Relief: Heads of Roman Soldiers, Dacians, and Partians

Trajan's Column is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate. It is located in Trajan's Forum, built near the Quirinal Hill, north of the Roman Forum. Completed in AD 113, the freestanding column is most famous for its spiral bas relief, which artistically describes the epic wars between the Romans and Dacians (101–102 and 105–106). Its design has inspired numerous victory columns, both ancient and modern. The relief portrays Trajan's two victorious military campaigns against the Dacians. Scenes of battle are very much a minority on the column, instead it emphasizes images of orderly soldiers carrying out ceremony and construction. The relief is a collection of some of the soldiers depicted. This was potentially to focus on the detail of the column. There are also the heads of Dacians and Partians, and the head of a river god, who is a personification of the Danube river. Plaster casts of the relief were taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After a century of acid pollution, they are now more legible in some details than the original, and the way they are displayed offers students a closer look at the reliefs than at the original site.