The Column of Phocas

Although it is quite the jumble of mixed up stones, the Roman Forum really has the whole range of antiquity if you know where to look. The oldest stuff is deep down, a series of Iron Age huts way below the Roman layers.  People have been living here for thousands of years.  And the latest bit of what we would call the world of antiquity?  Here it is:

This is the Column of Phocas.  Like a lot of areas of the Forum it was partly fenced off, but if you were up close you would see an inscription that translates to:

TO THE MOST EXCELLENT, GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL PRINCE

OUR LORD EMPEROR PHOCAS

CROWNED FOR ETERNITY BY GOD, CONQUEROR, 

EVER AUGUSTUS

SMARAGUDUS, FORMER SUPERINTENDENT OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE,

LIKEWISE PATRICIAN

AND EXARCH OF ITALY

IN DEVOTION TO HIS GRACE

IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE NUMBERLESS BLESSINGS OF HIS MERCY

AND OF THE PEACE SECURED FOR ITALY

AND THE PRESERVATION OF LIBERTY

PLACED ATOP THIS LOFTY COLUMN

THIS STATUE OF HIS MAJESTY

TO THE EVERLASTING GLORY OF THE SAME

GLEAMING WITH THE RADIANCE OF GOLD AND DEDICATED IT

ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST IN THE ELEVENTH INDICATION

IN THE FIFTH YEAR AFTER THE CONSULSHIP OF HIS MERCY

Quite the glowing dedication but reality was a little different.

Phocas was Byzantine Emperor between 602 and 610 AD.  This was the tail end of Byzantine rule in Rome, and the "Peace Secured" (PRO Q(U)IETE) during his reign was actually a time of constant strife and warfare. Phocas himself was far from gracious and merciful, he gained power by assasinating then Emperor Maurice and five of Maurice's sons.  And as to the "ever Augustus" part, Phocas was the subject of many plots which succeeded in killing him two years after this column was dedicated in 608 AD.

As a monument this looks pretty nice.  But that too is a fraud.  The base of the column is recycled from early use supporting a statue of Diocletian.  And the column proper is from some unknown building of 2nd century date.  Smaragudus did not even go to the effort to assemble this bit of architectural salvage, that was done in the 4th century for a monument of unclear purpose.  He just re-cut the inscription and popped a nice statue up on top.  And even that probably only was up there a short time.

With this amount of praise being heaped up for a rather brutal thug of an Emperor there was certainly some politics going on.  Smaragudus was saying thanks for being given the job of administering Italy after a long exile.  And Phocas was buying a little favor from the Pope at this time, it being the same year he donated the Parthenon for use as a church.  As this saved one of antiquities great structures from the general trashing of Rome Phocas deserves a bit of thanks from we later citizens and visitors.

The column of Phocas never toppled and in fact was a prominent landmark in the days when the Forum was buried under tons of later trash and dirt.  The inscription on the pyramidal base was totally buried.  An exceedingly saucy Englishwoman, Elizabeth Duchess of Devonshire is sometimes given credit for the discovery of the inscription.  In 1816-1817 she conducted what must have been highly scientific excavations with a crew of manacled convicts.  In a poetic swoon Byron wrote in 1817 of "Thou nameless column with a buried base".  But in fact the inscription seems to have been found earlier, circa 1813 and without English eccentrics being involved.

Lessons from history here?  None that are edifying I fear.  If you want to be remembered in a more favorable light than you deserve, kiss up to the Powers (spiritual in this case) that Be.  And if you want to be remembered a long time, get in the last word!