View Page: Trajan's Column and Forum: Immortality and Memory

	Trajan's Column and Forum: Immortality and Memory
	written by shivali / 09.06.2005

Section Two

2 of 7

Description

http://www.arthistory.upenn.edu/smr04/101910/Slide8.27.jpg

Trajan's Forum

Trajan's Forum include the Basilica, the Piazza, two libraries, the Temple of Trajan, and the Trajan's Column (upper). The grandeur of the interior of the Basilica includeds its marble floors and walls (lower).

An ancient Roman would enter the Forum and the large Piazza through an elegant archway. The Piazza was eighty meters by a hundred and twenty meters; it could fit the entire Forum of Augustus. The Piazza was the center of ceremony and business. In the center of the Piazza stood an equestrian statue of Trajan which is currently being excavated. The horse and Trajan alone are rumored to be over twelve meters tall! Beyond the Piazza was Trajan’s Market, which is well-preserved and compared to the rest of the Forum stands as solid brick-work. The market was the equivalent to the modern shopping mall, rich with spices and clothes for sale. Moving passed the Piazza was the Basilica Ulpia. The Basilica had marble floors and walls and was sheltered by a bronze-tiled roof. It functioned as the center for legal affairs as well as a location to display the spoils of the war. Along the interior were statues of Dacians, displaying not only their integration into the Empire, but also their subjugation to the might of the Roman military. After moving through the Basilica was an opening into a small courtyard which contained the Column of Trajan, two libraries, and Temple of Divine Trajan which was built by Hadrian, Trajan’s successor, after his death. East and west of the Column are the Greek and Latin libraries, known together as the Bibliotheca Ulpia. The Column of Trajan itself stands approximately forty-four meters tall and is over three meters in diameter. It was designed by Apollodrus and is made from eighteen solid blocks of marble imported from the Greek island of Paros. Careful construction obscures the joints between the blocks of marble, though the sections are visible from the interior. On the interior is a staircase leading to the upper viewing platform. On the exterior, the bands that outline the history of the Dacian War gradually increase in height from .9 meters to 1.25 meters at the top. The upper carving of the Column are difficult to see from the ground, although balconies in the libraries planking the Column could have been used a viewing stations. When the Column was originally built, color was added with metal accessories. The Column presently stands as a white marble monolith with only ruins representing the remainder of the Forum.

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