The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

3. Form & Function

55 chapter three FORM & FUNCTION O ne of the most common expressions used by the Romans to describe the Column of Marcus Aurelius was columna cochlis: “snail column.” This appears not just in one obscure author, but in many sources over centuries. Its meaning was obviously clear to the Romans but is, at first glance at least, extremely obscure to us. What kind of a monument was the Column of Marcus Aurelius, exactly? None of the words the Romans used to describe it—including “snail column”—seem to reflect the overwhelming modern interest in the historical frieze that adorns its exterior. But these expressions hold our only genuine clues as to how the column was viewed by its contemporaries. The focus of this chapter is deliberately restricted to one goal: to understand how the ancient Romans themselves understood the monument. What kind of a structure, in their minds, was the Column of Marcus Aurelius? The Romans had a tradition, if an inconsistent one, of erecting monumental columns topped by statues dating back at least to the fourth century B.C.1 Just how great a debt the Romans owed to the Greeks for this tradition is debatable, but it seems that even the Greeks themselves did not begin placing portrait statues atop columns before the fourth century.2 The earliest such monument in Rome appears to have been a column and statue erected to Gaius Maenius, consul in 338 B.C., for his victory over the Latins.3 In the third century B.C. there was an important development: the first rostral columns, columnae rostratae, a type of columnar monument particularly intended to honor the victor in a naval battle.The name comes from the bronze rams—rostra—of captured enemy ships that were fixed to the column; the first seems to have been erected in honor of Gaius Diulius in 260 B.C.4 More followed: a rostral column set up on the Capitol to honor Marcus Aemilius Paulus, also in the third century, a similar monument to honor Octavian after his victory over Sextus Pompey in 36 B.C.5 Another rostral column appears on coins of Vespasian and Titus (fig. 3.1), although 56 · FORM & FUNCTION it is unclear whether this represents a new monument or is merely a repetition of a numismatic type from the time of Augustus.6 So the honorary column, and especially the rostral column surmounted by a statue, was by the end of the first century A.D. an established if rare honor for a Roman military victor. Such a column served as more than an exalted statue base: it was also often used as a support on which to display symbols of victory: spoils taken from the enemy, the very prows of his warships. A Novel Forerunner: The Column of Trajan Against the background of the rostral column, the form of the next major columnar monument—the Column of Trajan (fig. 3.2)—is not entirely startling . This was erected by the Senate and the people to honor the emperor for his two victories over the Dacians achieved in A.D. 102 and 105; its construction was completed and the column dedicated by the year 113.7 Trajan’s Column is not a rostral column, but there are strong conceptual similarities . The pedestal of Trajan’s Column was covered with carvings depicting armor and weapons taken from the Dacians, bringing to mind the enemy spoils that would be heaped at the bottom of a battlefield trophy. The idea behind this collection of arms is very similar to that behind the display of captured bronze rams on a columna rostrata; only on Trajan’s Column sculpted versions of captured arms take the place of the originals. As ships’ rams were eminently appropriate on a monument meant to honor a naval victor, so armor, weapons, and military standards were perfectly suited to honor a general who won his campaigns on land. The designer of the column chose the pedestal rather than the column shaft for this display because he had a greater purpose in mind for the latter. This was to display images of Trajan’s victorious campaigns, making clear to the viewer that the FIGURE 3.1. Rostral column on a denarius of Vespasian. Mattingly 1923–62, Vespasian 253. Copyright Trustees of the British Museum. FORM & FUNCTION · 57 spoils on the pedestal were not won in a single battle but...