A victory column is a monument in the form of a column, erected in memory of a victorious war or battle. The column stands on a base and is crowned with a victory symbol in the form of a statue. The statue may represent the goddess Victoria; in Germany, the female embodiment of the nation, Germania; in the United States either female embodiment of the nation Liberty or Columbia; in the United Kingdom, the female embodiment Britannia; an eagle; or a war hero.
Famous victory columns include:
- Trajan's Column, Rome, Italy
- Column of Antoninus Pius, Rome, Italy
- Column of Marcus Aurelius, Rome, Italy
- Column of Justinian, Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey)
- Alexander Column, Palace Square, Saint Petersburg
- Berlin victory column, Berlin, Germany
- Blenheim Column of Victory, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, U.K..
- Boston Soldiers and Sailors Column, Boston, Massachusetts
- Columna de la Independencia, Mexico City, Mexico
- Hakenberg Victory Column, Hakenberg near Fehrbellin, Germany
- Nelson's Column, London, United Kingdom
- Rotonda de Hombres Ilustres, Chihuahua, Chih., Mexico
- Victory column, Altona, Hamburg, Germany
- Victory column, Nürnberg, Germany
- Victory column, Place Vendôme, Paris, France
- War of Independence Victory Column: (Estonian: Vabadussõja Võidusammas), Tallinn, Estonia
Famous quotes containing the words victory and/or column:
“I have been photographing our toilet, that glossy enameled receptacle of extraordinary beauty.... Here was every sensuous curve of the “human figure divine” but minus the imperfections. Never did the Greeks reach a more significant consummation to their culture, and it somehow reminded me, in the glory of its chaste convulsions and in its swelling, sweeping, forward movement of finely progressing contours, of the Victory of Samothrace.”
—Edward Weston (1886–1958)
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.”
—Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978)