This great architect, who flourished about A. D. 100, was born at Damascus. By his great genius he acquired the favor of the emperor Trajan, for whom he executed many works. He built the great Square of Trajan, to effect which, he leveled a hill, one hundred and forty-four feet high; in the centre he raised the famous column, of the same height as the hill that had been removed, which commemorated the victories of Trajan, and served as a monument to that victorious Emperor. Around the Square, he erected the most beautiful assemblage of buildings then known in the world, among which was the triumphal arch commemorative of Trajan’s victories. The marble pavements of this Square are fifteen feet below the streets of modern Rome. Apollodorus also erected a college, a theatre appropriated to music, the Basilica Nepia, a celebrated library, the Baths of Trajan, aqueducts, and other important works at Rome. His most famous work was a stone bridge over the Danube, in Lower Hungary, near Zeverino. It was one mile and a half long, three hundred feet high, forty feet wide, and was built upon twenty piers and twenty-two arches. Its extremities were defended by two fortresses. Trajan had it constructed to facilitate the passage of his troops, but his successor dismantled it, fearing that the barbarians would use it _against the Romans_. TRAJAN’S COLUMN. This column is one of the most celebrated monuments of antiquity. Its height, including the pedestal and statue, is one hundred and forty-four English feet. It was erected in the centre of the forum of Trajan, and was dedicated to that emperor by the senate and people of Rome in commemoration of his decisive victory over the Dacians. It is of the Doric order, and its shaft is constructed of thirty-four pieces of Greek marble, hollowed out in the centre for the stairs, and joined together with cramps of bronze. For elegance of proportion, beauty of style, and for simplicity and dexterity of sculpture, it is accounted the finest column in the world. The sculptures on the pedestal are master-pieces of Roman art. The shaft is embellished with bassi-rilievi, representing the expedition of Trajan against the Dacians, which run spirally, twenty-three times around the column, and which gradually increase in size, so that those at the top appear to the spectator, to be of the same size as those at the bottom. A spiral stair-case, of one hundred and eighty-five steps, runs up the interior, and receives light from sixty-three openings in the shaft. A gold medal, struck in commemoration of the completion of the column, shows that it was formerly surmounted by a statue of Trajan, holding in one hand a sceptre, and in the other a globe, in which were deposited the ashes of that prince. Pope Sixtus V. placed a statue of St. Peter, by the Cavaliere Fontana, in the place of that of Trajan, which had been destroyed some centuries before. A greater absurdity than placing the statue of a peaceful apostle over the