Bridges are constructed, Roman causeways laid, forts attacked with all kinds of military engines; the charge of cavalry, the rout and confusion of a defeated army, are all most vividly depicted. Trajan in person traverses the ranks on foot, or mounts the suggestus and harangues his men, or receives with simple dignity the submission of the enemy, or marches with all the pomp of a Roman procession under the triumphal arch. The soldierlike simplicity of the great military emperor is strikingly portrayed. There is no silken tent, or richly decorated chariot, or throne, or canopy of state to be seen. His colonel of the guards sits beside him, as an equal, on the suggestus. In the midst of a battle the emperor tears up his robe to bind the wounds of his soldiers; he is present everywhere, wearing a sword and fighting in person. Nothing could be more illustrative of the state of Roman affairs in that iron age when again, as in the olden times, a rough and unlettered warrior, fresh from the camp, swayed the destinies of the empire. In this vast spiral relief there are said to be above 2500 figures of men sculptured, and the higher they are placed on the column the larger are their dimensions, showing the care that was taken to counteract the effects of the increased distance from the eye. The whole of the carving from base to summit is executed with equally minute care, though the upper part can never have been easily visible, except from the windows or roofs of the basilica and the libraries which, as we have seen, were placed very near. The opinion which prevailed for some time, that the figures had been coloured, is incorrect, as the more minute examination since made has proved that the colours imagined to be artificial are the natural results of the decay of the stone and oxidisation of the metallic parts of the structure, under the effects of the rain, sun, and dust. [Sidenote: Remains found on the site.] A vast number of fragments of columns, of inscriptions, and of architectural ornaments have been dug up at various times on the site of Trajan’s Forum. The great granite columns which now lie near the base of the pillar were found in laying the foundations of the Church of S. Maria in Loreto, by the architect, the elder San Gallo, and are mentioned as lying near that church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in the Piazza del Campidoglio, stands upon a pedestal made by Michael Angelo out of an immense fragment of entablature found on the site of Trajan’s Forum.