Relationship Between Art And Text

Explored through three Trajanic monuments: the Arch of Trajan at Beneventum, the Column of
Trajan, and the Great Trajanic Frieze.

• Column of Trajan
◦ triumphal column on Trajan's Forum in Rome, commemorating Trajan's victory in the
Dacian Wars (101–102 AD and 105–106 AD)
◦ spiral relief artistically describes the epic wars between the Romans and Dacians
◦ scenes of imperial address, sacrifice, and the army setting out on campaign are shown,
while scenes of battle are very much a minority on the column, instead, emphasizing
images of orderly soldiers carrying out ceremony and construction. This is perhaps to
suggest minimal collateral damage
◦ Trajan is depicted realistically in the Veristic style, and makes 59 appearances among his
troops. The focus on Trajan as the heroic protagonist is central. The portrayal of the
Roman army as kinder and gentler may also be because it aids in Trajan's image as a
man with the virtues of "justice, clemency, moderation, and restraint”
◦ Unclear whether the Column was meant to serve a commemorative function or as a
propaganda piece.
▪ Traditional scholarship held that the Column was a glorifying monument, upholding
Trajan as Rome's great emperor.
▪ Others argue that because it was placed between 2 great libraries built by Trajan, and
since the spiral kept going around and around to the top, it would have been difficult
for people to view the relief.
▪ However, it was extremely challenging to construct, and so it is unlikely that it
would have been placed in the Forum with the intentions of being hidden or out of
plain sight

• Arch of Trajan at Beneventum

◦ triumphal arch in Benevento, southern Italy, erected in honour of Trajan, across the Via
Appia, at the point where it enters the city
◦ two relief panels, one depicted the Homage of the divinities of the province's
countryside, and the other the Founding of provincial colonies
◦ on the inner side, on the left, was a depiction of Trajan welcomed by the Capitoline Triad
and, on the right, Trajan in the Forum Boarium
◦ The frieze on the entablature portrays Trajan's triumphal procession after his victory
over Dacia. Two panels, one above the other, show scenes and allegories of imperial
activities (Trajan's formal arrival at Rome, the concession of Roman citizenship to the
auxiliaries, Trajan welcomed by the Senate, the Roman People and the Equestrian order,
and others)

• Great Trajanic Frieze

◦ part of the Arch of Constantine, which was a collage of prev emperors' sculpture, namely
 Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius
◦ The two inner central arch reliefs and the upper panel on each side of the arch are part of
the Great Trajanic Frieze which was removed from the Basilica Ulpia in Trajan’s Forum.
The first of the two frieze panels within the central arch depicts Trajan on campaign
riding a horse and charging barbarians but with the head re-worked to look more like
Constantine
◦ these reliefs inside the arch, along with two large panels decorating the attic, came from
a large frieze celebrating the Dacian victory. The panels on the attic show scenes from
Trajan's Dacian Wars. The original place of this frieze was either the Forum of Trajan, or
the barracks of the emperor's horse guard on the Caelius.

Pliny the Younger's Panegyricus

• panegyric on Trajan to express his gratitude to the emperor, who had recently appointed him
consul
• claims Trajan was divinely chosen by Jupiter: “we should all feel that our prince was chosen
by divine direction. For he was not found out by the secret power of fate, but by the open
manifestation of Jupiter’s will”
• “let us not address him with the flattering title of a god or divinity; for we speak not of a
tyrant, but of a fellow citizen; not of a master, but of a father. He boasts that he is one of us;
nor does he forget that he is only a man, though the ruler of men.”
• says Trajan is very modest and wouldn't want Pliny and others praising him too much
• “I must comply with the will of the senate, which has decreed for the public advantage that
the consul, by way of an address of thanks, shall remind good princes of what they have
done”
◦ similar function to public monuments
• “There has been no prince in the past whose virtues have not been tarnished by vices. But
our prince has obtained unprecedented praise and glory”
◦ emperor's also competed with predecessors by building bigger and better monuments
• “you were a general of the old stamp—one of those who had earned their title on fields
heaped high with slaughter, or on seas resounding with the shouts of victory.”
◦ promotes same idea of soldier emperor as monuments
• “you allow the men whom you have made consuls to act with consular power. You offer no
dangers, no causes of fear, to swerve the consuls from their duty”

Torelli, M. (1997), "Ex his castra, ex his tribus replebuntur': The marble panegyric on the Arch of
Trajan at Beneventum', Studies in the History of Art 49: 144-77.
• the panels inside the arch summarize the reason for its dedication
◦ In the south panel, the emperor, with a scroll in his hand (a clear allusion to the
publication of the lex that instituted the alimenta) and surrounded by lictors, is
participating in the distribution of the alimenta
◦ The north panel of the passageway depicts a sacrifice, with Trajan and the Genius
 Senatus (the personif of the Senate). This scene celebrates the religious sanction of the
lex pertinent to the alimenta, a necessary confirmation of the administrative measure
illustrated on the other panel in the passageway. Shows the customary association of a
sacred act and a political act, where the civil action of the magistrate – in this case the
institution of the alimenta – had to be validated by a religious rite
◦ This is the meaning of the two scenes, essential for the understanding of the sculptural
program: designed to celebrate the institutio alimentaria, and not, as previous
commentators have argued, intended as generic praise of imperial virtue or a review of
Trajan's military and civil career
• country side – part of arch facing the countryside:
• lower pair of panels
◦ First pair shows countryside landscape with trees in background – shows the wild. The
emperor, in civilian dress, welcomes a group of sentries from the wild, evidently
members of auxiliary cohorts.
◦ In the second pair, the emperor, again and significantly in civilian dress, is clasping the
right hand of a barbarian chief, thus sanctioning a pact in the eyes of Jupiter armed with
a thunderbolt. In his left hand the emperor holds a scroll, in which we can possibly
recognize the text of the pact, the bond now being formulated
◦ The meaning of this pair of panels is clear: the consolidation of the boundaries, of all the
borders of the empire, as is demonstrated by the generic aspect of the barbarians on the
panel
• middle pair of panels
◦ The panel to the right depicts a military action in peaceful territory. Trajan, followed by
the usual retinue of lictors, is consigning a boy and girl to a group of divinities. Nearby
are several deities: from right to left, an unknown goddess (possibly Providentia),
Fortuna, Mars, and, last, the personification of a colony. Trajan's provisions promoted
the growth of the Italic off-spring, the future promise of Fortuna and Abundantia, as they
were promised to Mars (the army). Objectives of the alimenta included the increase of
the future draft for the army and the foundations of veteran colonies throughout the
empire
◦ In the left panel, Trajan is receiving two new soldiers for enrollment, one of which is
from provincial or low-class origin, indicated by his dress
◦ the meaning is clear: from the event celebrated in the panel to the right, the growth of the
children (the result of the institutio alimentaria), which insures the foundation of
military colonies (the divinities and the personifications), brings forth an abundance for
the military draft shown at the center of the panel to the left
• city side – other side of the arch:
• the attic panels
◦ pair of panels on the attic
◦ the right panel shows Trajan lifting up the kneeling figure of Italy, flanked by the
personifications of a river ( either the Varus or Arsia) and a sea (the Tyrrhenian or the
Adriatic), marking the traditional boundaries of Italy. Beyond, one sees the usual forest
landscape which stands for the wild, and arriving from there are some men in togas
(Roman citizens), introduced by men in tunics. The former are the novicives, introduced
by their fathers (the tunicati), who have come from the provinces to repopulate derelict
 Italy
◦ in the left panel, Trajan stands among several deities: Silvanus, Diana, Ceres, Bacchus,
and possibly Libera. Such a divine assembly can have only one meaning, the prosperity
of agricultural activity, here clearly divided into spheres connected with the woods (the
forest culture of Silvanus, and the game of Diana), and agrarian activity (associated with
plowed fields of Ceres and Libera, and the viticulture of Bacchus). Clearly this
prosperity was the main objective of Trajan's measures.
• The plan was two-fold: first, the repopulation of Italy with new citizens brought from new
colonies, second, a restoration of the primary economic activity, agriculture.
◦ One begins with the strengthening of the borders of the empire through agreements with
barbarian tribes and the addition of auxiliary troops, then proceeds across the territory of
the empire, where the distribution of the alimenta to the Italian pueri brings about the
increase in the colonial foundations and in the military enrollments, and finally one
concludes in the heart of Italy, where new citizens arrive from afar and where the divine
protectors of agriculture promise a similar resurrection
• lower pair of panels
◦ the panel on the right depicts Trajan's arrival to Rome, making an ingressus (entering).
◦ In the left panel, four figures await the emperor; the Genius populi Romani, the Genius
Senatus, the Genius municipiorum and the Genius ordinis equestris, welcoming the
emperor.
• middle pair of panels
◦ the pairs show the result of the emperor's adventus (arrival), the distribution of money.
◦ The two panels should also be read together because they attempt to show that the corn
distributions (provisions) were connected with the citizens' abundance, and the
foundation of colony of the Roman citizens, which in turn was the guarantee for the
eternity of the govt, and thus also embodiment of the Augustan Peace. In this manner the
cycle initiated in the first panels on the opposite pillar is completed: from the border
security to the military security and then to the security of Italy, while the presence at
Rome of the emperor (the adventus (arrival) of the emperor) guarantees the corn
provisions, which in turn gives rise to the citizens' abundance, and thus, with a perfect
circularity of the ideological construction, to the security of the govt
• Attic Panels
◦ The conclusion of the cycle is Trajan's triumphus-consecratio, an event recorded in the
attic panels. In the right panel, Trajan is welcomed with a gesture of postulatio by the
personification of Rome and probably by the consular couple
◦ A key allegorical figure in the scene is the bearded man with a cuirass, acting as a
mediator between the emperor and the group of Roma and consuls – it's Romulus-
Quirinus
◦ Romulus, like other divine images of symbolic meaning in many of the arch's panels,
expresses in concrete form an allegorical and ideological message. Here the message is
the personal apotheosis of Trajan and the collective palingenesis ((Rebirth)) of the res
publica
◦ the next panel um. In the foreground are the Capitoline triad, Jupiter flanked by Minerva
and Juno. In a particularly pregnant gesture, Jupiter offers his thunderbolt to Trajan. The
emperor is therefore celebrating his triumphus: he will end his triumphal procession at
 the Capitol, a goal openly symbolized by the Capitoline triad, in addition, in the guise of
triumphator, he is being assimilated with Jupiter
◦ behind the Capitoline triad, is another group of gods: Hercules, Liber-Bacchus and
Ceres.
▪ Hercules, the hero exploited by Trajanic propaganda and not without allusion to the
Spanish Hercules Gaditanus, is the very symbol of apotheosis of a mortal man
distinguished by innumerable deeds as a savior of the world
▪ Of the other three divinities, the two belonging to the Aventine triad – Liber and
Ceres – express the importance of agrarian culture within the urbs
▪ Mercury is also the god of the market, another important plebeian activity along with
the two mentioned before
▪ Additionally, the divinities of the Aventine, the plebeian hill par excellence, make
explicit the presentation of Trajan as heir of the tribunes of the plebs of the past, and
as such the person who looks after the plebs
• Events show a succession, a consequential development in terms of space and time that
brings the viewer from the borders of the empire to the center of the urbs, from the
beginnings of the reign of Trajan to the emperor's apotheosis.
◦ But this does not mean that the "historical" explanations of the panel are valid, rather
that we must avoid giving to the reliefs a full historical significance, in the sense of
direct and immediate depictions of particular events. Instead, the approach is rhetorical;
the aim is not to produce a work of history but a panegyric
◦ It is then appropriate to consider in this connection the structure of a contemporaneous
and unique encomiastic speech, the Panegyric delivered by Pliny the Younger in AD 100
to thank Trajan for his own consulate.
◦ The emperor showed indulgentia ((kindness, indulgence)) toward him, granting the
special beneficium ((benefit)) of a consulate, but this action is considered to be a
consequence of the extent of imperial virtues that Trajan displays in all his political
activity
◦ The similarities between the structure of the Panegyric and the program of the arch are
striking. The conferring of a distinction on Pliny is both the occasion and the result of
the deeds of the public life of Trajan. In the same way, the institutio alimentaria is the
primary motivation for the building of the arch and the centerpiece of the public activity
of the emperor
• Trajan's establishment of the institutio alimentaria is therefore a triumphale munus
((triumphal service/favour/gift idk what that word is), which will give immortality to the
optimus princeps
• The arch at Beneventum, in the attentive eyes of the senatorial commissioners who designed
the program, was designed to be a marble panegyric, an eternal panegyric for the expected
deification of the optimus princeps
• In sum, the arch is exclusively a celebration of the institutio alimentaria. All conjectures
about its connection with the Parthian wars, with the succession of Hadrian, or with the
provinces, such as Dacia, have no foundation whatsoever