Let us then who look on them recollect
their advice, and set our affections on a place of greater stability.
The columns are of very unequal excellence, that of Trajan's confessedly
the best; one grieves to think he never saw it himself, as few princes
were less puffed up by well-deserved praise than he; but dying at
Seleucia of a dysenteric fever, his ashes were brought home, and kept on
the top of his own pillar in a gilt vase; which Sextus Quintus with more
zeal than taste took down, I fear destroyed, and placed St. Peter there.
Apollodorus was the architect of the elegant structure, on which, says
Ammianus Marcellinus, the Gods themselves gazed with wonder, seeing
that nothing but heaven itself was finer. "_Singularem sub omni caelo
structuram etiam numinum ascensione mirabilem_."
I know not whether this is the proper place to mention that the good
Pope Gregory, who added to the possession of every cardinal virtue the
exertion of every Christian one, having looked one day with peculiar
stedfastness at this column, and being naturally led to reflect on his
character to whose honour it was erected, felt just admiration of a mind
so noble; and retiring to his devotions in a church not far off, began
praying earnestly for Trajan's soul: till a preternatural voice,
accompanied with rays of light round the altar he knelt at, commanded
his forbearance of further solicitation; assuring him that Trajan's soul
was secure in the care of his Creator.
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