Roman triumph - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony

Civil religion

The intended meaning of the term civil religion often varies according to whether one is a sociologist of religion or a professional political commentator...

and religious rite

Rite

A rite is an established, ceremonious, usually religious act. Rites in this sense fall into three major categories:* rites of passage, generally changing an individual's social status, such as marriage, baptism, or graduation....

of ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

tradition, only the Senate

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

could grant a triumph. The origins and development of this honour were obscure: Roman historians placed the first triumph in the mythical past.

On the day of his triumph, the general wore regalia that identified him as near-divine or near-kingly. He rode in a chariot through the streets of Rome in unarmed procession with his army and the spoils of his war. At Jupiter's temple on the Capitoline Hill he offered sacrifice and the tokens of his victory to the god. Thereafter he had the right to be described as vir triumphalis ("man of triumph", later known as triumphator) for the rest of his life. After death, he was represented at his own funeral, and those of his later descendants, by a hired actor who wore his death mask

Death mask

In Western cultures a death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits...

(imago) and was clad in the all-purple, gold-embroidered triumphal toga picta ("painted" toga).

Republican morality

Mos maiorum

The mos maiorum is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms. It is the core concept of Roman traditionalism, distinguished from but in dynamic complement to written law. The mos maiorum The mos maiorum ("ancestral custom") is the unwritten code from which the...

required that despite these extraordinary honours, the triumphator conduct himself with dignified humility, as a mortal citizen who triumphed on behalf of Rome's Senate, people and gods. Inevitably, besides its religious and military dimensions, the triumph offered extraordinary opportunities for self-publicity. As Roman territories expanded during the early and middle Republican eras, foreign wars increased the opportunities for self-promotion. While most Roman festivals

Roman festivals

In ancient Roman religion, holidays were celebrated to worship and celebrate a certain god or divine event, and consisted of religious observances and festival traditions, usually with a large feast, and often featuring games . The most important festivals were the Saturnalia, the Consualia, the...

were calendar fixtures, the tradition and law that reserved a triumph to extraordinary victory ensured that its celebration, procession and attendant feasting and public games promoted the status, achievements and person of the triumphator. These could be further celebrated and commemorated by his personal issue of triumphal coinage, and his funding of monumental public works and temples. By the Late Republican era, increasing competition among the competitive military-political adventurers who ran Rome's nascent empire ensured that triumphs became more frequent, drawn out and extravagant, prolonged in some cases by several days of public games and entertainments. From the Principate

Principate

The Principate is the first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate. The Principate is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of the Emperors to preserve the...

onwards, the Triumph reflected the Imperial order and the pre-eminence of the Imperial family.

Most Roman accounts of triumphs were written to provide their readers with a moral lesson, rather than to provide an accurate description of the triumphal process, procession, rites and their meaning. This scarcity allows for only the most tentative and generalised, and possibly misleading reconstruction of triumphal ceremony, based on the combination of various incomplete accounts from different periods of Roman history. Nevertheless, the triumph is considered a characteristically Roman ceremony which represented Roman wealth, power and grandeur, and has been consciously imitated by medieval and later states.

The vir triumphalis

In Pre-Republican and Republican Rome, truly exceptional military achievement merited the highest possible honours, which connected the vir triumphalis ("man of triumph", later known as a triumphator) to Rome's mythical and semi-mythical past. In effect, vir triumphalis was close to being "king for a day", and possibly close to divinity. He wore the regalia traditionally associated both with the ancient Roman monarchy and with the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus: the purple and gold "toga picta", laurel crown, red boots and (again, possibly) the reddened face of Rome's supreme deity. From the time of Scipio Africanus

Scipio Africanus

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...

, he was linked - at least in the opinion of historians during the Principate - to both Alexander and to the demi-god Hercules, who had laboured selflessly for the benefit of all mankind.

Many Roman historians, and some moderns, presume that Rome's sense of conservatism and continuity would have preserved the essentials and meaning of the Triumphal rite from the days of Rome's foundation; for most Romans, the mythic antiquity of ritual confirmed its sanctity. The exclamation which accompanied the triumphal rite was attested in the Carmen Arvale

Carmen Arvale

The Carmen Arvale is the preserved chant of the Arval priests or Fratres Arvales of ancient Rome.The Arval priests were devoted to the goddess Dea Dia, and offered sacrifices to her to ensure the fertility of ploughed fields . There were twelve Arval priests, chosen from patrician families. ...

; to Romans of the later Republic, this ancient religious chant was probably as obscure in meaning as it is to modern scholarship. Roman etymologists thought it a borrowing via Etruscan

Etruscan language

The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...

from the Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

thriambus
Thriambus
A thriambus is a hymn to Dionysus, sung in processions in his honour, and at the same time an epithet of the god himself, according to Diodorus :...

(θρίαμβος). Plutarch (and other Roman sources) accorded the first Roman triumph to Romulus

Romulus

- People:* Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome* Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman Emperor* Valerius Romulus , deified son of the Roman emperor Maxentius* Romulus , son of the Western Roman emperor Anthemius...

, in celebration of his victory over King Acron of the Caeninenses

Caenina (town)

Caenina was a town nearby ancient Rome, in Latium.In Rome's early semi-legendary history, the king of the Romans, Romulus, sought to obtain women as wives for his male citizens. After delegations were sent to nearby regions requesting wives and the delegations were refused, Romulus devised a...

, traditionally coeval with Rome's foundation in 753 BCE: this was held to explain the unique ritual costume of the vir triumphalis. Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

projected a fabulous and poetic triumphal precedent; the god Bacchus/Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

had returned in triumph from his conquest of India, drawn in a golden chariot by tigers and surrounded by maenads, satyrs and assorted drunkards. Arrian

Arrian

Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...

attributed Dionysian and "Roman" elements to a victory procession of Alexander the Great. No physical evidence survives for triumphal practice in the pre-Republican era.

Development in the Republic

In the Middle to Late Republic, the triumph was increasingly exploited by political-military adventurers. Accounts from this time combine nostalgia for Rome's vanished and virtuous past with fears for its future. Beard notes that the decline of the "peasant virtues" of ancient Rome was said to match the growth in triumphal ostentation. Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...

' imaginative account of Romulus' triumph (almost certainly informed by equally nostalgic Roman sources) led him to reflect that the triumphs of his own day (Ca 60 BCE – after 7 BCE) "departed in every respect from the ancient tradition of frugality".

Triumphal accounts in this era of growth, cultural absorption and political instability find the erosion of "Roman virtue" in the fruits of conquest. Livy gives due attention to the plundered wealth of statuary, gold and silver, but particular weight to the specialist chefs, flute girls, one-legged tables and other "dinner-party amusements" brought to Rome from exotic Galatia

Galatia

Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of...

for the (putative) triumph of Gnaeus Manlius Vulso

Gnaeus Manlius Vulso

Gnaeus Manlius Vulso was a Roman consul for the year 189 BC, together with Marcus Fulvius Nobilior. He led a victorius campaign against the Galatian Gauls of Asia Minor in 189 BC during the Galatian War. He may have been awarded a triumph in 187BCE...

in 187 BCE. Livy's account of the spoils is thorough, not only in his descriptions of its pernicious "foreign luxuries" but its captives, wagonloads of booty and the celebratory songs of the soldiery. Yet Florus

Florus

Florus, Roman historian, lived in the time of Trajan and Hadrian.He compiled, chiefly from Livy, a brief sketch of the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to the closing of the temple of Janus by Augustus . The work, which is called Epitome de T...

has the senate turn down Vulso's application — no triumph takes place. Livy also has Scipio Africanus

Scipio Africanus

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...

make a self-deprecatory request for victories in Spain in 206 BCE — without much expectation, because although he had been an aedilis curulis, his command rights in Spain had been granted by a special vote of the people. There was as yet no precedent for a triumph except in a senior magistracy with command rights (praetura or consulate) or with command rights extended from such a magistacy (viri pro praetore and pro consule): on these grounds, according to Livy, the request was quite properly refused. No triumph was held. Yet Polybius

Polybius

Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...

describes its splendours — and reactions to them — in some detail. Neither of these writers was contemporary to the event. Each seems to infer what ought to have happened; each extols humility and service, and remarks the perils of vaunting personal pride and ambition. These preoccupations frustrate attempts to reconstruct a "typical" triumph from most written accounts: where details are given, they are invariably remarkable, exceptional, strange or superlative. The "obvious" ritual details tend to be sketchy, interpretive or entirely absent.

Towards the end of the Republic, Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

noted how self-aggrandisement could be extended to dynastic ancestors, and further distort an already fragmentary and unreliable historical tradition.

The Fasti Triumphales

The Fasti Triumphales (also called Acta Triumphalia) are fragmentary, inscribed stone tablets which were erected somewhere in the Forum Romanum during the reign of the first emperor, Augustus, and date from approximately 12 BCE. They record over 200 triumphs, starting with three mythical triumphs of Romulus in 753 BCE, and ending with that of Lucius Cornelius Balbus in 19 BCE.

They were part of the Augustan fasti Capitolini. The standard modern edition is that of Attilio Degrassi

Attilio Degrassi

Attilio Degrassi was a pioneering Italian scholar of Latin epigraphy.Degrassi taught at the University of Padova where he taught, among others, the epigraphist Silvio Panciera, currently on the faculty of the University of Rome "La Sapienza"....

, in Inscriptiones Italiae, vol.XIII, fasc.1 (Rome, 1947).

Intact entries give the formal name, including filiation (forenames of father and grandfather) of the vir triumphalis, the name of the people(s) or command province whence the triumph was awarded, and the date of the actual ceremonial procession into the urbs. Fragments of similar date and style from Rome and provincial Italy appear to be modeled on the Augustan Fasti, and fill some of its gaps.

Legal requirements

In the Republic, the triumph was the highest honour. In order to receive a triumph, the Leader must:

Win a significant victory over a foreign enemy, killing at least 5,000 enemy troops, and earn the title imperator
Imperator
The Latin word Imperator was originally a title roughly equivalent to commander under the Roman Republic. Later it became a part of the titulature of the Roman Emperors as part of their cognomen. The English word emperor derives from imperator via Old French Empreur...

.
Be an elected magistrate with the power of imperium
Imperium
Imperium is a Latin word which, in a broad sense, translates roughly as 'power to command'. In ancient Rome, different kinds of power or authority were distinguished by different terms. Imperium, referred to the sovereignty of the state over the individual...

, i.e. a dictator
Roman dictator
In the Roman Republic, the dictator , was an extraordinary magistrate with the absolute authority to perform tasks beyond the authority of the ordinary magistrate . The office of dictator was a legal innovation originally named Magister Populi , i.e...

, consul
Roman consul
A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...

, or a praetor
Praetor
Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...

.
Bring the army home, signifying that the war was over and that the army was no longer needed. This only applied with a citizen army. By the imperial period the proper triumph was reserved for the emperor and his family. If a general was awarded a triumph by the emperor, he would march with a token number of his troops.
In the Republican period, the senate had to give approval for a triumph based on the above mentioned requirements.

Internal conflicts (civil wars) did not, at least in theory, merit triumphs. The defeated enemy had to be of equal status, so defeating a slave revolt could therefore not earn a triumph.

Processional order and rites

In the absence of complete or clear records of any triumphal ceremony, attempted reconstruction presumes a traditional, conservative framework in which details omitted from one account can be furnished from another. A reconstruction follows, based on Ramsey, 1875.

The ceremony began outside the Servian Walls in the Campus Martius

Campus Martius

The Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about in extent. In the Middle Ages, it was the most populous area of Rome...

, on the western bank of the Tiber

Tiber

The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...

. The vir triumphalis entered the city in his chariot through the Porta Triumphalis, which was only opened for these occasions. As he entered the city (as defined by the pomerium

Pomerium

The pomerium or pomoerium , was the sacred boundary of the city of Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within the pomerium; everything beyond it was simply territory belonging to Rome.-Location and extensions:Tradition maintained that it was the original line ploughed by Romulus around the...

, he was met by the senate

Roman Senate

and magistrates and legally surrendered his command. The parade then proceeded along the Via Triumphalis (the modern Via dei Fori Imperiali
Via dei Fori Imperiali
The Via dei Fori Imperiali is a road in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, that runs in a straight line from the Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum....

) to the Circus Flaminius

Circus Flaminius

The Circus Flaminius was a large, circular area of land in Rome that contained a small race-track reserved for mysterious games, and various other buildings and monuments. It was located in the southern end of the Campus Martius, near the Tiber River. It was ‘built,’ or sectioned off, by Flaminius...

then the Circus Maximus

Circus Maximus

The Circus Maximus is an ancient Roman chariot racing stadium and mass entertainment venue located in Rome, Italy. Situated in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, it was the first and largest stadium in ancient Rome and its later Empire...

. A captured enemy ruler or general might be paraded then taken to the Tullianum for execution: Jugurtha

Jugurtha

Jugurtha or Jugurthen was a King of Numidia, , born in Cirta .-Background:Until the reign of Jugurtha's grandfather Masinissa, the people of Numidia were semi-nomadic and indistinguishable from the other Libyans in North Africa...

was starved to death there, and Vercingetorix

Vercingetorix

Vercingetorix was the chieftain of the Arverni tribe, who united the Gauls in an ultimately unsuccessful revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars....

was strangled. Some defeated leaders, such as Zenobia

Zenobia

Zenobia was a 3rd-century Queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Roman Syria. She led a famous revolt against the Roman Empire. The second wife of King Septimius Odaenathus, Zenobia became queen of the Palmyrene Empire following Odaenathus' death in 267...

of Palmyra

Palmyra

Palmyra was an ancient city in Syria. In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert...

, were spared. The procession continued along the Via Sacra

Via Sacra

The Via Sacra was the main street of ancient Rome, leading from the top of the Capitoline Hill, through some of the most important religious sites of the Forum , to the Colosseum....

to the Forum

Forum (Roman)

A forum was a public square in a Roman municipium, or any civitas, reserved primarily for the vending of goods; i.e., a marketplace, along with the buildings used for shops and the stoas used for open stalls...

and ascended the Capitoline Hill

Capitoline Hill

The Capitoline Hill , between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the seven hills of Rome. It was the citadel of the earliest Romans. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Capitolino in Italian, with the alternative Campidoglio stemming from Capitolium. The English word capitol...

to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the final destination. The route would be lined with cheering crowds who would shower the triumphator with flowers.

At the Capitoline Hill the vir triumphalis sacrificed white bulls to Jupiter

Jupiter (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....

. He then entered the temple to offer his wreath to the god as a sign that he had no intentions of becoming the king of Rome

Roman Kingdom

The Roman Kingdom was the period of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a monarchical form of government of the city of Rome and its territories....

. Once this part of the ceremony was over, temples were kept open and incense

Incense

Incense is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned. The term "incense" refers to the substance itself, rather than to the odor that it produces. It is used in religious ceremonies, ritual purification, aromatherapy, meditation, for creating a mood, and for...

burned at the altars. The soldiers would disperse to the city to celebrate. Often a banquet was served for the citizens in the evening.

To better celebrate the triumph, a monument was sometimes erected. This is the origin of the Arch of Titus

Arch of Titus

The Arch of Titus is a 1st-century honorific arch located on the Via Sacra, Rome, just to the south-east of the Roman Forum. It was constructed in c.82 AD by the Roman Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Titus' victories, including the Siege of...

and the Arch of Constantine

Arch of Constantine

The Arch of Constantine is a triumphal arch in Rome, situated between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It was erected to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312...

, not far from the Colosseum

Colosseum

The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...

, or perhaps near a battle site as is the case for the Tropaeum Traiani

Tropaeum Traiani

The Tropaeum Traiani is a monument in Roman Civitas Tropaensium , built in 109 in then Moesia Inferior, to commemorate Roman Emperor Trajan's victory over the Dacians, in 102, in the Battle of Tapae. The monument was erected on the place where legio XXI Rapax had previously been defeated in 92...

. The monumental Meta Sudans

Meta Sudans

The Meta Sudans was a large monumental conical fountain in ancient Rome.The Meta Sudans was built some time between 89 and 96 under the Flavian emperors, a few years after the completion of the nearby Colosseum...

was erected by the Flavians

Flavian dynasty

The Flavian dynasty was a Roman Imperial Dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96 AD, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian , and his two sons Titus and Domitian . The Flavians rose to power during the civil war of 69, known as the Year of the Four Emperors...

to mark the point where the triumph route turned from the Via Triumphalis into the Via Sacra and the Forum.

It is difficult to determine what is a "real" Roman triumph in the late period. Therefore it is also impossible to say who was the last triumphator. The candidates include Emperor Honorius (403

403

Year 403 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Theodosius and Rumoridus...

) and Flavius Belisarius

Belisarius

Flavius Belisarius was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously....

(ostensibly "sitting in" for Emperor Justinian I

Justinian I

Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...

), in recognition for his victory over the Vandals

Vandals

The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Vandals under king Genseric entered Africa in 429 and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics....

. It was held in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

in 534

534

Year 534 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Iustinianus and Paulinus...

.

During the approximately 1900 years of the history from the beginnings of the Roman Republic

Roman Republic

to the final disappearance of the Eastern Roman Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

about 500 triumphs were celebrated.

The Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

, headed by the magistrates without their lictor
Lictor
The lictor was a member of a special class of Roman civil servant, with special tasks of attending and guarding magistrates of the Roman Republic and Empire who held imperium, the right and power to command; essentially, a bodyguard...

s.
Trumpeters
Carts with the spoils of war
War loot
War loot refers to goods, valuables and property obtained by force from their lawful owners via looting during or after warfare. These "spoils of war" differ from tributes or other payments extracted after the fact by a victorious nation in that their extraction is largely arbitrary and immediate,...
White bulls for sacrifice
The arms and insignia
War trophy
In ancient Greece and Rome, military victories were commemorated with a display of captured arms and standards. A trophy was originally a war memorial assembled from such items on a battlefield. The Roman triumph‎ also displayed these items as well as cultural objects, which later came to be...

of the conquered enemy
The enemy leaders themselves, with their relatives and other captives
The lictor
Lictor
The lictor was a member of a special class of Roman civil servant, with special tasks of attending and guarding magistrates of the Roman Republic and Empire who held imperium, the right and power to command; essentially, a bodyguard...

s of the imperator
Imperator
The Latin word Imperator was originally a title roughly equivalent to commander under the Roman Republic. Later it became a part of the titulature of the Roman Emperors as part of their cognomen. The English word emperor derives from imperator via Old French Empreur...

, their fasces
Fasces
Fasces are a bundle of wooden sticks with an axe blade emerging from the center, which is an image that traditionally symbolizes summary power and jurisdiction, and/or "strength through unity"...

wreathed with laurel
The imperator
Imperator
The Latin word Imperator was originally a title roughly equivalent to commander under the Roman Republic. Later it became a part of the titulature of the Roman Emperors as part of their cognomen. The English word emperor derives from imperator via Old French Empreur...

himself, in a chariot drawn by two (later four) horses
The adult sons and officers of the imperator
The army without weapons or armor (since the procession would take them inside the pomerium
Pomerium
The pomerium or pomoerium , was the sacred boundary of the city of Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within the pomerium; everything beyond it was simply territory belonging to Rome.-Location and extensions:Tradition maintained that it was the original line ploughed by Romulus around the...

), but clad in toga
Toga
The toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a cloth of perhaps 20 ft in length which was wrapped around the body and was generally worn over a tunic. The toga was made of wool, and the tunic under it often was made of linen. After the 2nd century BC, the toga was a garment worn...

s and wearing wreaths. During the later periods, only a selected company of soldiers would follow the commander in the triumph, as a singular honour.

The imperator may possibly have had his face painted red and wore a corona triumphalis, a tunica palmata and a toga picta

Toga

The toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a cloth of perhaps 20 ft in length which was wrapped around the body and was generally worn over a tunic. The toga was made of wool, and the tunic under it often was made of linen. After the 2nd century BC, the toga was a garment worn...

. He may have been accompanied in his chariot by a slave holding a golden wreath above his head and constantly reminding the commander of his mortality by whispering into his ear. However, this is based on slender and disputed evidence.

The words that the slave is said to have used are not known, but suggestions include "Respice te, hominem te memento" ("Look behind you, remember you are only a man") and "Memento mori
Memento mori
Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die". It names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality...

" ("Remember (that you are) mortal").

Exotic animals, musicians and slaves carrying pictures of conquered cities and signs with names of conquered peoples are found in accounts by .

Suetonius

Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....

claims that the emperor Vespasian

Vespasian

Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...

regretted his own triumph, because its vast length and slow movement bored him.

The Ovation and Alban Mount Triumph of M. Marcellus, 211 BCE.

Livy XXVI 21:

At the end of that same summer when M. Marcellus had come to the City from Sicily province the Senate was given for him at the temple of Bellona by the praetor C. Calpurnius. (2) There, once he had described his achievements, he complained mildly about his soldiers' lot more than his own regarding the fact that after the settlement of the province he had not been permitted to bring his army home. He also asked that he be permitted to enter the City in triumph. He did not obtain his request. (3) After a lengthy debate whether it was less appropriate to refuse a triumph to man, in his presence, in whose name when absent a thanksgiving (supplicatio) had been decreed and honour paid to the Immortal Gods by reason of the things successfully accomplished under his leadership, (4) or for a man to triumph as though a war had been concluded whom they had ordered to hand over his army to a successor (something that would not be decreed if no war remained in the province) when his army, the witness of a deserved as of an undeserved triumph, was far away, the middle course seemed best: that he should enter the City in ovation (ovans). (5) The tribunes of plebs proposed to the People on the authority of the Senate that there should be command rights (imperium) for M. Marcellus on the day he should enter the City in ovation. (6) On the day before he was due to enter the City he triumphed on the Alban Mount. Then in ovation he brought much booty before him into the City. (7) Together with a painting of the capture of Syracuse, catapults, ballistae and all the other engines of war were carried along, as well as the ornaments of a peace of long duration and of royal opulence, (8) plate of skilfully wrought silver and bronze, other household furniture, precious garments and many renowned statues by which Syracuse had been distinguished among the foremost cities of Greece. (9) In addition eight elephants were led by to symbolize his Punic victory and not the least spectacle were Sosis of Syracuse and the Spaniard Moericus proceeding in front with golden wreaths. (10) Of these the one had been the nocturnal guide of the entry into Syracuse while the other had betrayed the Island and the garrison there. (11) Citizenship was granted to them both and it was ordered that five hundred iugera of land be granted to each of them too: for Sosis in the Land of Syracuse which had belonged either to the king or enemies of the Roman People, plus such a house in Syracuse that he desired belonging to anyone who had been punished according to the laws of war, (12): for Moericus and the Spaniards who had gone over with him, a city and land in Sicily belonging to those who had defected from the Roman People. (13) M. Cornelius was commissioned to assign to them the city and land wherever seemed right to him. Four hundred iugera of land in that same territory were decreed to Belligenes, by whom Moericus had been enticed to swap sides.

Cf. Plutarch Marcellus 19-22.

Note that the rewards accorded to Sosis and Moericus made them not just Roman citizens but wealthy ones in the prima classis, and hence potential candidates for office in Rome.

Later in the year the Sicilian commander, M. Cornelius Cethegus, awarded the city of Morgantina and its lands to Moericus and his Spaniard mercenaries. The destruction which ensued during the expulsion of the Greek population has been excavated by modern archaeologists and the finds are central to the great controversy of the introduction of the Roman denarius silver coinage.

The three triumphs of Pompeius Magnus

The three triumphs awarded Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") were thoroughly documented, not least because they were controversial to their contemporaries and to later writers. His first, in 80 or 81 BCE, was technically illegal, reluctantly granted by a cowed and divided Senate when Pompey was aged only 24, a mere equestrian. Roman conservatives disapproved. For others, his youthful success was the mark of a prodigious military talent, divine favour and personal brio that merited popular support. However, the triumphal day did not go quite to plan. To represent his African conquest, and perhaps to outdo even Bacchus, Pompey had a team of elephants yoked to his triumphal chariot, but they proved too tight a fit for one of the gates en route to the Capitol. Pompey had to dismount and wait while a horse team was yoked in their place. This embarrassment would have delighted his critics, and probably some of his soldiers — whose demands for cash had been near-mutinous. Even so, his firm stand on the matter of cash raised his standing among the conservatives, and Pompey seems to have learned a lesson in populist politics.

For his second triumph, his donatives were said to break all records, though the amounts in Plutarch's account are implausibly high: Pompey’s lowest ranking soldiers each received 6000 sesterces (about six times their annual pay) and his officers around 5 million sesterces each.
His third triumph, held in 61 BCE to celebrate his victory over Mithradates, was an opportunity to outdo even himself - and certainly his rivals. Triumphs traditionally lasted for one day. Pompey’s went on for two days of unprecedented novelty, wealth and luxury. Plutarch claimed that this triumph represented Pompey's - and therefore Rome's - domination over the entire world, an achievement to outshine even Alexander's. Pliny's narrative dwells upon a gigantic portrait-bust of Pompey, a thing of “eastern splendor” entirely covered with pearls, and with the benefit of hindsight, has this disembodied head anticipate Pompey’s later defeat at Pharsalus and subsequent decapitation in Egypt. In 55 BCE, Pompey

Pompey

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...

's "gift to the Roman People" of a gigantic, architecturally daring theatre was dedicated to Venus Victrix, and thereby connected the once equestrian vir triumphalis to Aeneas, son of Venus and ancestor of Rome itself. For its inauguration, the portico was filled with the spoils of his wars, including statuary, paintings and the personal wealth of foreign kings. Beard interprets this as a commemoration and extension of triumphal fame.

Triumph as Imperial privilege

The triumphal destination was the temple of Jupiter Capitolinis (Capitoline Jupiter), to whom the victor offered his laurel crown and two perfect white bulls as a thanks-offering. The distinctive "kingly" (or possibly, godly) costume and appearance of the vir triumphalis had been traditionally reserved for his temporary elevation on his day of triumph.

In the few years that led up to the Principate, these restrictions were eroded. Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

was granted the right to wear the laurel wreath and “some elements” of triumphal dress at all festivals - Cassius Dio adds that Caesar wore the laurel wreath “wherever and whenever”, excusing this as a cover to his baldness.

Following Caesar's murder, Octavian assumed permanent title of imperator and inaugurated his well prepared principate

Principate

under the name Augustus in 27 BCE. Only the year before he had blocked the senatorial award of a triumph to Marcus Licinius Crassus, despite the latter's acclamation in the field as Imperator and his eminent merit by all traditional criteria - barring only full consulship. Augustus claimed the victory as his own but permitted Crassus a second, listed on the Fasti for 27 BCE, by which time Augustus was abolishing various proconsulates to form his own Imperial provinces. Crassus was also denied the rare (and in his case, technically permissible) honour of dedicating the spolia opima of this campaign to Jupiter Feretrius

Jupiter (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....

. Inscriptions on the Fasti Triumphales come to a seemingly abrupt full-stop in 19 BCE, by which time the triumph had been absorbed into the Augustan Imperial cult

Imperial cult (ancient Rome)

The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...

system in which only the emperor - the supreme Imperator (or very occasionally, a close relative who had glorified the Imperial gens) - would be accorded such a supreme honour. Those outside the Imperial family, like Aulus Plautius

Aulus Plautius

Aulus Plautius was a Roman politician and general of the mid-1st century. He began the Roman conquest of Britain in 43, and became the first governor of the new province, serving from 43 to 47.-Career:...

under Claudius

Claudius

Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...

, might be granted a "lesser triumph", or ovation.

Thereafter the number and frequency of triumphs fell dramatically. Only 5 are known up to 71 CE, none between the triumph of Claudius over Britain (44 CE) and Trajan's posthumous triumph of 117-8 CE, and none from then until the triumph of Marcus Aurelius over Parthia in 166 CE. For this period as for all others, historical sources presume a shared experience with their readership, despite the increasing rarity of Triumphal ceremony. Instead of ceremonial detail they offer statistics (which may or may not be wildly inflated) and lessons in virtue. There is little reason to prefer one version to another - few, if any, are primary sources. Most were compiled long after the triumph had been fully co-opted into a Imperial-monarchic system of government which to an earlier Republican would have seemed very un-Roman indeed.

Legacy

Standardized reconstructions are largely inventive, but offer an orderly and serviceable set of instructions. These were used to organize processions which sought ennobling connections with the classical past, particularly during the Renaissance when the fragmentary Fasti were unearthed and partially restored. In 1550, the triumphant entry into Rouen of Henri II of France was compared to Pompey's third triumph of 61 BCE at Rome: "No less pleasing and delectable than the third triumph of Pompey... magnificent in riches and abounding in the spoils of foreign nations". A triumphal arch made for the entry into Paris of Louis XIII in 1628 carried a depiction of Pompey.

Listing of the Roman viri triumphales to 19 BCE

See the Attalus.org, Fasti Triumphales

External links

William Fitzgerald, December 5, 2007 TLS review of Beard, The Roman Triumph, 2007. Timesonline.co.uk, "Roman defeat in victory"
Fasti Triumphales at attalus.org. Partial, annotated English translation. From A. Degrassi's "Fasti Capitolini", 1954. Attalus.org

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