This historical column was erected at Rome by the emperor Trajan to
commemorate his victories over the Dacians, and is considered the
masterpiece of the splendid monuments of art elevated by that emperor in
the Roman capital. Its celebrity is chiefly owing to the beautifully
wrought bass-reliefs, containing about two thousand figures, with which
it is ornamented. It stands in the middle of a square, to form which, a
hill, one hundred and forty feet in hight, was leveled; and was
intended, as appears by the inscription on its base, both as a tomb for
the emperor, and to display the hight of the hill, which had thus with
incredible labor, been reduced to a plane surface. It was erected in the
year 114 of the Christian era; and the emperor Constantine, two
centuries and a half afterward, regarded it as the most magnificent
structure by which Rome was even at that time embellished. This pillar
is built of white marble, its base consisting of twelve stones of
enormous size, being raised on a socle, or foot of eight steps; and
within it is a staircase illuminated by forty-four windows. Its hight,
equaling that of the hill which had been leveled, to give place to the
large square called the _Forum Romanum_, is one hundred and forty feet,
being thirty-five feet less elevated than the Antonine column.