Trajanic art

In this period, Roman art further developed the innovations of the Flavian era, coming to definitively detach itself from Hellenistic influence.

This meant a new condition of well-being for Roman society, which, both in Rome and in the provinces, allowed the emergence of a vast middle class, capable of expressing its needs and its own taste in the artistic field.

Seemingly devoid of emotion, this is a typical example of the realism of Roman private portraits: a simple and objective image with firm and calm features, however highlighting the authority and dignity of the subject.

With great formal simplicity, the emperor is depicted nonchalant while explaining a plan to the general, fixing him in the eyes and relaxing the palms of hands in front of him, according to an intense relationship of trust and respect between him and the subordinate, of an intelligent and virile conversation, devoid of any rhetoric or courtesy.

The reliefs of Trajan's Column produced in this period are considered not only masterpieces of Roman civilization, but of ancient art in general.

The artist of the column frieze had in fact fully assimilated Hellenistic (and classical) art, further developing it in the wake of the Roman historical narrative, with motifs taken from the immediacy of life.

The sense of human respect for the beaten enemy is a legacy of Greek culture, which will be found up to the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius about the Sarmatians.

Trajan's Forum was the complex that grandly completed the urban planning of the Imperial Fora, to allow the capable administrative, commercial, judicial and political functioning of the capital of the empire.

The architecture is inspired by Syrian, Commagene, and Lycian works, with Greek influenced moldings and a frieze that shows a relationship with the historical reliefs in Rome.