Latest / The Story of Italy: Rome, Renaissance, and the Birth of Modern Europe — Fexingo History / The Column of Phocas: Rome's Last Imperial Monument
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Roman monuments — Trajan's Column, the Pantheon, the arches of triumph. But one column in the Roman Forum is especially strange because it's the very last one they ever put up. It's called the Column of Phocas, and it was dedicated in 608 AD. Luna: I've walked past that column — it's just standing there in the middle of the Forum, looking a bit lonely. Lucas: That's exactly it. It's a solitary Corinthian column, about 13 meters tall, with a marble base. And originally, on top, there was a gilded bronze statue of the man it's named after — Emperor Phocas. Now, Phocas was a Byzantine emperor, and he came to power in 602 AD through a military coup. He was a centurion who led a mutiny against the previous emperor, Maurice, and had him and his entire family executed. Luna: So he starts his reign with a massacre. Lucas: Right. And his reign was disastrous — he lost territory to the Persians and Slavs, and he faced constant revolts. But here's the twist: the column wasn't erected by Phocas himself. It was put up by the Byzantine exarch of Italy, a man named Smaragdus, and dedicated to Phocas by Pope Boniface IV. Why would the pope and the exarch honor a usurper whose empire was crumbling? Luna: Because they needed his support? Lucas: Exactly. The Exarchate of Ravenna was the Byzantine administrative center in Italy, and it was under constant pressure from the Lombards. Smaragdus needed imperial troops and legitimacy. Phocas, for his part, needed allies in Italy. So the column was a political gift — a gesture of loyalty from the pope and the exarch, and a piece of propaganda to show that Rome still stood with the emperor in Constantinople. Luna: What did Phocas do for them in return? Lucas: He recognized the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the Patriarch of Constantinople — a huge win for Boniface IV. And he also gave the Pantheon to the pope, who turned it into a Christian church in 609. So there were real political trade-offs here. Luna: So the column is a monument to a deal — not a victory. Lucas: Exactly. And the irony is that within two years, Phocas was overthrown by Heraclius, the son of the exarch of Africa. Heraclius had Phocas executed, and suddenly the column was a monument to a disgraced tyrant. But they didn't tear it down. And that's what makes it so interesting — it survived because by 608, the Forum was already a kind of museum of ruins. Nobody had the resources or the will to remove such a massive structure. Luna: So it just kept standing there, with its gilded statue of a dead emperor. Lucas: The statue is long gone — probably melted down for its gold sometime in the Middle Ages. But the column itself survives, and it's the last imperial monument added to the Forum. After that, the focus shifts entirely to the Church. The Curia Julia, the old Roman Senate house, was turned into a church. The Forum itself became a cow pasture — they called it the Campo Vaccino. And the Column of Phocas stood there, a silent reminder of the end of an era. Luna: It's almost poetic — the last monument is to a man who lost everything. Lucas: And that's why I think it's such a powerful symbol. It's not about Phocas himself — he was a footnote. It's about the moment when Rome stopped building for emperors and started being scavenged for its own history. The Column of Phocas is the last stone in a 1,200-year tradition of imperial monuments. And then silence. Luna: Speaking of keeping things standing — I want to mention something. We've been doing these episodes ad-free from the start. That's a choice we made because we think history deserves to be told without interruptions, without selling you something every ten minutes. Lucas: It's a principle, yeah. And the only reason we can do that is that a small number of listeners chip in to keep the show going. If you've been following along through episodes on Roman water systems or the Borgias or this column, and you want to support that model — there's a link. It's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: It's not a plea — it's just an option. And we're grateful to anyone who does. Lucas: So back to the column — what I find fascinating is that we don't actually know what the inscription on the base originally said. The one we see today was added in the 17th century by antiquarians. They reconstructed it based on fragments, but it's partly guesswork. The original may have praised Phocas's 'piety' and 'victories' — words that must have rung hollow very quickly. Luna: Do we know anything about Smaragdus, the exarch who put it up? Lucas: A bit. He had served as exarch earlier, under Maurice, but he was removed for incompetence. He came back after Phocas's coup and was desperate to prove himself. The column was his way of saying 'I'm loyal.' But it didn't save him — after Phocas fell, Smaragdus was recalled to Constantinople and disappeared from history. Luna: A monument to a loyalty that didn't pay off. Lucas: Exactly. And the column itself is a palimpsest of later history. In the Middle Ages, the base became a kind of bulletin board — people carved graffiti into it, and it was used as a podium for public announcements. Then in the Renaissance, artists like Piranesi drew it. By the 19th century, it was a must-see on the Grand Tour. So the column has this second life as a witness to centuries of change. Luna: It's like a time capsule that wasn't buried — it just stayed above ground. Lucas: And it's still there. If you go to the Roman Forum today, near the arch of Septimius Severus, you'll see this solitary column rising out of the rubble. It's not as grand as Trajan's Column, but in some ways it's more evocative. It marks the end of an empire's monumental ambitions. Luna: I want to go see it now with new eyes. Lucas: That's the power of understanding the story behind it. Next time, let's talk about something that happened in the Forum after it was abandoned — the medieval transformation into a fortress.