t Trajan’s Column topped with a statue of St Peter
t Trajan’s Column topped with a statue of St Peter
This elegant marble column was inaugurated by Trajan in AD 113, and celebrates his two campaigns in Dacia (Romania) in AD 101–3 and AD 107–8. The column, base and pedestal are 40 m (131 ft) tall – precisely the same height as the spur of Quirinal Hill excavated to make room for Trajan’s Forum.
Spiralling up the column are minutely detailed scenes from the campaigns. The column is pierced with small windows to illuminate its internal spiral staircase (closed to the public).
When Trajan died in AD 117 his ashes were placed in a golden urn in the hollow base of the column. The column’s survival was largely due to the intervention of Pope Gregory the Great (reigned 590–604). He was so moved by a relief of Trajan helping a woman whose son had been killed that he begged God to release the emperor’s soul from hell. God duly appeared to the pope to say that Trajan had been rescued, but asked him not to pray for the souls of any more pagans.
Legend has it that when Trajan’s ashes were exhumed his skull and tongue were not only intact, but his tongue told of his release from hell. The land around the column was then declared sacred and the column was spared. In 1587, the statue of Trajan atop the column was replaced with one of St Peter.
Insider Tip
At Palazzo Valentini there are screenings of a brilliant animation of the bas-reliefs of Trajan’s Column. Be sure to book in advance.
During maintenance work in the basement of Palazzo Valentini in 2005, the remains of two houses belonging to a leading patrician family of Imperial ancient Rome were discovered. Elegant living rooms, courtyards, a kitchen and a private baths complex were revealed, complete with traces of their elaborate original decorations – mosaics, frescoes and coloured marbles.
Using digital technology, light and sound effects, film and projections, the houses have been “reconstructed”, creating a virtual-reality museum. There are tours in English and Italian.
The Forum of Nerva was begun by his predecessor, Domitian, and completed in AD 97. Little more than a long corridor with a colonnade along the sides and a Temple of Minerva at one end, it was also known as the Forum Transitorium because it lay between the Forum of Peace, built by Vespasian in AD 70, and the Forum of Augustus. Vespasian’s forum is almost completely covered by Via dei Fori Imperiali, as is much of the Forum of Nerva. Excavations have unearthed shops and taverns, but only part of the forum can be seen.
t The remains of the Forum of Caesar, the first of Rome’s Imperial fora
The first of Rome’s Imperial fora was built by Julius Caesar. He spent a fortune buying up and demolishing houses on the site. Pride of place went to a temple dedicated in 46 BC to the goddess Venus Genetrix, from whom Caesar claimed descent. The temple contained statues of Caesar and Cleopatra as well as of Venus. All that remains is a platform and three Corinthian columns. The forum was enclosed by a double colonnade sheltering a row of shops, but this burned down in AD 80 and was rebuilt by Domitian and Trajan.
Some parts are visible from above in Via dei Fori Imperiali.
The Forum of Augustus was built to celebrate Augustus’s victory over Julius Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius, at the Battle of Philippi in 41 BC. The temple in its centre was dedicated to Mars the Avenger. The forum stretched from a high wall at the foot of the sleazy Suburra quarter to the edge of the Forum of Caesar. At least half of it is now concealed below Mussolini’s Via dei Fori Imperiali. The temple is easily identified, with its cracked steps and four Corinthian columns. Originally it had a statue of Mars which looked very like Augustus.
Below the 16th-century church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami (St Joseph of the Carpenters) is a dank dungeon in which, according to Christian legend, St Peter was imprisoned. He is said to have caused a spring to bubble up into the cell, using the water to baptize his guards. The prison was in an old cistern with access to the city’s main sewer (the Cloaca Maxima). The lower cell was used for executions and bodies were thrown into the sewer. The Gaulish leader Vercingetorix, defeated by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, was executed here.
This arch was dedicated in AD 315 to mark Constantine’s victory three years before over his co-emperor, Maxentius. Constantine claimed he owed his victory to a vision of Christ, but there is nothing Christian about the arch – most of the medallions, reliefs and statues were scavenged from earlier monuments. Inside the arch are reliefs of Trajan’s victory over the Dacians, probably by the same artist who worked on Trajan’s Column.