Trajan's column is surely the most famous Roman monument in the world, appreciated for very different reasons by historians, archaeologists, art historians and the general public. In recent years much concern has been expressed about the effects on the column of modern pollution, but more than a century ago casts were made of the entire column for Napoleon III, and , at the beginning of the century, photographs of these casts were published by Conrad Cichorius. They form an essential record for the students of today, but are now very difficult to come by.
First published in 1988 and here extensively revised, this book re-publishes Cichorius's Plates (the complete series) and supplies in addition a new and detailed introduction, a full Commentary on all the reliefs, and some twenty-six specialised notes dealing with the design of the column, the chronological, archaeological and topographical problems affecting its interpretation and our understanding of those wars. This is the most comprehensive and best illustrated book on the Column yet written.
