The last words of this inscription are illustrated by a passage of Dion Cassius, who says that Trajan placed a colossal pillar in his Forum to be his own tomb, and also to show the amount of labour expended upon the Forum, the slope of the hill which previously occupied the site having been dug away so as to afford a level space for the Forum. There is no need to interpret this, as some writers have done, to mean that the ground on the spot where the column stands had previously been as high as the top of the column. Such an interpretation seems highly improbable. The view taken by Becker and Brocchi is more tenable, that the words allude to the cutting away of the Quirinal Hill, which was steep and inaccessible before but was sloped away to a point on the side of the hill as high as the top of the column. Brocchi’s geological observations have made it almost certain that the ground has not been cut away to any great depth between the two hills. The top of the column is only six feet lower than the level of the Villa Aldobrandini on the top of the Quirinal, and two feet higher than the Piazza di Ara Cœli. If, therefore, at any time the ground on the site of Trajan’s Forum was as high as the column, it must have formed a ridge between the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills, higher than the Capitoline and very nearly as high as the Quirinal. In the base of the column the ashes of Trajan were deposited in a golden urn. Sixtus V. had the chamber in which the urn was placed opened, but found it empty, and it has now been walled up. Above the pedestal are two flat stones ornamented with garlands of oak leaves, and upon them rests a round base carved in the shape of a laurel wreath. The shaft which stands immediately upon this is composed of nineteen cylindrical blocks of marble, on the outside of which a spiral band of beautifully executed bas-reliefs winds from bottom to top, covering the whole shaft. The capital is a single ring of egg-shaped ornaments with arrowheads between them, and a simple border below. On a pedestal above it stood originally the colossal bronze-gilt statue of Trajan. This statue and pedestal were probably carried off during the robberies committed at Rome by the Byzantine emperors, A.D. 663. Sixtus V. replaced it by a modern cylindrical pedestal and statue of S. Peter. The ancient winding staircase hewn in the solid blocks of marble, and lighted by narrow openings, still leads to the top. From thence it may be seen how difficult it is to suppose that the ground ever rose to such a height between the Capitoline and Quirinal as has been imagined by many historians and topographers. [Sidenote: Bas-reliefs representing scenes in the Dacian wars.]