Quote Originally Posted by Intrepid Adventurer
So what is up with that column then? Am I assuming correctly that Trajan put lots of soldiers in Segmentata on the column as a propaganda maneuver?

Traian's column is a propaganda piece. it was made to promote his campaigns. The artists changed a lot of the equipment and other things depicted (suggestions are that they maybe didn't even see the troops). Reasons for those changes are:

visibility: so all legionaries are depicted in segmentata, all auxiliaries in hamata to make a distinction possible from even further away. shields and cheek-/neckguards on helmets are depicted smaller than they are so the soldiers are visible.

style: greek/hellenic influence on the depictions

Traian's column


there is another monument errected by the troops at Adamklissi depicting the same events. you will notice the differences, especially that the majority of the legionaries is wearing hamata:

Adamklissi Metopes

historians and later film makers in earlier centuries made the mistake of copying from Traian's column. That's for example where you get the weird helmets shown in HBO's Rome from, with those strange rings on top (the only helmet which was found looking like that, the so called "Toledo helmet" proofed to be a fake)