Column of Phocas

Stand still for a moment and look up. A single marble column rises from the floor of the Roman Forum, fluted from top to bottom and capped with carved acanthus leaves. Around you, the ground is uneven, a jumble of old paving stones, broken bases and patches of grass. Most of the Forum lies in pieces. This column stands complete, on its own, against the open sky.

This is the Column of Phocas. It is the last monument ever added to the Roman Forum. Historians date its dedication to the year 608. By then, the Western Roman Empire had been gone for more than a century. Rome was no longer the capital of anything. Power sat far to the east, in Constantinople, and this column was a message sent from that distant world back to the old heart of Rome.

The man it honoured was Phocas, an emperor of what we now call the Byzantine Empire, the eastern half of Rome that survived long after the west fell. Phocas did not inherit his throne. He was a junior army officer who led a revolt in 602 and seized power. The emperor before him, Maurice, was executed along with his sons. It was a violent start to a reign that would stay violent.

So why would Rome raise a column to such a man? The answer lies partly with the Church. Phocas kept good relations with the popes. He confirmed the Bishop of Rome as head of all the churches. He also allowed Pope Boniface the Fourth to take over the Pantheon, the great domed temple across the city, and turn it into a church. That gift is one reason the Pantheon still stands so well today. It has been in use ever since.

The dedication itself came from Smaragdus, the imperial governor in Italy, who ruled from Ravenna on the emperor's behalf. His title was exarch, which simply means the emperor's regional deputy. An inscription on the pedestal records his tribute. Historical sources say a gilded statue of Phocas once stood on top of the column, shining above the Forum. That statue is long gone. Today the capital carries nothing at all.

Here is the first surprise. The column itself is much older than its dedication. Scholars agree it was taken from an earlier Roman building, probably from the time of the high empire, and reused here. Romans of this later age often did this. They recycled marble from older monuments, because cutting and moving new stone was costly. Some researchers even suggest an earlier monument stood on this exact spot and was simply rededicated. That point is still debated.

And here is the second surprise. Phocas did not keep his throne for long. In 610, he was overthrown by Heraclius, who arrived from North Africa with a fleet. Phocas was captured and executed. Afterwards, his name was cut out of the inscription on this pedestal. Romans had a habit of erasing disgraced rulers from public memory. So the column was raised to flatter an emperor, and within a few years, his name had been chiselled away.

For many centuries after that, the column slowly sank into the ground. Not literally, of course. The Forum itself filled up. Floods from the Tiber, collapsed buildings and centuries of rubbish raised the ground level by several metres. In the Middle Ages, this valley became a cattle pasture. Romans called it the Campo Vaccino, the cow field. The column stood half buried, its base hidden, and nobody quite remembered who it honoured.

The English poet Lord Byron saw it in that state in the early nineteenth century. In his long poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, he called it a nameless column with a buried base. Around the same time, the mystery was solved. In 1813, excavation around the foot of the column was funded by Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, an English noblewoman living in Rome. Diggers cleared the base and found the inscription. At last, the column had a name again.

Now look down at the base. The column sits on a pedestal, and the pedestal sits on a broad pyramid of steps. In the twentieth century, archaeologists removed some of these steps to show the original Forum paving underneath. So you are looking at two moments of Roman history in one place. The old pavement belongs to the classical city. The steps and column belong to its final, Byzantine chapter.

Take a slow look around from where you stand. Behind you rise the brick walls of the Curia, where the Roman Senate met. Near it stands the heavy triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus. Close by are the remains of the Rostra, the speakers' platform where orators once addressed the crowd. Further along, eight tall columns of the Temple of Saturn still hold up a fragment of their roof. This column stands in the middle of all of them, like a full stop at the end of a long sentence.

Think about what this spot meant. For centuries, this open square was the political centre of Rome. Laws were announced here. Victories were celebrated here. Emperors added statues, arches and columns to it, one after another. Then, in the early seventh century, the building simply stopped. After this column, nothing new was ever raised in the Forum. In a quiet way, this is where the story of ancient Rome ends.

As you walk on, notice how the light changes on the marble. In the morning, the flutes of the column catch soft shadows. Late in the day, the stone turns warm and golden. Listen to the gravel underfoot, the voices of other visitors, the swifts that circle the Forum in summer. Before you leave, look up once more at that empty capital... and picture a gilded emperor who was here for only a moment, then gone.