Column of Phocas

This solitary fluted column stands within the Roman Forum and holds the distinction of being the last monument erected there, dedicated in 608 AD to the Byzantine emperor Phocas. The Corinthian column was reused from an earlier structure and once supported a gilded statue of the emperor that has since vanished. Rising from a stepped brick base, it long stood half-buried until nineteenth-century excavations revealed its foundations. It was immortalised in verse by the poet Byron.