Introduction to Trajan's Forum
The room in the museum that serves as an introduction to Trajan's Forum is home to the headless statue of a man wearing body armour – in other words, a man in military attire complete with body armour, (called lorica) - made out of a particularly precious white marble from the Greek island of Thassos. It came to light during the 1928-1934 excavations of the exedra on the eastern portico and was almost certainly one of its decorative elements.
Two other statues were found in the same area; one of a figure wearing a toga and another that was sitting down. They too were headless and all three were made of the same type of marble.
The sophisticated decoration of the body armour, with griffins on either side of a stem emerging from an Acanthus plant, echoes a motif that is widely present in the friezes found throughout the complex.
Statue of a standing man with body armour (headless)
Found in Trajan's Forum
From the Trajan Era: 112 AD
Thassos Marble (from the Greek Island of the same name)
FT 6121
