Column of Marcus Aurelius historical timeline

Raised for an emperor who had just died, finished by his son, stripped of its inscription and its base reliefs by a pope's architect, and given a saint for a summit.

Chronology

1. 172–173 — the campaigns of Marcus Aurelius against the Germans, later carved on the lower spiral.
2. 174–175 — the campaigns against the Sarmatians, carved above them and separated from the German war by a winged Victory.
3. AD 180 — the death of Marcus Aurelius, and the year in which work on the column begins.
4. AD 180–193 — the column is made, and the construction work is completed by Commodus, the emperor's son and successor.
5. 1589 — Domenico Fontana restores the column on the commission of Pope Sixtus V. The reliefs of the basement are lost in the work, and the bronze statue of Saint Paul is placed on the summit.
6. Thereafter — the honorific inscription of the basement has vanished, and a surviving inscription wrongly attributing the column to Antoninus Pius sustains the belief that it is the Colonna Antonina.

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