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Between Limestone and Concrete: European Reactions to the Tropaeum Traiani in the 19th and 20th Centuries

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Abstract

In the 20th century, the Tropaeum Traiani in Romania has been interpreted primarily as an example of Roman imperial dominance in the provinces during the second century CE. This interpretation, which addresses the monument exclusively within its ancient context, neglects the role and impact of the Tropaeum Traiani following its discovery. This study will examine the monument from the perspective of the changing reception the monument experienced over the course of two centuries, beginning with its rediscovery in the 19th century. In this way, the Tropaeum Traiani can be understood as a structure that has had a lasting significance beyond its ancient one, its image reconstructed throughout the course of its modern history, embodying a range of conceptualizations in the modern imagination.

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Notes

  1. Marguerite Yourcenar, That Mighty Sculptor, Time. Translated by Walter Kaiser. The Noonday Press. Farrar, Straus and Geroux, New York (1993: 57).

  2. More recently, Vasile Barbu and Christian Schuster have reiterated the generally accepted view that the ancient settlement was founded as a castrum. The site probably developed in the following stages: 1. Funerary Altar; 2. Mausoleum; 3. Settlement; 4. Trophy. This timeline of development has yet to be satisfactorily challenged. See Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006: 150).

  3. Some models have been presented by G. Tocilescu in 1895; F. Florescu in 1959, 1961, 1965; R. Florescu 1964. M. Sâmpetru. See Sâmpetru (1984: 105)

  4. Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things. Cambridge University Press (1988: 3).

  5. Norman Yoffee, Negotiating the Past in the Past: Identity, Memory, and Landscape in Archaeological Research. The University of Arizona Press (2007: 3).

  6. The ancient settlement did not achieve this status until much later, c. 170 CE. Other references to the settlement are as follows: Traianenses Tropaeenses; civitas Tropaeensium; polis Tropaeision. Op. cit., Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006: 151).

  7. The region, later considered to have served as a kind of cross-roads between east and west, north and south, remained vulnerable even under Hadrian, who considered abandoning the Dacian province but reconsidered on account of the great number of established Romans who would have been left behind unprotected. The region suffered further in 170 CE from attacks by the Costoboci, free Dacians from Transylvania, who came down the coast, reaching as far as Eleusis, Greece.

  8. The nearby modern village shares the name of Adamklissi as well.

  9. Adamklissi sometimes appears as Adam-killise, Adam-Kelssi-Köy in earlier spellings.

  10. At its conception, the Tropaeum Traiani followed in the tradition of victory monuments erected after a battle, a practice that can be dated in Greece as early as the sixth century bce. These monuments, known in Greek as tropaia, were visual symbols used not only to commemorate victories on the battlefield, but also as a means of marking newly conquered territory. The early Roman tropaea were typically made of wood, and usually featured the armor of the defeated enemy placed upon the wooden structure. Eventually, these commemorative features evolved into more monumental structures – such as the Augustan trophy of the Alps at La Turbie – which functioned to proclaim the reach and military successes of the Roman empire. However, unlike the trophy at La Turbie, the Tropaeum Traiani was adorned with a series of relief sculptures and decorations. The lowest decorative frieze featured a stylized wolf motif, which ran along the monument’s circumference. A second frieze located immediately above it featured the main decorative program – a series of battles scenes, prisoners, Roman soldiers and their enemies, all sculpted out of individual panels but separated by alternating decorated pilasters. These narrative panels were in turn framed by a continuous frieze decorated by a stylized acanthus motif, followed by yet another second continuous series of panels depicting prisoners bound to trees and separated, at measured intervals, by a series of geometric relief panels. On a hexagonal base, at the monument’s top, stood the ‘trophy’ proper, a sculpted torso wearing Roman armor, with captive barbarians at its base.

  11. “All these demi-savage figures that one has seen in Rome on the bas-reliefs of Trajan’s column seem to be reborn and become animated before your gaze.” Louis-Philippe, comte de Ségur (1859: 230) in Woolf (1994: 22). The tendency of Western Europeans to draw parallels between the modern inhabitants they encountered and their distant ancestors continued throughout the 19th century and can be found in writings concerning Greece as well, for example in the British aristocrat Frederick Douglas’s work, entitled An Essay on Certain Points of Resemblance Between the Ancient and Modern Greeks. (London, 1813).

  12. Reactions to Romania, which at the time was divided into the three main principalities of Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia, were not much more flattering in the accounts mentioned above. Charles-Marie, the marquis of Salaberry, traveled to Constantinople in 1790-1791 and wrote an account of his journey that also included a stop in the territory of Wallachia, a principality that still remained under the protection of Russia. Marie was particularly intrigued by the local language, which he believed represented a corrupted form of Latin. Ibid., 46.

  13. Ibid., 291. Linguistic and ethnographic evaluations of the region were also taken up by Hauterive (Alexandre-Maurice Blanc de Lanautte comte d’Hauterive), a French representative in Moldavia in the 1780 s, who, much like Ségur, drew parallels to depictions in Roman art, remarking how the locals bore an uncanny resemblance to the Roman army of the Column of Trajan. Ibid., 294-295.

  14. The British aristocrat William Bentinck had passed through the region somewhat earlier, in 1801, and had commented on the monument and its appearance, although his account was not published until 1874. See Hope (1974).

  15. von Vincke (1840: 186)

  16. Alfred Marchand, trans., Helmuth von Moltke’s Lettres sur L’Orient Trans. (Paris: Sandoz et Fischbauer, no publication date available).

  17. Dyson (2006: 57).

  18. Michel’s spelling is most likely a phonetic transcription from the local Turkish. Michel (1862: 215-256).

  19. Ibid., 254.

  20. “Le profil des personnages, leur pose, la forme de leurs vêtements rappellent les œuvres de la Rome impériale, mais le dessin est d’une incorrection qui accuse une main barbare.” Ibid., 255.

  21. Michel either translated kilisse incorrectly as “tomb” or simply chose to ignore its designation as a “church.”

  22. “Le cumbett est admirablement placé comme tour d’observation. Il s’élève au-dessus du plateau et la sentinelle, voyant de loin arriver les bandes barbares, pouvait donner l’alarme à la cité qui se trouvait à un kilomètre environ au fond de la vallée et à soixante ou quatre-vingts mètres plus bas.” Michel (1862: 256). The monument also struck the interest of Karl Peters, a Viennese geologist and professor at the University of Graz in Vienna. Interested primarily in topography, Peters’ notes on the monument were included in his work, Geographie und Geologie der Dobruscha (1867), a publication primarily focusing on the geographical and geological phenomena of the region of Dobrudja.

  23. For an in depth treatment of the Pergamon monument and its reconstruction see Can Bilsel (2012).

  24. Soutzo (1881: 287-304).

  25. The article was written by Remus Opran, mayor of the city of Constanţa, who published his own assessment in the local newspaper, Farul Contstanţiei, May 12, 1880.

  26. Soutzo (1881: 288).

  27. “Le monument n’appartient pas davantage à l’antiquité classique grecque ou romaine; la rudesse du travail des figures, leurs longues barbes et leurs vêtements à gros plis nous transportent bien loin de tout ce que la Grèce ou Rome nous ont laissé de sculptures.” Ibid., 289.

  28. Ibid., 290.

  29. “Ce monument a tous les titres à l’intérêt des antiquaires…il rendra ainsi à la science archéologique un service important, et nous sommes persuadés que toute l’Europe savante suivra avec intérêt ces recherches.”  Soutzo (1881: 295).

  30. For an account of a visit to the ancient Etruscan tomb see George Dennis, ‘The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria’ John Murray, Albemarle Street, London (1848).

  31. See Pătraşcu (1970: 133).

  32. Ibid., 129. For other Italian commentary on Latin’s influence on Romanian see also Giuseppe Mezzofanti Discourse on the Wallachian Language (1815).

  33. For a list of these supporters see Pătraşcu (1970: 131).

  34. Ferrari also sculpted the statue of Ion Heliade Rădulescu, the Romanian founder and first president of the Romanian Academy, which was more recently removed from University Square.

  35. Debates exist over whether or not Ovid was in fact exiled to Tomis. This suggestion has been put forth by Fitton-Brown (1985: 18-22). Further discussions on Ovid’s exile poetry and the emperor Augustus can be found in Williams (1994) and McGowan (2009).

  36. Ibid., 131.

  37. See the recent discussion by Fenechiu and LaCourse Munteanu (2013: 336-353).

  38. Amante (1888: 293).

  39. For the deployment of antiquities in the Greek past see Hamilakis (2007). For museums and nationalism see also: Bennett (1995); Duncan (1995); Knell, Aronsson, Amundsen (2010).

  40. Niculescu (2011: 383-385) in Multiple Antiquities – Multiple Modernities. Ancient Histories in Nineteenth Century European Cultures (2011).

  41. Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006: 19).

  42. Most (2011: 40) in Multiple Antiquities – Multiple Modernities. Ancient Histories in Nineteenth Century European Cultures. Gábor Klaniczay, Michael Werner, and Ottó Gecser, eds., (2011).

  43. Tocilescu begins with brief overviews of the works already mentioned, but offers corrections to some of the inexactitudes of earlier accounts such as Peters’ mistaken belief that the monument was made of marble, and his cross-section sketch that calculated the depth of the crevice inaccurately. Tocilescu (1900: 8-9).

  44. Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006).

  45. Amante (1888: 285).

  46. Niculescu (2011: 402).

  47. Tocilescu (1900: 11).

  48. See Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006: 140). CIL III 12467.

  49. Donohue (2005: 4-6) and Davis, Style and history in art history in The Uses of Style in Archaeology (1989) for a general discussion concerning the definitions and implications of style within the discipline of art history.

  50. Tocilescu (1900: 23).

  51. Ibid., 24.

  52. See again Donohue (2005) for thorough attention to the concept of stylistic evolution particularly within the methodology of art history as it was understood and applied to Greek sculpture in 19th century Europe.

  53. Tocilescu also suggested that the architect left the region after designing the structure, leaving the decorative elements to the work of minor artisans. He still favored attribution to Apollodorus, a suggestion that is still often cited.

  54. This important nuanced difference between the Trophy and the Column will be further argued by I.A. Richmond in a paper to the British School at Rome (1967).

  55. Tocilescu (1900: 55). Translation my own.

  56. “C’est une fête de travail, à laquelle elle convie toutes les nations grandes et petites, les Etats comme les individus.” Translation my own. Ibid., 141.

  57. For a comprehensive list of other academics see Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006).

  58. Adolf Furtwängler (1853-1907).

  59. Alois Riegl had adopted a third alternate construction date under Constantine in the 4th century CE. See Riegl, (1927: 166). On Kopienkritik and the Greek original see particularly “Introduction – Beyond Copying: Artistic Originality and Artistic Tradition in The Ancient Art of Emulation” in Gazda, ed. (2002).

  60. Dana (2012: 36).

  61. The interbellic years following the union of Transylvania with Romania in 1918 also encouraged interests in the autochthonous influence of the Getae, focusing in particular on Zalmoxis, a chthonic divinity of the Dacians, who gained symbolic popularity as a somewhat mysterious spiritual figure in a number of discourses concerning the Dacian ancestral origins of the Romanians. Dana (2012:28).

  62. Ibid., 58.

  63. Fenechiu and Munteanu (2013: 340).

  64. For more on Soviet archaeology and its interpretation of material culture see Klejn (2012) and Trigger (1989).

  65. These find-spots were originally documented by Tocilescu when his excavations began. For more information on the gaps in Tocilescu’s excavation records see Sâmpetru (1984: 25-35).

  66. Furthermore, it was around this time that a cast copy of Trajan’s Column arrived in Bucharest. The cast was originally commissioned in 1939, under the direction of Vatican officials, but did not arrive until 1967, as a result of World War II and the influence of the Soviet Iron Curtain on Romanian politics. It is still housed today in the National Museum of Bucharest.

  67. The majority of the fragments had been transported temporarily between 1885-1886 to the city of Rassowa, and then on to Bucharest in 1887-1888. Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006: 193).

  68. Here, the dates and ages that Tocilescu gives seem inexact. If the fragments were transported between 1885-1894, then the witnesses were possibly too young to remember the event. Florescu also does not specify whether the witnesses were there during all four phases of transportation.

  69. Florescu (1960: 60).

  70. Ibid., 60.

  71. Rădulescu (1977: 11).

  72. Can Bilsel has also engaged with the topic of authenticity and the Pergamon Musuem’s reconstruction. See Bilsel (2012).

  73. Tocilescu had been able to find 49 of the 54 panels, 23 of the 26 crenellations depicting bound captives, and many fragments of other architectonic elements. Barbu and Schuster (2005-2006: 138-139).

  74. Rădulescu (1977: 12).

  75. Ibid., 12.

  76. Ibid., 11.

  77. Dan Rusovan (1977: 16).

  78. Here, I refer to Can Bilsel, who further elucidates the implications of the question of authenticity and fabrication and which bears relevance to this discussion: “In the modern construction of national and post-colonial identities, there is, I argue, a direct relationship between the category of ‘ancient architecture’ – a national or colonial bureaucracy’s presentation of a work of art as ‘authentic’ – and the idea of ‘culture’ as bound with a place, a locality. This relationship between a work of art and culture is not merely metonymic: a work does not merely stand for a native land or people. Rather the work of architecture is resacralized as the material trace of an original meaning, an essence. A work of ‘ancient architecture is ‘authentic’ in the sense that it reveals more about the type or a style; it is a relic of the original meaning.” Bilsel (2012: 229-230).

  79. Iain Ferris, Enemies of Rome: Barbarian Through Roman Eyes. Stroud: Sutton (2000).

  80. Hope (2003).

  81. Ibid., 90.

  82. Ibid., 94.

  83. See Rossi (1971). On references to the monument’s “crudity” see also Charles (2004: 476-489) and the much earlier work by Richmond (1967: 29-39).

  84. I.M. Ferris (2000: 69-70).

  85. Yoffee (2007: 4).

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    Ana M. Mitrovici

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Mitrovici, A.M. Between Limestone and Concrete: European Reactions to the Tropaeum Traiani in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Int class trad 23, 29–54 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-015-0381-3

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