A stone’s throw from the Forum of Nerva, about which I spoke last time, is one of the finest, most innovative, and indeed largest examples of Roman art. Trajan’s Column is also a spectacularly sophisticated piece of public messaging. It commemorates Trajan’s victory in Dacia (modern-day Romania) over the fearsome king Decebalus and his allies, but also alludes to engineering triumph and the earthworks which led to its construction. Carved in exquisite relief from marble quarried in the Apuan Alps to advertise the reign of arguably the most successful of all of Rome’s emperors, Trajan’s Column quite literally moved mountains.
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