The beautiful _Column of Trajan_ was erected by the senate and people of Rome, A.D. 114. It is composed of thirty-four blocks of marble, and is covered with a spiral band of bas-reliefs illustrative of the Dacian wars, and increasing in size as it nears the top, so that it preserves throughout the same proportion when seen from below. It was formerly crowned by a statue of Trajan, holding a gilt globe, which latter is still preserved in the Hall of Bronzes in the Capitol. This statue had fallen from its pedestal long before Sixtus V. replaced it by the existing figure of St. Peter. At the foot of the column was a sepulchral chamber, intended to receive the imperial ashes, which were however preserved in a golden urn, upon an altar in front of it. "And apostolic statues climb To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime." _Childe Harold_, cx. It was while walking in this forum, that Gregory the Great, observing one of the marble groups which told of a good and great action of Trajan, lamented bitterly that the soul of so noble a man should be lost, and prayed earnestly for the salvation of the heathen emperor. He was told that the soul of Trajan should be saved, but that to ensure this he must either himself undergo the pains of purgatory for three days, or suffer earthly pain and sickness for the rest of his life. He chose the latter, and never after was in health. This incident is narrated by his three biographers, John and Paul Diaconus, and John of Salisbury.[50] The forum of Trajan was partly uncovered by Pope Paul III. in the sixteenth century, but excavated in its present form by the French in 1812. There is much still buried under the streets and neighbouring houses. "All over the surface of what once was Rome it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the ancient city, as it were a corpse, and he the sexton; so that, in eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has grown very deep, by the slow scattering of dust, and the accumulation of more modern decay upon older ruin.