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Message:: [QUOTE="cmezner, post: 8237713, member: 87809"]For more than a year have been looking for a Dupondius with Trajan's column, even though they aren't rare, it really had been avoiding me. But I was lucky this week <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie50" alt=":happy:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> Trajan's column is a unique masterpiece of engineering and art - even nowadays. In 100 AD Trajan was in Rome. He had a good relationship with the senate, and his character and his respect towards others won him benevolence. Soon he was called “optimus” by the people, even before the senate awarded him this title. He began to prepare a large campaign into the Danube region and in 101 AD he went to war against Dacia, an empire that had troubled Roman politics for over a decade. Trajan marched into the Dacian empire and in 102 AD their king Decebalus submitted, promised obedience and became a client king of Rome. Trajan returned to Rome in triumph and was awarded the title Dacicus. However, Decebalus started to challenge the Romans again leading raids across the Danube. In 106 AD, Trajan went to war for a second time against Decebalus. It was almost an extermination war. Decebalus, fled from his stronghold Sarmizegethusa, later renamed Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, and  committed suicide thus avoiding to be captured and sent to Rome.The war against Dacia had ended and Trajan celebrated his triumph during 123 days. The first province north of the Danube was created and settled by veterans of the Dacian wars – that's why Romanian is a Latin language. The loot he brought back was staggering. One contemporary chronicler boasted that the conquest yielded a half million pounds of gold and a million pounds of silver, not to mention a fertile new province. The enormous loot allowed Trajan to start a building program in the Empire, particularly in Italy and Rome. [ATTACH=full]1449524[/ATTACH] To commemorate the victory, Trajan commissioned a forum that included a spacious plaza surrounded by colonnades, two libraries, a grand civic space known as the Basilica Ulpia, and possibly even a temple. The forum was “unique under the heavens,” one early historian enthused, “beggaring description and never again to be imitated by mortal men.”Apollodoros designed and built Trajan’s column. According to the inscription on the column it was erected by the Senate and the people of Rome in honor of Trajan. The  column was inaugurated on May, 12, 113 AD, one-and -a half years after the inauguration of the Forum. It rises to about 100 Roman feet (29.78 meters), a number for immeasurability. The shaft is made from 20 colossal Carrara marble drums and the over 200-meter frieze winds around the shaft 23 times with 2,662 carved figures in more than 200 scenes from the Dacian wars, and has on top of its 29.78 meters a statue of Trajan.The column was placed toward the northernmost point of the Trajan’s forum, acting as the focal point of the entire forum complex. The Latin dedication on the pillar ends with the words "ad declarandum quantae altitudinis mons et locus tantis operibus sit egestus" proclaiming the place and height of the Quirinal hill that was removed by the remarkable enterprise of expanding the Forum. The interior of Trajan's Column is hollow: entered by a small doorway at one side of the base, a spiral stair of 185 steps gives access to the platform above, having offered the visitor in antiquity a view over the surrounding Trajan's forum; 43 window slits illuminate the ascent. Goethe, a German poet, climbed the 185 internal steps in 1787 to “enjoy that incomparable view.”After Trajan's death in 117 AD, his ashes and those of his wife Plotina were buried in golden urns (which later disappeared) in a chamber at the base of the column. Source:<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/trajan-column/article.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/trajan-column/article.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nationalgeographic.com/trajan-column/article.html</a><a href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Trajan%27s_Column" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Trajan%27s_Column" rel="nofollow">https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Trajan's_Column</a> Ups, I got carried away and wrote too much about a very well-known topic. The earliest representation of Trajan’s column on coins is from 111 AD (RIC 235, dated COS V DES VI). This is the Dupondius, Ex Gorny & Mosch Auction 147 (3 July 2006), lot 2681 (part). The obverse is quite worn, but one definitely recognizes the radiate head of Trajan and all the details are visible on the reverse: the whole statue, the podium with garland, the door to the podium and the two eagles. Rome, 112 – 115 (?) AD27.12 mm, 11.95 g RIC II, 679; Cohen 360; Strack 457Ob.: IMP CAES NER TRAIANO OPTIMO AVG GER DAC P M TR P COS VI P P Radiate bust of Trajan to right with drapery on l. shoulder Rev.: SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS Trajan's Column surmounted by a statue of Trajan standing left, holding spear in l. hand, on podium with garland, the door to which is visible, decorated with an eagle on right and left; S-C across fields Haven't been able to find what is hanging on Trajan's right arm and what he is holding in his right hand<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie5" alt=":confused:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> Picture courtesy Marc Breitsprecher. Please share your Trajan's column coins or any Dacian Wars related coins. [ATTACH=full]1449523[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]

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