims that the monuments of Rome related the Italian people that lived under his rule with the citizens of the Roman Empire further shows the effects that monuments have on power, and how art can be used to further and strengthen established political power.