General view of the top half of the Column of Marcus Aurelius.
As this view demonstrates, the relief on the Column of Marcus Aurelius is considerably higher than that on the Column of Trajan. An important structural similarity between the columns is the internal stairway which is very regularly planned out. It is the arrangement of this staircase which provides the location of the windows, hence the obvious lack of relationship between the windows and the relief. Another similarity between the two columns is the ring of fluting at the top of the frieze.
