Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

MARKETS OF TRAJANOn the Quirinal Hill
overlooking the forum, Apollodorus built the Markets
of Trajan (FIGS. 10-2,no. 8, and 10-45) to house both
shops and administrative offices. As earlier at Palestrina
(FIG. 10-5), concrete made possible the transformation
of a natural slope into a multilevel complex. Trajan’s
architect was a master of this modern medium as well
as of the traditional stone-and-timber post-and-lintel
architecture of the forum below. The basic unit was the
taberna,a single-room shop covered by a barrel vault.
Each taberna had a wide doorway, usually with a win-
dow above it that allowed light to enter a wooden inner
attic used for storage. The shops were on several levels.
They opened either onto a hemispherical facade wind-
ing around one of the great exedras of Trajan’s forum,
onto a paved street farther up the hill, or onto a great in-
door market hall (FIG. 10-46) resembling a modern shopping mall.
The hall housed two floors of shops, with the upper shops set back
on each side and lit by skylights. Light from the same sources
reached the ground-floor shops through arches beneath the great
umbrella-like groin vaults (FIG. 10-6c) covering the hall.

ARCH OF TRAJAN, BENEVENTOIn 109 CE,Trajan
opened a new road, the Via Traiana, in southern Italy. Several years
later the Senate erected a great arch (FIG. 10-47) honoring Trajan at
the point where the road entered Benevento (ancient Beneventum).
Architecturally, the Arch of Trajan at Benevento is almost identical

to Titus’s arch (FIG. 10-39) in Rome, but relief panels cover both

facades of the Trajanic arch, giving it a billboardlike function. Every

inch of the surface heralded the emperor’s achievements. In one

panel, he enters Rome after a successful military campaign. In an-

other, he distributes largesse to needy children. In still others, he is

portrayed as the founder of colonies for army veterans and as the

builder of a new port at Ostia, Rome’s harbor at the mouth of the

Tiber. The reliefs present Trajan as the guarantor of peace and secu-

rity in the empire, the benefactor of the poor, and the patron of

soldiers and merchants alike. In short, the emperor is all things to

all people. In several of the panels, Trajan freely intermingles with

266 Chapter 10 THE ROMAN EMPIRE

10-45Apollodorus of Damascus,aerial view of the

Markets of Trajan, Rome, Italy, ca. 100–112 ce.

Apollodorus of Damascus used brick-faced concrete to

transform the Quirinal Hill overlooking Trajan’s forum in

Rome into a vast multilevel complex of barrel-vaulted

shops and administrative offices.

10-46Apollodorus of Damascus,interior of the

great hall, Markets of Trajan, Rome, Italy, ca. 100–112 ce.

The great hall of Trajan’s markets resembles a modern

shopping mall. It housed two floors of shops, with the

upper ones set back and lit by skylights. Concrete groin

vaults cover the central space.