Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1921-04-21

T@HERE is movement in Kan
4 sas City for the erection of a
memorial to the American
soldiers who took part in the
world war, in the form of some monu-
mental work of sculptural art. Its adj
vocates, says the Kansas City Star,
will find a historic precedent worthy
of study and pregnant with sugges-
ton in the famous Trajan's column at
Rome, which remains today after eight
cen centuries one of the worlds me-
mortal wonders. In its original setting
it was but a part of a magnificent sys-
tenn of public buildings-two Libraries,
the Basilica Ulpia and the temple of
Trajan-which composed the forum
erected by the Roman emperor Trajan
to commemorate his reign and to en-
blazon his victories for posterity. The
designer of the great forum Of Trajan
was AppolOdorus, the Greek architect.
The name of the artist under whose
inspired hand the column grew from
base to capital and who recorded in its
stones the martial deeds of his i'm
perial master has been forgotten. That
he was Roman, however is attested
by the fact that the column itself is
distinctively Roman in its design and
in its inspiration. Today, of all the
splendid buildings and monuments that
composed the forum of Trajan but one
remains intact, the great column which
tells the story of Trajan's achieve
ments.
1t was after his return from the Da-
clan wars that Trajan, in lib A. D.,
caused to be erected in the midst of
the forum he had built this column,
which was designed not only to per
petuate the memory of his Dacian VIC
tories, but also to afford a repository
for his ashes, which were placed In
a golden urn in a chamber under the
column. Surviving eighteen centuries
of wars and the corroding touch of
time and of "brOils that root out the
work of masonry" the column of
Traian is today one of the most beau
tiful of Roman works of art and q
document in stone of priceless value
to the historian.
Is of Grecian Marble.
The ancient name Of this famous
column was the Columna Colchis, so
called from its winding stairs like the
spiral of a shell, by which ascent was
made from pedestal TO top. 1t is built
of huge blocks of Greek marble. The
shaft, base and capital, not counting |
the pedestal, which measured eighteen
feet in height, are exactly 100 Roman
feet high (ninety-seven and half
modern English). In diameter the
shaft measures twelve feet at the bot |
tom. tapering gently to about ten feet
under the capital. On the top OF the |
capital. in its original form, stood a
colossal gilt bronze statue of the en-
peror, nearly twenty feet high, hold |
ing an orb in one hand and a spear
in the other. This statue was stolen
and carried away during one Of the
inroads of the Byzantine emperors in J
tbe fifth century, and was replaced in |
the sixteenth century by the statue OF |
ST. Peter, which now surmounts the
column.
The tall pedestal on which the col
umn is built is richly decorated with
rcliefs of armor and trophies taken
from the Dacians. On ne side is |
tablet carried by two figures of Vic
tory and upon it is the dedicatory In
sorintion. At each angle above the
cornice of the pedestal is an eagle sup
portiug a garland of flowers lmme-
diatelv beneath the tablet is the door
wav TO the spiral staircase, lighted by
forty-ewo small openings. The wind
ing srairs consist of 1874 steps around
central newell, all of solid marble.
As beautiful a work of sculptured
beauty as is the pedestal itself, the
mart of the column which most moves
the modern beholder to wonder and
establishment is the shaft, when,
starding on the tomb of the emperor,
rises with its mass Of relief wrought
figures a hundred feet in the air. IL
Is formed of twenty-three drums Oh
marble. arranged in spiral bands OF
reliefs, which climb the column to the
feet of the statue of the emperor which
formerly stoods upon its capital.
Wrought into these stones are more
than z. 800 figures. besides great num-
her of background accessories, worked
out with great minuteness OF detail
the figures varying in height from
three feet at the bottom to nearly -FOUR
feet Mt the top. The sculptures repre-
sent the complete history of TraJan's
two Dacian campaigns, upon when
his military rsnown rests, and the
story is told in stone as historian
lL4 4n1l n hr the written word