l
which concealed the base was removed, and an inscription, which
attributes the erection of the column to the Exarch Smaragdus, in honour
of the Emperor Phocas, A.D. 608, was brought to light. The column was
originally surmounted by a gilded statue, but it is probable that both
column and statue were stolen from earlier structures and rededicated to
Phocas. Hobhouse (_Hist. Illust._, pp. 240-242) records the discovery,
and prints the inscription _in extenso._]

[oi] ----_all he doth deface_.--[MS. M.]

[488] The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter; that of Aurelius
by St. Paul. (See _Hist. Illust._, p. 214.)

[The column was excavated by Paul III. in the sixteenth century. In 1588
Sixtus V. replaced the bronze statue of Trajan holding a gilded globe,
which had originally surmounted the column, by a statue of St. Peter, in
gilt bronze. The legend was that Trajan's ashes were contained in the
globe. They are said to have been deposited by Hadrian in a golden urn
in a vault under the column. It is certain that when Sixtus V. opened
the chamber he found it empty. A medal was cast in honour of the
erection of the new statue, inscribed with the words of the Magnificat,
"_Exaltavit humiles_."]

[489] {411} Trajan was _proverbially_ the best of the Roman princes; and
it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite
characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed
to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion,
"he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none
of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction;
he honoured all the good, and he advanced them: and on this account they
could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate; he never listened
to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained equally from
unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be loved as a man
than honoured as a sovereign; he was affable with his people, respectful
to the senate, and universally beloved by both; he inspired none with
dread but the enemies of his country." (See Eutrop., _Hist. Rom. Brev._
lib. viii. cap. v.; Dion, _Hist. Rom._, lib. lxiii. caps, vi., vii.)

[M. Ulpius Trajanus (A.D. 52-117) celebrated a triumph over the Dacians
in 103 and 106. It is supposed that the column which stands at the north
end of the Forum Trajanum commemorated the Dacian victories. In 115-16
he conquered the Parthian