The column which made history, defied gravity, and warped space-time

Posted by Giovanni on 2.16.18 in Ancient Rome

One of the most iconic monuments of all time was erected by emperor Trajan; it is now better known as “Trajan’s Column”. As columns go, it defines the very essence of defying gravity, transforming its purpose into a historical artifact, a vehicle of political propaganda,  a pedestal for a statue and much more (not to mention housing for pigeons).

Give it a minute’s thought and you will be in wonder as you realise that perhaps there’s more to it than just another Roman architectural monument.

Trajan’s column made history because:

• It was a monument which commemorated Emperor Trajan and his victory over the Dacians: A region spreading across Romania, Moldovia, Hungary, and Poland. Seen nowadays this is just one facet of this Roman column’s existence.
• Built in the Roman forum (actually it is part of the Imperial Forum)
•  Trajan had had to employ the greatest architects and engineers of the time to flatten out a very large hill so as to achieve a useful construction area for his forum. The height of the column denoted the height of the hill which had been removed.
• The column’s spiral architecture was inspired by the construction of a scroll narrating a story over time – the full campaign from beginning to end, not just the battles. Cool.
• True to it’s literary inspiration it was located in the centre of Trajan’s library it’s story being roughly legible both as a spiral as well as vertically from a single vantage point.
  • Astrophysicists might consider the parallels with Erik Verlinde’s theories of gravity being a resulting phenomenon of the entropy (information) associated with the position of material bodies… hmmm. That’s the beauty of classical architecture for you!
• It was of such a size – ~4m wide and 40m meters in height, plus the height of the statue above – that you could walk up the inside. Being placed within the surrounding library buildings you could also walk up the outside and it’s images could be read by people on the 3 floors of Greek and Latin library buildings either side of the column.
• It’s form was a truly Roman invention. An eclectic transformation of a column into a quintessential Roman column and unique element of Roman architecture.
• The sculpted lettering on the column’s pedestal is widely regarded by lovers and professionals of Font and Type as the true representation of ancient Roman lettering. A version of this was made into ‘Trajan’ typeface at the beginning of the 20th century, surprise surprise. 

So there we have it:

A column which surpassed the very meaning of column, located in a library, used a typeface which defined fonts for the next 2000 years and was structured to deliver a (commemorative) message irrespective of your position in space and time. Wow. A veritable time machine.

This makes us consider the extent to which the Romans used architecture to create monuments which linked both space and time at a grand scale.  Other easy examples of “Roman architectural spacetime” include

• Augustus’s Ara Pacis with its sun dial clock
• Hadrian’s transformation of the Pantheon