Trajan's Column
A 30-meter marble scroll: the Dacian Wars carved to spiral 23 times up the shaft.
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One of the most detailed surviving picture-records of the Roman army — 155 scenes, 2,662 figures, Trajan himself 58 times. Pope Sixtus V crowned it with a bronze St Peter on 4 December 1587, still standing; the original statue of Trajan vanished in the Middle Ages.
What to look for
- The carved band widens from about 1m at the base to 1.2m near the top.
- The bronze figure on top is St Peter (placed by Sixtus V in 1587), not Trajan — whose ashes once sat in golden urns inside the square base.
- The base inscription's Roman square capitals, which the 1989 'Trajan' typeface is based on; below them, carved heaps of captured Dacian weapons.
The frieze is hard to read from the ground now that the flanking Greek and Latin libraries are gone — bring binoculars. It stands in Trajan's Forum.
Trajan's Column is one of 40 sights worth the detour in Rome, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Rome pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Rome
- Vatican CityThe world's smallest sovereign state fits in 44 hectares — you cross its border by stepping over a white line.
- ColosseumAround 50,000 Romans packed this stone oval to watch spectacles staged over a two-level warren of cages beneath the arena floor.
- St. Peter's BasilicaThe world's largest church, built directly over the grave believed to hold St. Peter's bones.
- Sistine ChapelMichelangelo painted the ceiling standing up, not on his back — and cardinals still elect the pope in this room.
- PantheonA 1,900-year-old concrete dome with a hole punched in the top — when it rains in Rome, it rains inside too.
- Stadio OlimpicoOne 70,634-seat bowl, two cross-town tenants: AS Roma and SS Lazio both play here.