The art of the Julio-Claudian period, like that of the republic, is slowly emerging into the light. Among notable Julio-Claudian fragments are the relief from Nola, at Budapest, showing a trum peter giving the signal for a naval attack (Actium?) ; certain pro cessional and sacrificial scenes in the Villa Medici, of similar character to those of the Ara Pacis, but later in style, and two reliefs discovered in the Corso only three years ago and removed to the new Museo Mussolini, which are attributed to the arch erected to commemorate the conquest of Britain by Claudius in A.D. 44. The more organic relation now attempted between the scenes represented and the background, leads gradually to that pictorial Flavian style best exemplified in the reliefs of the Arch of Titus, which represent the triumph of Titus and the spoils of Jerusalem (Plate III., fig. 2). These are eminently pictorial com positions in respect of depth of focus, and, so far as relief is con cerned, the problem of representing form bathed in air and light is here solved. The same effects may be noted in Flavian orna ment, as for example in the pilaster from the monument of the Haterii upon which is carved a tall vase, twined with roses that seem swayed by a light breeze. The delicate transitions and the subtle play of light bestow upon the best Flavian portraits the same "illusionistic" quality. New and notable effects were
attained by the formal wire-mounted toupets of the ladies; these were used to set off the face, which appears as within a niche—a characteristically Roman effect (Plate I., fig. 6).
But even in the Flavian period we find by the side of the pic torial a more architectonic style, as in the friezes of the Flavian ' Forum Transitorium, which forms, as it were, the link between Flavian and Trajanic art. To the principate of Trajan belong, it is thought, four slabs of a long battle-scene, later walled into the Arch of Constantine (central passage and shorter sides of attics). The composition is fine, the heads of the barbarians full of character, but the atmospheric effects sought by the Flavians are abandoned in these crowded scenes (Plate II., fig. 8). -The various episodes were linked together to suggest a continuous whole, a method of composition of which the reliefs of the spiral column put up in Trajan's Forum offer another example. These reliefs, which enfold the column like a strip of embroidery, tell the story of both of Trajan's wars with the Dacians, a formal division between the two narratives being made by a figure of Victory setting up a trophy. Uniform excellence cannot be claimed for the reliefs, yet, considering that the column contains 2,500 figures (arranged, it is said, on 40o slabs), the high level main tained is amazing (Plate III., fig. 4). The sacrificial pageants; Trajan's reception of troops; the opening of the bridge over the Danube; the dramatic scene of "the last water ration within the walls of the enemy's capital, Sarmizegetusa," are spirited compo sitions by a great imaginative artist. The principal character is always the Roman army, and the artist's first intention is to extol its warlike prowess, its courage, its endurance. But the figure of the emperor stands out from the whole and controls the action throughout, thus making manifest in the chief, as in his army, the right of the Roman people.
In the Trajan Column pictorial relief received its death blow; on a carved spiral that mounts in 2 1 windings up a column of I oo ft. high, precision of outline was imperative and perspectival or atmospheric effects out of the question. We may, however, suppose that the whole was coloured in local tints (brown for the earth, green for the trees, etc.) and that details of armour and horse trappings were added in metal. The column was dedicated in A.D. On the top was a statue of the emperor in gilt bronze, and within the high pedestal, were deposited the golden urns contain ing Trajan's ashes and those of his consort, Plotina.