The best view of Trajan's Column isn't in Rome. The war carved around it ends at the top, about 30 metres up, where it's hard to make out from the street. In London, the V&A's plaster cast had to be built in two halves because it was too tall for the building, and the upside is that the top half stands on the floor and the final scenes are close enough to read from the gallery balcony.

• ✓Victoria and Albert Museum, REPRO.1864-128 and gallery signs
• ✓Columbia University Media Center for Art History, Colonna Traiana scene catalogue
• ✓University of St Andrews, Trajan's Column project
• ✓Wikipedia, "Trajan's Column"
• ✓Finestre sull'Arte, interview with Bruno Zanardi

This Roman emperor's column is in London, in two halves. It isn't stolen. It's a plaster replica. The real one is Trajan's Column in Rome, over nineteen hundred years old, with a whole war carved spiralling around it. But the war's ending is carved at the top, about thirty metres up. From the street in Rome, you can barely make it out. In the 1860s, Napoleon the Third had all of it moulded. A London museum bought a cast from those moulds, but it was too tall for the building, so it went up in two halves. The upside: the top half stands on the floor, and from the balcony, the end of the war is close enough to read. So the best seat for the end of Trajan's war isn't in Rome. It's in London, in these two halves.