Column of Antoninus Pius

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Column of Antoninus Pius

The Column of Antoninus Pius is an honorific column in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
, devoted in 161 to the Roman emperor

Roman Emperor

The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin language titles such as imperator , Augustus , Caesar and princeps were all associated with it....
Antoninus Pius

Antoninus Pius

Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus , generally known in English as Antoninus Pius was Roman Emperors from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors and a member of the Aurelii....
, in the Campus Martius

Campus Martius

The Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about 2 km? in extent. In the Middle Ages it was the most populous area of Rome....
, on the edge of the hill now known as Monte Citorio, and set up by his successors, the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus was Roman Emperor from 161 to his death in 180. He was the last of the "Five Good Emperors", and is also considered one of the most important stoicism philosophy....
and Lucius Verus

Lucius Verus

Lucius Aurelius Verus , born as Lucius Ceionius Commodus, known simply as Lucius Verus, was Roman Emperors with Marcus Aurelius , from 161 until his death....
.

column itself was 14.75 metres high and 1.90m in diameter and was constructed of red granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of Intrusion , felsic, igneous rock rock . Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as Porphyry ....
, with no decorating reliefs as on the otherwise similar columns of Trajan

Trajan's Column

Trajan's Column is a monument in Rome raised in honour of the Roman Empire emperor Trajan and constructed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate....
and Marcus Aurelius

Column of Marcus Aurelius

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Encyclopedia

The Column of Antoninus Pius is an honorific column in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
, devoted in 161 to the Roman emperor

Roman Emperor

Antoninus Pius

Campus Martius

Marcus Aurelius

Lucius Verus

Lucius Aurelius Verus , born as Lucius Ceionius Commodus, known simply as Lucius Verus, was Roman Emperors with Marcus Aurelius , from 161 until his death....
.

History

Construction

The column itself was 14.75 metres high and 1.90m in diameter and was constructed of red granite

Granite

Trajan's Column

Column of Marcus Aurelius

File:column.of.marcus.aurelius.complete.arp.jpgFile:detail.from.column.of.marcus.aurelius.arp.jpgThe Column of Marcus Aurelius, , is a Doric column, with a spiral relief, built in honour of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and modeled on Trajan's Column....
. It was quarried out in 106 (as shown by the masons' inscription on its lower end, IG xiv.2421.1). Architecturally it belonged to the Ustrinum

Ustrinum

In ancient Rome, a ustrinum was the site of a historical funeral pyre. The ancient Greek equivalent word was a ?a?st?a ....
, 25 metres north of it on the same orientation, with the main apotheosis scene facing in that direction, and was surmounted by a statue of Antoninus, as is represented on coins issued after his death (Cohen, Ant. Pius 353-6).

Rediscovery

Previous to the 18th century the base was completely buried, but the lower part of the shaft projected about 6m above the ground. In 1703, when some buildings were demolished in the area of Montecitorio, the rest of the column and the base were discovered and excavated. The column was raised from the ground by Carlo Fontana

Carlo Fontana

Carlo Fontana was an Italy architect, who was in part responsible for the classicizing direction taken by Late Baroque Roman architecture....
's son Francesco (1668-1708), but no decision was made about its use. It, thus, remained lying on the ground under some sheds, and was finally damaged by fire in 1759. Unsuccessful attempts were made to repair it soon afterwards in 1764, with some pieces from it being used in 1789 to restore the obelisk of Augustus that is now in the Piazza di Monte Citorio

Piazza di Monte Citorio

Piazza di Monte Citorio or Piazza Montecitorio is a piazza in Rome. It is named after the Monte Citorio, one of the minor hills of Rome....
.

Meanwhile the base (of white Italian marble

Marble

Marble is a nonfoliated metamorphic rock resulting from the metamorphism of limestone, composed mostly of calcite . It is extensively used for Marble sculpture, as a architecture material, and in many other applications....
) was restored in 1706-08 and erected in the centre of Piazza di Montecitorio by Ferdinando Fuga

Ferdinando Fuga

Ferdinando Fuga was an Italy architect, whose main works were realized in Rome and Naples....
in 1741, before being taken to the Vatican Museums

Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries....
in 1787, where it has been in the Michelangelo niche in the Cortile della Pigna from 1885 until its final move to its current position in the courtyard outside the entrance to the Vatican Pinacoteca.

Base iconography

One side of the base has a dedicatory inscription (CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity....
vi.1004), two sides record the funerary decursio or decursus (a ceremony performed by the Roman cavalry), and one side shows the apotheosis

Apotheosis

Apotheosis refers to the exaltation of a subject to divinity level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre....
or ascent to the gods of the emperor and his wife .

Apotheosis scene

A winged genius

Genius (mythology)

In Roman mythology, every man had a genius and every woman a juno .Originally, the genii and junones were ancestors who guarded over their descendants....
(or sometimes identified as Aion

Aeon

The word aeon, also spelled eon or ?on, means "age", "forever" or "for eternity". It is a Latin transliteration from the koine Greek word , from the archaic ....
, Eternity) carries Antoninus and his wife Faustina

Faustina the Elder

Annia Galeria Faustina, more familiarly referred to as Faustina the Elder , was a Roman Empress and wife of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius....
to Heaven. The Emperor holds a sceptre crowned with an eagle, whilst eagles also surround them.

The personified male figure (left) holding the obelisk represents the Campus Martius

Campus Martius

The Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about 2 km? in extent. In the Middle Ages it was the most populous area of Rome....
. Augustus had placed this obelisk

Obelisk of Montecitorio

The Obelisk of Montecitorio is an ancient Egyptian red granite obelisk of Psammetichus II from Heliopolis. Brought to Rome with the obelisks of Rome in 10 BC by the Roman Emperor Augustus to be used as the gnomon of the Solarium Augusti, it is now in the Piazza Montecitorio....
there as a sundial and it was the site of the ritual of the imperial deification. The personified female figure in armour (right) saluting the emperor and empress represents Roma

Roma (mythology)

In Roman paganism and its Roman mythology, Roma was a deity personifying the Roman state, or a personification in art of the city of Rome ....
, and her shield depicts the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus are the traditional Founding Fathers of Rome, appearing in Roman mythology as the twin sons of the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, fathered by the god of war, Mars ....
, suckled by a wolf.

Decursio

On these two almost identical sides, members of the cavalry circle the standing figures, two carrying military standards and the rest fully armored. Lacking a sense of space and perspective, these scenes are often criticized for their lack of stylistic sophistication. Instead of naturalism, both a bird's eye view of the circular manoeuvre and a ground-level view of each figure are provided..

External links

, for images

Sources

Mitt. 1889, 41-48
S.Sculpt. 270-3
SScR 249-253; LS iii.145
Amelung, Kat. Vat. i. pp. 883-893
Vogel, L., The Column of Antoninus Pius, Harvard University Press, 1973