Upon the pillar the scene is represented by the figure of Jupiter Pluvius dripping with rain, which the soldiers are eagerly catching in their shields.
The drought is followed by an inundation, in which many of the Germans are drowned. A grand battle takes place, followed by the burning of the enemy’s huts and the seizure of numerous captives.
The figure of Marcus Aurelius on horseback, accompanying a long train of spoil taken from the German tribes, and a long series of battles, conflagrations of villages and towns, conferences with the enemy’s generals follow, and the first campaign ends at a point near the centre of the column, with a procession of trophies and spoils of war, in the midst of which a figure of Victory inscribes the triumph on a shield.
Over this figure of Victory begins the history of the second campaign, in which four battles are represented, and various military scenes, as the crossing of the Danube in boats, the thanksgiving sacrifices after victory, the emperor addressing his army, captures of women and children, and finally a long train of captives and spoils led off in triumph. This great marble history is after the model of that on Trajan’s Column. The style of execution is, however, somewhat different: the figures stand out much more from the surface, are more roughly cut, and have a heavier and stiffer look, resembling that of the reliefs upon the Arch of Severus, and the base of the Pillar of Antoninus Pius.
The column is called in all ancient writings Columna Antonini, which may apply to either of the Antonines. But it is perfectly evident from spiral reliefs, representing the frequent crossings of the Danube, and especially from that recording the incident of the sudden storm which extricated the Roman army from their difficulties, that the German wars of Marcus Aurelius are the subject commemorated.
Aurelius Victor and Julius Capitolinus state that temples, columns and priesthoods, were dedicated to this emperor after his death, and some inscriptions discovered in 1777 in the Piazza Colonna establish the conclusion that this pillar was erected in his honour beyond doubt. These inscriptions, now in the Gallery of Inscriptions in the Vatican, contain a petition from Adrastus, a freedman of Septimius Severus, and custodian of the Pillar of Marcus Aurelius, addressed to the Emperor Severus requesting leave to have the miserable hut (cannaba) in which he lived changed into a habitable house (solarium) for himself and his heirs, and also the decree of the emperor, giving the permission and assigning materials and a site. The petition was presented immediately on the accession of Severus, and the decree is dated in the consulship of Falco and Clarus, A.D. 193, two months after the emperor had taken possession of the palace. In this inscription the pillar is called the Columna Centenaria, and exact measurements of the shaft have shown that it is just one hundred Roman feet in height, including the base and capital.[99]
The bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, which stood on the summit, was probably carried off by the Byzantine emperor, Constans II., to Syracuse, and was there taken by the Saracens from him, and conveyed to Alexandria with the rest of the plunder he had stripped from the buildings of Rome. To distinguish this column from the above-mentioned Pillar of Antoninus Pius, it is called in some of the legal documents of the tenth century “Columpna major Antonina.” As recorded in the inscription on the modern base, it was much injured by lightning in the fourteenth century, and restored by Sixtus V.
Piazza Navona.
The Piazza Navona was formerly a stadium, not a circus. The strongest evidence we have in favour of this rests on the shape of the piazza and of the ruins. One of the essential parts of a circus, the spina, is entirely wanting, and the end from which the runners started is at right angles to the longer sides, while in a circus, as in the case of the Circus of Maxentius, the carceres always stood in a slanting direction across the course, in order to equalise the distances round the spina.
The obelisk, which now stands in the centre of the piazza was brought by Innocent X. from the Circus of Maxentius on the Appian Road. The Circus of Maxentius was not, however, its original site, for the hieroglyphics are of Roman execution and contain the name of Domitian.