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Carsten Hjort Lange & Frederik Juliaan Vervaet
THE ROMAN REPUBLICAN TRIUMPH
BEYOND THE SPECTACLE
Edizioni Quasar
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The Roman Republican Triumph
Beyond the Spectacle
EDITED BY
CARSTEN HJORT LANGE & FREDERIK JULIAAN VERVAET
EDIZIONI QUASAR
ROMA MMXIV
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Analecta Romana Instituti Danici – Supplementum XLV
Accademia di Danimarca, via Omero, 18, I – 00197, Rome
© 2014 Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon srl, Roma
ISBN 978-88-7140-576-6
Published with the support of grants from:
The Carlsberg Foundation
Cover: The Fasti Capitolini, containing the Fasti Consulares and the Fasti Triumphales.
Rome, Musei Capitolini, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Sala della Lupa. Photo: Courtesy of
© Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini.
Print in Italy by LitografTodi - Todi (PG)
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A Ritual Against the Rule?
The Representation of Civil War Victory
in the Late Republican Triumph*
by WOLFGANG HAVENER
Abstract. No Roman general ever celebrated a triumph for victory in a civil war. This simple message is propagated by various sources, most prominent among them Valerius Maximus with his treatise on triumphal law. However, as a detailed
analysis of the Late Republican ceremonies demonstrates, each of the protagonists of the civil war era staged their victories
over Roman fellow-citizens in quite distinctive ways. By doing so, they were confronted with a crucial problem: to boast
openly to have conquered Roman citizens could attract overt criticism. Therefore any general who wished to present a victory over Roman citizens in no uncertain terms had to walk a tightrope, especially so if this representation took the form of a
public triumph. The Late Republican generals thus had to develop various ways to deal with their victories. Sulla, Pompey,
Caesar, and Octavian adopted different strategies to represent their success and to demonstrate that the victory in civil war
gave them power of a new quality.
When Valerius Maximus wrote his Facta ac dicta memorabilia during the reign of Emperor Tiberius,
he turned his attention, in the section on the triumph, to a time when the Roman state stood at the
edge of the abyss: although contemporaries were no longer likely to have experienced the period
of the civil wars consciously, the decades of internal Roman conflicts had been burnt deeply into
the collective memory. Whenever Roman armies had left the battlefields victoriously at Pharsalus,
Philippi or Actium, their victories had been won over other Roman armies. This was a fact which
could not be denied. At least, however, as Valerius Maximus reassured his readership, this did not
result in public triumphs and the consequent desecration of one of the central political rituals of
Rome. Valerius Maximus summarised this in a clearly stated rule:
Verum quamvis quis praeclaras res maximeque utiles rei publicae civili bello gessisset, Imperator tamen eo nomine
appellatus non est, neque ullae supplicationes decretae sunt, neque aut ovans aut curru triumphavit, quia ut necessariae istae, ita lugubres semper existimatae sunt victoriae, utpote non externo sed domestico partae cruore.
No man, however though he might have accomplished great things eminently useful to the Republic in a civil war,
was given the title of general (Imperator) on that account, nor were any thanksgivings decreed, nor did such a one
triumph either in ovation or with chariot, for such victories have ever been accounted grievous, though necessary,
as won by domestic not foreign blood.1
Modern scholarship has generally followed this apparently straightforward premise.2 Although the
point is made with regard to isolated cases that certain triumphs can also be connected to a civil war
*
The main part of this essay was translated by Helen
Imhoff and supported by funds made available by the
“Cultural Foundations of Integration” Center of Excellence at the University of Konstanz, established in the
framework of the German Federal and State Initiative
for Excellence. An extended and slightly different version of this article in German will be published in the
proceedings of the conference Performing Civil War,
Schloss Reisensburg, Ulm, 6th-8th October 2011, edited by
H. Börm, M. Mattheis and J. Wienand. I want to thank
all editors for the opportunity to participate in both vol-
1.
2.
umes. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are taken
from Loeb.
Val. Max. 2.8.7 (translation modified, WH).
Cf., for example, the statement in Beard 2007, 123-124:
“The logic was that the triumph was a celebration of victory
over external enemies only; that a triumph in civil war, with
Roman citizens dragged along where an exotic barbarian
foe should be, was a contradiction in terms.” Consequently
Dahlheim 2005, 221, states that Caesar celebrated “als erster Römer einen Sieg über die eigenen Bürger” in 45 BC; cf.
also Maiuro 2008, 27, n. 11, and Weinstock 1971, 198.
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WOLFGANG HAVENER
victory,3 any discussion of the resulting contradiction is usually limited to the statement of this fact
alone, without examining the problem which lies behind it in more detail. Alternatively, reference is
often made to a concurrent external dimension of the conflicts, which was supposedly quite deliberately given special emphasis in the victory celebrations in question.4 In a nutshell, the consensus
in this area of research is that civil war and triumph were incompatible – just as Valerius Maximus
claimed.5
A comprehensive examination of the sources, however, leads to a different conclusion, for Valerius Maximus was by no means the only one to take up the subject of civil war triumphs: contemporary authors (Cicero, Livy, the Augustan poets) as well as later ones (Plutarch, Appian, etc.) commented on this problem in normative and also in descriptive texts.6 This allows for the conclusion
that the representation of a civil war victory and the potentially problematic consequences involved
was indeed taken up and discussed by the political public (not only in the civil war period itself).
Consequently, this means that civil war triumphs did in fact form part of the political practice of the
Late Republic, contrary to the rule defined by Valerius Maximus. The following contribution will
examine whether and how the protagonists of the civil war period staged their victories over Roman
citizens in the context of the triumphal ritual and whether, in doing so, they had to obey certain rules
which were intended a priori to prevent such a staging.7
The civil war triumph as a political reality
Only a few days after M. Tullius Cicero (cos. 63) had stressed in his 14th Philippic that no civil war
had ever been ended with a supplicatio or even a triumph,8 the troops of M. Antonius (cos. 44, II 34)
were defeated at Mutina by the army of the Senate, led by C. Iulius Caesar, or, as he is now commonly called, Octavian. The events that followed can be gathered from the accounts of Livy and Velleius
Paterculus.9 These accounts are in agreement that the Senate accorded a series of honours to its
victorious commanders, that is Octavian, the two consuls of 43 A. Hirtius and C. Vibius Pansa, as
well as D. Iunius Brutus (procos. 44/43, cos. design. 42), who had been under siege in Mutina: thus,
a solemn burial on the Campus Martius was decreed for the two consuls, who had been killed in the
fighting. Decimus Brutus, however, who had survived the siege of the town and had afterwards pursued the vanquished Antony across the Alps into Gaul, was granted a triumph. Admittedly, Brutus
was not able to celebrate it, as he had been killed in Gaul, but the fact that, contrary to Valerius Maximus’s apparently so unequivocal statement, a victory celebration for a civil war success was indeed
possible and was evidently also actually agreed upon is in itself telling enough with regard to the
political situation in the Late Republic.10 There is every indication that Decimus Brutus’s triumph
was not even the subject of any lengthy debates: there is not a single source, whether contemporary
3.
4.
5.
Amongst other examples, Caesar’s triumphs in the years
46 and 45 BC are, of course, repeatedly and rightly cited;
cf. Beard 2007, 124.
Cf., amongst others, Bastien 2007, 228-229.
Approaches do, by all means, exist by now which, starting with the passage by Valerius Maximus cited above,
pose the question of whether this rule really was valid
without exception, especially in the Late Republic (thus,
for example Lundgreen 2011, 223; Lange 2009, 150 who
refers to Munda and Mutina also takes a critical view of
the rule reported by Valerius Maximus). Nevertheless, a
systematic examination of the phenomenon of the civil
war triumphs has, so far, only been attempted very rarely. Notable exceptions are the contributions by Lange
2013 and Sumi 2005. In the relevant monographs on
the triumph (cf. amongst others Östenberg 2009; Beard
2007; Itgenhorst 2005; Künzl 1988 and Versnel 1970)
discussion of the civil war is either omitted altogether
or is only very brief. For civil war and triumph, see also
Östenberg in this volume.
6. In most cases, however, the fundamental question of
whether a civil war triumph was possible, or rather
impossible, is not discussed in a systematic way (cf.
amongst others Flor. 2.10.9 on Pompey’s victory over Sertorius and also Plut. Caes. 56.7-8 and Cass. Dio 42.18.1
on Caesar’s triumphs); see Havener (in press) for a more
detailed treatment of Cicero).
7. Ritual-theoretic questions cannot be discussed in any detail in the context of this contribution; on this matter, cf.,
however, Havener (in press).
8. Cf. Cic. Phil. 14.22-23.
9. Livy Per. 119; Vell. Pat. 2.62.4-5 Cf. also Cass. Dio
46.38.1-2.
10. Lange 2013, 78-80 also explicitly refers to Decimus Brutus’s triumph as an example of a victory celebration
which was decreed exclusively for a civil war success.
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or not, that mentions any such discussions, which are reported in great detail in other contexts, particularly by Livy.11 This finding is at least in need of explanation when one considers the stipulation
that a civil war triumph was impossible on principle. The sources do not actually question the fact
that a triumph was apparently clearly decreed for a victory over Roman citizens, and the problems
associated with this fact are not alluded to at all.12
Nevertheless, it must be noted that there is not a single entry in the Fasti Triumphales which explicitly records a triumph over Roman citizens. This finding illustrates one of the main problems
which faced the generals of the Late Republic: it was a balancing act for a victor to present his success to the audience in the capital, a fact of which both participants and audience were aware. For,
as will be shown in what follows, although it was possible in principle to instrumentalise a civil war
victory and although such a success could, in practice, serve as justification for a power base, civil
war and discordia always had clear negative connotations.13 Thus, on the one hand the utilisation of
power gained through a victory in the civil war could represent an effective means of consolidating
one’s own position. On the other hand this also meant by necessity that new weak points developed
on the level of political discourse, and these needed to be neutralised in some way.14
The reason for this is obvious: the victor may have gained power through his success, but he also
needed to consolidate this power afterwards and to thus convert an ephemeral moment into a permanent structure.15 In order to achieve this aim, it was essential for the victorious general to cooperate with the upper class and for the new circumstances to be accepted – a fact which the example of
Octavian, or rather, the future Augustus illustrates impressively.16 Overly clear reference to the fact
that this power had been secured spilling the blood of Roman citizens, of course, had its limitations
as a suitable way of promoting this acceptance. Again, this is illustrated by a glance at Augustus,
who, during his entire reign, had to deal with his role during the civil wars and who, in doing so, was
always subject to criticism.17 For this reason I will now in the following examine the strategies which
individual commanders developed in order to survive this balancing act.
Sulla’s triumph over Mithridates – and the Marians
Already in the context of the first great conflict of the civil war period the issue of victory over
Roman citizens was broached as part of the triumphal ritual. When L. Cornelius Sulla (cos. 88, dict.
r.p.c. 82-79, cos. II 80) celebrated his success in 81 BC,18 he made use of different parameters of the
ritual in order to illustrate more clearly that his triumph was by no means only concerned with the
victory over Mithridates VI. In this context, one of the most important elements of the Roman triumphal ritual, the spoils of war obtained during the campaign, played a central role.19 In his Naturalis
Historiae, Pliny the Elder gives an account of the weight of the precious metals which formed part
of Sulla’s triumphal procession.20 In this regard the distinction made by the author is of interest:
11. For a survey of triumph debates in Livy’s account of Republican history cf. Pittenger 2008.
12. The fact that Antony and his followers were declared
hostes populi Romani by the Senate after his defeat at
Mutina could be used as an argument against this view.
However, an in-depth analysis of the term hostis in the
Late Republic raises doubts about the assumption that a
hostis was no longer perceived of as a Roman, even if he
lacked the necessary prerequisites from a technical, legal
point of view. The main purpose of a hostis declaration
was not to turn a political opponent into a non-Roman
enemy but to deprive him of the protection offered by his
status as Roman citizen; for a detailed discussion of this
subject, cf. Havener (in press).
13. Cf. Gotter 2011, 61 as well as Wiseman 2010 and Batstone 2010.
14. Cf. Breed, Damon & Rossi 2010, 4, where civil war is
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
rightly characterised as a constant element of Roman
political culture. Flower 2010, 74 considers civil wars
to be central markers and moments of political change.
Amongst other things, assigning blame took on a central
role in this context, but new problems could in turn develop from this; cf. Gotter 2011, 61-62.
Cf. Hölscher 2006, 27-28.
Cf. the essential contribution by Flaig 1992.
This aspect forms one of the central aspects of my dissertation (Havener [in preparation]). On the Nachleben
of this criticism of Octavian’s role in the civil war, cf. also
Gotter 2011, 64-68.
Degrassi 1947, 563 as well as Itgenshorst 2005, cat. no. 243.
On the significance of spoils of war in the triumphal ritual, cf. in general Östenberg 2009, 19-127 as well as Beard
2007, 143-186, who takes a critical view.
Plin. HN 33.16.
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WOLFGANG HAVENER
Sulla’s triumph spanned two days. From Pliny’s report it is clear that on the first day the spoils from
the war against Mithridates were presented. On the second day, however, the gold which C. Marius
(cos. 82), the son of Sulla’s great opponent, had stolen from the treasury and taken to Praeneste was
ceremonially transported through the city. Special signs, which were carried ahead of the procession
of spoils, showed the amount which was returned to the Roman people in this way.
Consequently, in the context of this triumph an unambiguous distinction was made between the
spoils won in the East through the victory over Mithridates and his Greek allies and the riches which
fell into Sulla’s hands after the defeat of the younger Marius at Praeneste.21 In this context, it is of
crucial importance that the latter were put on show in the same way as the ordinary spoils of war. In
this way the formal requirements of the triumphal ritual were satisfied on the one hand whereas, on
the other, it was made clear that Sulla had vanquished not only the King of Pontus but that Romans
were also amongst those who had been defeated.22 However, by stressing the fact that the spoils
were part of the Roman treasury, the edge was taken off the unambiguous reference to a victory over
Roman citizens which was connected with this. Thus, potential problems which might have resulted
from the presentation of the treasury as part of the triumphal procession were counteracted. The
message was that the money which another person – and in fact a Roman – had illegally appropriated had been returned by Sulla to its rightful owner, the Roman people. In this way the civil war
victory could, on the one hand, be represented as what it actually was, but at the same time it could
also be reinterpreted and thus be made somewhat more acceptable, along with the position of power
which resulted from this victory.
This strategy becomes even clearer if another episode is also considered. In his biography of Sulla,
Plutarch23 reports that it was not the treasures seized from Mithridates that made the triumph stand
out, but the fact that recognised and influential citizens took part in the victory celebrations – not
as spectators but as part of the procession. These citizens called Sulla their saviour and their father
as he had enabled them and their families to return to their home town. It is easy to see that these
people are likely to have been members of the upper class, who had had to flee Rome during the rule
of C. Marius (cos. 107, II 104, III 103, IV 102, V 101, VI 100, VII 86) and L. Cornelius Cinna (cos.
87, II 86, III 85, IV 84).24 Thus, Sulla took advantage of another element of the triumphal ritual in
addition to the presentation of the spoils of war – but he did this in a way which was by all means innovative: for one thing, it was not uncommon to include prisoners of war who had been freed in the
triumphal procession.25 Even if the senators mentioned by Plutarch had, of course, not been freed
from any kind of captivity, Sulla’s victory did at least allow them to return from exile. In the context
of the presentation of this victory, this made them, practically by necessity, an important part of the
legitimation strategy.26
Furthermore, it seems to me that we are also dealing with a reference to a further central element
of the ritual: in addition to images and captured riches, prisoners, prominent individuals as well as
lesser known people, were also always presented as part of a triumphal procession.27 If achieving
21. Cf. also Behr 1993, 136. Sumi 2005, 32 argues against
such a distinction. Although Lange 2013, 73 rightly
comes out against Sumi’s theory of a deliberate disguising of the civil war triumph, he, at the same time, sees
evidence here for the idea that “the blurring between civil and foreign war is already visible at this early stage of
the civil wars.” However, this conclusion has to be questioned when one considers the deliberations presented
here: even if the triumph was officially granted for the
victory over Mithridates, the external victory and the civil war victory were explicitly separated from each other
on the performative level. Sulla did not just make use of
his triumph in order to make references to the civil war
but he also presented his victory over Roman opponents
as his own independent achievement.
22. Behr 1993, 137 assumes that the Romans who were defeated were converted into Samnites.
23. Plut. Sull. 34.1-2.
24. Sumi 2005, 32 also, correctly, considers this element to
be “an overt reminder of the civil war”.
25. Cf. Sumi 2005, 32. Plutarch reports for example that the
returning prisoners were one of the central elements of
Flamininus’ triumph in 194 (Plut. Flam. 13).
26. Thus, one of Sulla’s most important strategies of legitimisation, which can be discerned in different contexts,
was taken up in the triumph: the conflict with Marius
and his followers was necessary in order to restore order
in the Roman state, and the regained treasury and the
citizens who had returned were to be considered symbolic of this order; on this matter, cf. Behr 1993, 89-100
as well as Lange 2013, 74.
27. On this matter, cf. Östenberg 2009, 128-167 as well as
Beard 2007, 107-142.
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some sort of acceptable connection between two statements was the aim of this display, then one
may justifiably assume that this group can also be seen as parallel to the prisoners who formed part
of the procession. As it would apparently not have been opportune to include Roman prisoners of
war in the procession, the returning exiles were also able to take their place. In this way, there is a
subtle shift in the emphasis of the statement. While captured kings, nobles or army leaders served
above all to lend a face to the defeated enemy, we are here dealing with a case of the display of freed
“prisoners”. Thus, in turn, the Roman citizens who walked across the city as part of the triumph,
thanking Sulla for their salvation, illustrate two things: on the one hand, they too make it clear that
a civil war victory is being celebrated, as it is only Sulla’s success in the conflict with his Roman enemies that allows them to return to the city – the victory over Mithridates did not directly determine
their fate. On the other hand, it should probably be read as an attempt to interpret the victory as
such in a positive way and thus to make the victor less vulnerable to attack.28
A passage in which Appian gives an account of reactions to the victory celebration shows that the
triumph did by all means offer the opportunity to express criticism of Sulla and his course of action: even as the procession was making its way through the city some people had described Sulla’s
government as “kingship in disguise”.29 Others, in view of his deeds, had said in their turn that the
tyrant had now already revealed himself as such. Thus, the passage shows very clearly the potential
for criticism that was inherent in a civil war triumph, even if it was, on principle, possible for it to
be carried out. Consequently, it was necessary for a commander to consider whether the benefit of
exhibiting his victory over Roman adversaries outweighed the potentially detrimental consequences.
Thus, Sulla’s triumph has already illustrated some of the most significant parameters which were
at the victorious commander’s disposal in the context of the ritual: the exhibition of prisoners and
the display of the spoils of war. Additionally, however, in every triumphal procession both the procession itself and all the rites connected with it had one undeniable focal point: the figure of the
triumphator.
Pompey’s elephants
The third triumph of Cn. Pompeius Magnus (cos. 70, II 55, III 52), in which he entered the city
cloaked in Alexander the Great’s mantle and included in the procession a portrait of himself made
entirely of pearls, shows clearly that Pompey knew how to play the part of the triumphant general
and that he liked to make use of it.30 For the context discussed here, however, a different incident
is of greater significance: on March 12th either in the year of 81, 80 or 79 Pompey, who at that time
was neither a senator nor had reached the minimum age for public office, celebrated his first triumph ex Africa.31 This was unprecedented in itself but Pompey went a step further. According to
Pliny the Elder and Plutarch, he did not intend to enter the city with the usual quadriga of horses
but instead with a quadriga of elephants.32 This was doubtlessly intended as a reference to the place
28. Thus, a detailed examination of Sulla’s triumph by no
means results in the conclusion that he wanted to disguise
his civil war victory by equating the younger Marius with
Mithridates and thus treating his Roman opponents in the
same way as external enemies (a view found, however, in
Sumi 2005, 31-32). Exactly the opposite was the case: by
undertaking a clear performative separation between the
victory over the younger Marius and that over Mithridates,
the exceptional nature of this dispute was highlighted
even more. If one accepts this argument, contradictions
such as can be discerned in Behr 1993, 136-137 can also
be resolved: on the one hand, he correctly states that Sulla
created “gleichermaßen bewusst Assoziationen zu seinem
Sieg im Bürgerkrieg” but on the other hand, he continues
to attempt to uphold the overall concept of the forbidden
29.
30.
31.
32.
civil war triumph: “Den Waffengang mit cives Romani hat
Sulla jedoch nicht in den Mittelpunkt gestellt.”
App. B Civ. 1.101.
On the third triumph, cf. Beard 2007, 7-41. In a similar
way as with Sulla, the first of Pompey’s triumphs is far
less prominent compared to the third in most biographical and systematic works; cf. amongst others the brief
remarks in Gelzer 1959, 40 or Christ 2004, 36-37 as well
as Dingmann 2007.
Degrassi 1947, 564; Itgenshorst 2005, 335, no. 246 who
both indicate 79 as the year of the triumph. Badian 1955
argued for 81 instead and is followed by Christoph Lundgreen and Frederik Vervaet in their contributions to this
volume.
Cf. Plin. HN 8.4; Plut. Pomp. 14.4.
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WOLFGANG HAVENER
of his victory, Africa.33 But the interpretation of this event should not stop here. Pompey had not
only gained a victory over the Numidian king in northern Africa but had also beaten the remnants
of Marius’s faction, and thus Roman opponents.34 He obviously intended to make use of this victory
in order to enhance his power basis. Pompey wanted to be seen as a victor, a successful general and
a new force in the political game, also vis-à-vis his patron, Sulla.35 Consequently, in order to send
out an unambiguous signal, he made use of the ritual presentation of the victory – a victory also
over Romans – and intended to exalt his own person by means of the elephant quadriga. It is not
without reason that in Plutarch the triumphator says to Sulla, who allegedly wanted to refuse him
permission to hold the triumph, that more people worshipped the rising than the setting sun.36 Sulla had himself demonstrated that it was by all means possible to refer to a civil war victory and the
resulting position of political power in the context of the triumph. Pompey, however, went a crucial
step further by wanting to make use of the victory ritual as a deliberate provocation, expressed in
the elephant quadriga, and not, like Sulla, as a means of presenting himself as the saviour of the
community.37
Plutarch continues his account, however, by reporting that the procession, the centrepiece of
which was supposed to be the oversized quadriga, ended no sooner than it had begun. As the porta
triumphalis turned out to be impassable for the elephants, Pompey had to leave them behind and
enter the city with the usual quadriga of horses. Of course, it is possible to believe that Pompey’s ambitious plan simply went wrong and that he himself failed because of his exaggerated pretensions.38
However, if one considers the quadriga to be a case of a deliberate provocation, another reading is
possible: failure was part of the plan from the beginning. It seems very unlikely that Pompey was
surprised by the size of the well-known porta triumphalis. Instead it is conceivable that Pompey
staged the incident in order to convey a particular message. While, on the one hand, the victor made
his claims unmistakably clear, claims which after all he could not base on his office or his social
status and for which he could only refer to his military success against Roman citizens, the fact that
he forewent entering the city with the quadriga of elephants, showed, on the other hand, that he was
by all means prepared to cooperate with the senatorial élite.39
Depicting violence: Caesar’s presentation of his defeated opponents
Both Pompey and Sulla before him shied away from representing Roman citizens as defeated. This
was a step which was left to C. Iulius Caesar (cos. 59, II 48, III 46, IV 45, V 44, dict. 49, II 48-47, III
46-45, IV 45-44, dict. perpet. 44), as Appian details in his account of the dictator’s quadruple triumph
in the year 46 BC.40 Caesar, it is true, forewent an official triumph for a success over Roman citizens,
as the fourth victory celebration was not held for the victory over Pompey and the members of the
senatorial aristocracy but for vanquishing the Numidian king Juba, who was allied with them.41 Nevertheless, the defeat of Caesar’s Roman opponents was brought home to the spectators in an impressive
way: Caesar made use of another element of the ritual, the representation of the events of the war and
33. Furthermore, in the scholarship on the matter, the episode has repeatedly been assigned a place in the imitatio
Alexandri; cf. the overview of the relevant literature in
Mader 2005, 397, n. 2. Likewise, connections to Venus or
Dionysos have been brought into play; for an overview of
the different approaches, cf. Rosivach 2009.
34. Lange 2013, 75 correctly states that the sources do not
mention references to the civil war.
35. Cf. Mader 2005, 398.
36. Plut. Pomp. 14.3.
37. According to Hölscher 2004, 83-84 this act of Pompey’s
can be placed within the context of the scheme of action of Late Republican politics that was characterised
by a conscious transgression of norms and the testing of
boundaries.
38. Cf., for example, Beard 2007, 17 and Frederik Vervaet’s
contribution in this volume.
39. According to Hölscher 2004, 88, allowance was always
made for a certain degree of failure with such actions
and this kind of failure did not even necessarily have a
negative impact on the position of the person who had
suffered the failure. The argument made in the present
contribution means that Hölscher’s thesis can be extended by a significant point: in the process of constant
communication and competition, calculated failure also
opened up new areas of action and negotiation.
40. App. B Civ. 2.101.
41 Degrassi 1947, 567; Itgenshorst 2005, 371-373, no. 265.
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similar matters on large format paintings and images.42 According to Appian, these showed Q. Caecilius Metellus Scipio (cos. 52), who fell first on his sword and then into the sea, M. Petreius (pr. 64?),
who committed suicide at the feast, and finally M. Porcius Cato (tr. pl. 62), “torn open by himself like
a wild beast”. Thus, the actual fighting between Romans was not depicted, but its consequences were:
Caesar’s victory over his Roman adversaries, symbolised by their unequivocal admission of defeat.43
According to Appian’s account, only Pompey’s death was not documented, “since the latter was
still greatly regretted by all”. Thus, Caesar refrained from presenting his main opponent in a negative way. This aspect is especially significant given the defeated leader’s function, already referred
to, in the triumphal procession: defeated kings, tribal leaders or military commanders served above
all to lend a human face to the opponent. In the triumphal procession, the leader personified the defeated enemy and the defeat was focused on him. He thus represented a parallel to the triumphator,
the glorious victor faced the defeated opponent. Even if Caesar did go further than his predecessors
when it came to presenting his civil war victory as part of his triumph, he did not take the step of including Pompey (not even as an image) as a defeated leader in the triumph.44 Instead he made use of
precisely this aspect of the triumph in order to counter possible criticism. His triumph was included
in the Fasti Triumphales as ex Africa de rege Iuba, the king’s son was included in the procession and
was presented separately.
Thus, in Caesar’s African triumph the combination and variation of different elements of the ritual served to make a provocative message explicit: the Roman people were shown a civil war victory
as part of the triumphal ritual more drastically than ever before. Appian’s account shows that this
could, however, also provide a basis for potential criticism: while the spectators were amused by the
death of the Egyptian eunuch Potheinos and the flight of Pharnaces, they very clearly expressed their
displeasure and worries with regard to the representations of Scipio and Cato. Whether one believes
Appian’s statements or not, the passage does illustrate the risks which were inherent in Caesar’s
decision to present Roman aristocrats in the triumphal procession not as individuals who had been
saved but as people who had been defeated.45 Of course, when viewed against this background the
strategy of focussing officially on the Numidian king, or rather his son, is extremely transparent. Apparently Caesar consciously accepted this as a provocation: in his account Appian explicitly stresses
the fact that the Numidian king’s son was still a child at the time of the victory celebration. Although
the display of a defeated king’s offspring in the triumphal ritual occurred quite often during the Republic,46 the young Numidian prince can, therefore, hardly have been regarded as an enemy leader
comparable with the triumphator.47 Thus, Caesar’s aim with regard to the spectacle of the quadruple
triumph was not just to present himself as a successful general, but to draw the Roman public’s attention to the fact that Caesar had prevailed against his Roman adversaries as impressively as he had
against the Gauls, Egyptians or Pharnaces of Pontus. His position of power, which was expressed in
the four victory celebrations, was not just based on his victories over external enemies but also on
the fact that he had overcome his internal political rivals.48
42. On this, cf. in general Östenberg 2009, 189-261, esp. 190192 with a discussion of the term “triumphal painting”.
43. Thus, the function which the representation of Caesar’s
Roman opponents as part of the triumph served far exceeded the long-held scholarly view that the victor intended, above all, to humiliate his adversaries on a personal level in this way; for an overview of the relevant
older secondary literature and for a critical stance, cf.
Voisin 1983, 15-16 and 22.
44. It is true that there is no indication in the sources that
there was a reference to the victory at Pharsalus. This has
led scholars to conclude – wrongly, in my view – that Caesar wanted to counteract the impression that he was celebrating a victory over Roman citizens; cf. amongst others,
Will 2009, 172. Lange 2013, 76 connects the omission of
Pharsalus with Caesar’s principal strategy of legitimation,
namely to have ended a civil war started by his opponents.
45. Against this background, the explanation given in Meier
2004, 522 that the audience’s reactions can be attributed
to the fact that Caesar must have referred to his Roman
opponents “implizit oder explizit […] als Sklaven des Numider-Königs Juba” in this context, proves to be unsatisfactory.
46. Cf. Beard 2007, 120-121.
47. Consequently, the focus on the Numidian king was not
necessarily due to the necessity of “externalising” the victory, as Lange 2013, 77 assumes – on the contrary: contrasting the Roman opponent with the Numidian royal
son directed the audience’s attention all the more strongly to the transgressive aspect of the ceremony.
48. This is an aspect which Weinstock 1971, 60-79, for example, ignores completely in his analysis of the quadruple triumph; the same is still done by Dahlheim 2005,
206-208. The idea that the display of the suicides was
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If Caesar in his triumph ex Africa had thus already exceeded the boundaries of what was considered opportune in the context of the triumphal ritual up to that point, a year later he abandoned entirely even the, at least superficial, restraint shown in the African triumph: following his victory over
Pompey’s sons at Munda he celebrated another triumph ex Hispania.49 Unfortunately, our sources
do not provide any detailed information on this celebration, information from which one might determine how opponents were presented and whether and how it dealt with the civil-war character of
the war in Spain. Nevertheless, it must be noted that an external enemy such as King Juba – even if
used as a pretext – would have been difficult to find in this instance, and this may not have been the
victor’s intention anyway.50 A statement found in Cassius Dio and supported by the relevant entries
in the Fasti Triumphales is significant: it was not only Caesar himself who held a triumph for the
victory in Spain, but two of his subordinate commanders were also granted a triumph ex Hispania,
although this mainly caused amusement in Rome.51 However, there was more to Caesar’s actions in
this case, too, than Cassius Dio’s rather humorous account suggests: Caesar took the provocation,
which the civil war triumph as such already represented, to an extreme. He succeeded in getting
the Senate to grant a triumph not just to him but also to his lieutenant-generals. It was possible to
interpret the events in the following way: the Senate had sanctioned Caesar’s actions and his victory
after the event by not only granting a triumph to the victor himself but also to two senatorial office
holders of whom one had only just taken up the consulship and who thus stood, at least formally,
at the head of the political hierarchy. In truth, however, the events represented above all a further
demonstration of power by the new potentate towards the Senate, which was made to look foolish in
its role as the decision-making authority. Thus, the amusement which Cassius Dio reports may not
have been caused by Caesar and his triumphant lieutenant-generals but by the powerlessness of the
Senate, which could no longer grant triumphs as it saw fit but instead had to comply with Caesar‘s
wishes.
By affronting the senatorial aristocracy in this way, the new potentate was taking something of a
risk, for an incident transmitted by Suetonius showed that it was the triumphal ritual itself that was
particularly well-suited to expressing criticism of the new circumstances and Caesar’s power: when
Caesar’s triumphal chariot was passing the seats of the tribunes of the plebs during one of his victory
celebrations, one of the tribunes refused to show the victor his respect. According to Suetonius, this
led Caesar to exclaim: “Repete ergo a me Aquila rem publicam tribunus!” [“Come then, Aquila, take
back the republic from me, you tribune”.]52 Although it is difficult to say anything conclusive about this
episode’s historicity, it does serve as an example of the potential for criticism that could be inherent in
the triumphal ritual, and it illustrates once again that the victor had to weigh up the risk of providing
potential opportunities for attack on the one hand and the powerful effect which the ritual could have
on the other. This does not mean, however, that it would have been impossible, in principle, to carry out
such a triumph. Caesar’s triumphs thus demonstrate abundantly clearly where the boundaries could
lie in dealing with a civil war victory as part of the triumphal ritual. As in so many other areas, Caesar
consciously tested these limits and accepted that this could trigger criticism of his innovations. It is
likely that the events examined here also contributed to the re-forming of the opposition to the dictator.
Octavian and the victory over Antony
In the civil war triumph as in many other areas, Caesar’s example showed the way for his successor:
when Octavian entered Rome in triumph three times following the victory over Antony and Cleo-
intended to allude to Caesar’s clementia (thus Voisin
1983, 26-27), only does limited justice to this message of
the ritual: Caesar’s clementia, too, could only result from
his position as victor.
49. Degrassi 1947, 567; Itgenshorst 2005, 374, no. 266.
50. Thus also Lange 2013, 77.
51. Cass. Dio 43.42.1-2. Cf. also Degrassi 1947, 567;
Itgenshorst 2005, 376-378, no. 267 and 268.
52. Suet. Iul. 78.
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patra, he had defeated all his rivals for power in bloody battles and had become the new master of
Rome. The victory celebrations of the year 29 BC were suited like no other event to provide for the
Roman public an impressive display of his power, based primarily on this military success. Octavian,
too, made use of the triumphal ritual in order to disseminate a particular message: the civil wars had
been brought to an end once and for all and the focus now had to move to the re-establishment of
order and security.53 However, this message was inextricably linked to a second one, which frequently does not receive sufficient scholarly attention: the civil wars had been brought to an end once and
for all – and Octavian had emerged as the victor.54 This bestowed almost unlimited power on him,
the fundamental pillar of which was, and would always remain, the military. But even Octavian
shied away from explicitly calling his triumph a civil war triumph. Compared to his predecessors,
however, he had the advantage of being able to make use of an entire reservoir of tried and tested
means of dealing with a victory over Roman citizens. At the same time, his adoptive father’s fate
showed him where the limits of provocation lay.
Much scholarly effort has been put into showing that Octavian deliberately glossed over the civil
war victory in his triumph and tried to address it as little as possible.55 Thus, R. Gurval, in a very
influential study, insists that the triumphs for the victories at Actium and Alexandria should be seen
as a unit, in which the victory in the civil war was deliberately not addressed and in which the focus
was instead on the victory in the great war against Cleopatra and the conflict between the West and
the East.56 Many others have accepted this assessment.57 However, this theory inevitably brings with
it the question of what the additional value of the triumph for the victory at Actium would have been:
why should Octavian have celebrated two triumphs for only one ostensible victory, as postulated by
Gurval, especially given that the victory celebration for the capture of Alexandria would have been
better suited by far as a means of displaying the victory over Cleopatra and the East?
In order to make it clear as to how the second day’s triumph, for the victory at Actium, was to
be interpreted, Octavian had recourse to a strategy of Caesar’s, which, however, he varied in one
crucial point. The victor distinguished clearly between the three triumphs; each of the celebrations
stood initially by itself.58 In doing so, Octavian made use of the well-known technique of personalising the opponent. Cassius Dio reports that, on the third day, an effigy of Cleopatra was included
in the triumphal procession for the victory at Alexandria, as well as the queen's two children from
the marriage to Antony.59 In doing so, Octavian adhered to the traditional scheme of focussing the
defeat on the relevant opposing leaders, just as he had had the captured leaders of the defeated
Dalmatians and Pannonians paraded through the city on the first day. The situation was different,
however, with regard to the triumph for the victory at Actium. None of the sources refer to a defeated leader of the opposition as having been included in this procession.60 Who could it have been, in
53. Degrassi 1947, 570; Itgenshorst 2005, 410-418, no. 287289. Cf., for example, Dahlheim 2010, 158-159 and 395396; Bleicken 2010, 297-302 as well as Bringmann 2007,
105-107 and Lange 2009, 18-26.
54. It is not possible to adequately summarise here the current state of the vast amount of research on the relationship between victory and peace with regard to Augustus, on the concept of pax Augusta and on the special
role that the civil war had in this construction, nor is it
possible to treat these subjects in any detail; for a more
in-depth discussion of this subject cf. Gruen 1985; Rich
2003 and Havener (in preparation).
55 For an overview of the relevant secondary literature, cf.
Lange 2009, 79, n. 30, who quite rightly and repeatedly
stresses the fact that Octavian by no means concealed
the civil-war character of the conflict; cf. also Börm &
Havener 2012, 210-211. Woodman 1983, 211-213 and
Pelling 1996, 54 are among the few who have taken a
critical stance in this regard.
56. Cf. Gurval 1995, 33. One of Gurval’s central (and extremely questionable) arguments with regard to this is
57.
58.
59.
60.
that the triumph for the victory at Actium took place on
the middle day and that, for this reason, it was considered less important than the others. Lange 2009, 148-156
has rightly been critical of Gurval’s theses.
Cf., amongst others, Östenberg 2009, 142-143; Sumi
2005, 215; Balbuza 1999, 277.
Cf. also Lange 2009, 152, who does not, however, go so
far as to consider this also as a conceptual distinction
between civil war and external war. It is, of course, entirely appropriate for the celebration of the victory over
Cleopatra and the presentation of Octavian as conqueror
to be considered one of the central messages of the triple
triumph. However, it is not enough to declare this to be
the only purpose of the ceremony.
Cass. Dio 51.21.5-9.
Gurval surmises that two of Antony’s allies took his place
in the procession: the Galatian tetrarch Adiatorix and King
Alexander of Emesa (cf. Gurval 1995, 29). A look at the relevant sources, however, shows that this hypothesis can by
no means be proven as unambiguously as Gurval suggests
(for a detailed discussion of this, cf. Havener [in press]).
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any case, given that Cleopatra embodied the victory over Egypt in the procession of the third day?
The implicit message must have been obvious: the second day’s triumph did not represent a triumph
over Cleopatra – nor over anyone who could have easily been named. The defeated opponent, who
could not be named, was to all appearances Antony. This must have been clear to every observer.
Thus, Octavian made use of the same element of the ritual as Caesar. However, instead of using the
focus on an external opponent in order to actually conceal the victory over Roman citizens (even if
this strategy was obvious), he deliberately created a conspicuous empty space which spoke volumes
when taken together with the focus on Cleopatra which followed on the third day:61 instead of mixing the external and internal dimensions of the war, as C. Lange has recently suggested,62 there was
once again (as with Sulla’s triumph) a clear distinction between civil war and external war, which
was manifested by the very absence of an opposing leader in the triumph for Actium. The victory at
Actium was specifically assigned to the civil war, the war with Antony, and it was not just partly a
civil war victory. In no way did Octavian attempt to mix this war with an external one in the context
of the presentation of the victory.63 Evidence for this is found in an entry from the fasti Amiternini, which has received little scholarly attention so far and which even names Antony explicitly as
Octavian’s opponent in the naval battle at Actium and does not mention Cleopatra.64 Such an entry
in a document published immediately after the victory celebrations can only be explained if it is
understood as a reaction to the triumph: of course, the inscription is a document deriving not from
Rome but from a local context. But nevertheless it took its lead from the messages which were to be
conveyed in the context of the ritual and which connected Actium unambiguously and exclusively
with the civil war against Antony. In this way, the gap which Octavian had created in the context of
the ritual was re-filled in the reception of events.
In addition, Octavian made use of another, central element of the triumphal ritual: in the same
way as Sulla, he utilised the representation of the spoils of war in order to set specific emphases.65
Propertius tells us in the second book of his elegies that ships’ beaks (rostra) were transported along
the Via Sacra in the context of Octavian’s triumph. These beaks came from the opposing fleet at Actium and thus were a reminder of Octavian’s success.66 The rostra provided Octavian with a symbol
which could be used in place of the defeated enemy and which was connected specifically to Actium.
The victory memorial at Actium was also decorated with captured rostra from Antony’s fleet and it
is possible that its decoration referred to the triple triumph.67 Starting with the great series of coins
which were minted in the years before and after the triumph and in which the reference to Actium
is displayed prominently, the symbol of the rostra – and thus, by necessity, the memory of the victory
in the civil war – took on a central role in Augustan imagery.68 The introduction of the rostra-symbol
in the context of the triumphal ritual provided the starting point for this.
61. Gurval 1995, 28, too, states: “Antony and the Romans
who supported his cause were found nowhere in Octavian’s triumphs”. However, against the background of the
considerations presented here, it is at least problematic
to draw the conclusion from this that Octavian made a
deliberate attempt to disguise the civil war victory.
62. Lange 2009, 79-90 and 156-157. This does, of course,
apply with regard to the legitimation strategies in the
run-up to the war (on this, cf., already Wallmann 1989,
296-333). However, a distinction must be made between
these and the presentation of the victory.
63. Cf. also Beard 2007, 303, who considers the victory at Actium as “a victory in civil war, without even a euphemistic foreign label.” However, her analysis of the presentation of this victory does not go beyond this statement.
64. CIL IX, 4190: “[…] bellum Actie(n)s(e) class[iar(ium)] /
cum M(arco) Antonio […].” On this, cf. Alföldy 1991.
65. Gurval 1995, 29 also takes Cass. Dio’s statement that all
three triumphs were equipped with spoils of war from
Egypt as indicating that the triumph over Cleopatra was
the focus of events and not the victory at Actium. However, in doing so, he ignores the rostra, which point in a
different direction.
66. Prop. 2.1.31-34.
67. On this subject, cf. Murray & Petsas 1989 and Zachos
2003. Although the context of the victory memorial at
Actium is, of course, fundamentally different to that of
the monuments in Rome itself, there are a number of
indications to suggest that the members of the Roman
upper class were also intended as the potential addressees; on this subject, cf. Lange 2009, 106-123, especially
116-117 and Gurval 1995, 83, who takes an opposing
view.
68. Cf. Zanker 2003, 90. Dart &Vervaet 2011, 279-280 therefore link the Actian triumph to the Republican tradition
of the naval triumph and state: “[...] it would have been
an original way both to revive and conclude a glorious
republican tradition, established some 230 years ago on
behalf of C. Duilius, and to herald in a golden new age of
peace and prosperity.”
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Finally, Octavian also borrowed from Pompey. He placed his own person, that of the victorious
triumphator, at the centre of attention in a special way. Cassius Dio reports that during his entry into
the city the Roman magistrates did not precede the quadriga, as was otherwise usual, but followed
the triumphator through the porta triumphalis. This procedure illustrated the new organisation of
the state: the magistrates now no longer led the successful commander back into the city, thus re-integrating him into society. Instead, the triumphator Octavian had moved on beyond the traditional
order. The magistrates were assigned their place in the new order.69 In this connection – and this is a
point that is rarely taken into account in the scholarship – they occupied the same place as the army
of the civil war victor did when entering the city. In this way Octavian not only showed that he stood
outside the Republican social order and was able to reshape it.70 Rather, he showed clearly what he
considered to be the basis of his power: the army and the particularly close relationship with his
soldiers. The provocation which was part of this subtle change to the ritual was thus much less explicit than Pompey’s quadriga of elephants, but this does not mean that it was less comprehensive.
The civil wars had been brought to an end once and for all, Octavian had emerged from them as the
all-powerful victor – potens rerum omnium. And in the same way his triple triumph represented at
the same time the culmination and the endpoint of the development of the civil war triumph in the
Late Republic.
The civil war triumph as an artificial taboo
At the end of this contribution, Valerius Maximus’s remarks, which claim to be virtually normative,
should be considered once more: they convey the impression that the presentation of a victory over
Roman citizens in the context of the triumphal ritual represented the breaking of a taboo, an almost
obscene act which questioned the basic values of Roman society and which broke established and
incontestable rules. An examination of events in the Late Republic, however, has shown that the civil
war triumph was a significantly more complex problem than it ostensibly seemed to be. The key for
understanding and analysing this problem is to distinguish three stages in the process of presenting
civil war victory to a Roman audience.
The award of a triumph was a prerogative of the Senate which had to grant any request of a
victorious commander. However, recent contributions to the debate on the Roman triumph have
questioned the assumption that the process of decreeing such a ceremony was subject to certain
explicit rules as found in the text of Valerius Maximus.71 Therefore, instead of looking for any fixed
regulations which predetermined the question if a general could hope for a triumph or not, it is
important to focus on the individual cases and the particular debates. It was essential for any commander to gain the approval of the members of the Senate, and this fact influenced the strategies of
justification that the would-be triumphators developed in order to achieve their aims. Given the negative attitude towards civil war and discordia it would have been detrimental to a general’s chances
of success if he openly stated that he intended to celebrate a victory won against other Roman
citizens. Therefore it is not surprising that Sulla or, in the year 46 BC, Caesar officially focused on
their successes against external enemies in order to justify their request for a triumph and to ensure the approval of their peers. When Caesar requested a triumph for his victory at Munda, which
obviously lacked any external enemy who could have been used as a pretext, this has to be seen as
an open provocation and as a transgressive act which defied the norms of the senatorial code of
69. On this subject, cf. amongst others Dahlheim 2010, 158;
Bleicken 2010, 301-302; Lange 2009, 155.
70. Cf. Sumi 2005, 216-217 as well as Reinhold 1988, 158:
“The deference to Octavian is patent.” For a different view,
see Tarpin 2009, 140-141, who sees the order of procession as a reference to the oath of allegiance which Augus-
tus mentions in the Res Gestae (25). Vervaet 2011, likewise
referring to the oath of allegiance, considers the senators
or rather the magistrates themselves as having initiated
the change in the order of the triumphal procession.
71. Cf. for example Beard 2007, 211-212 and Pittenger 2008,
especially 25-31.
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behaviour. The fact that the Senate granted his request points to the extremely one-sided balance of
power after the dictator had eliminated the last remnants of the Pompeian and Republican forces.
In contrast, the triumph decreed for Decimus Brutus can be understood as part of Cicero’s strategy
against Antony: he wanted the Senate to appear united in the fight against the enemy of Roman (and
that meant: senatorial) liberty. When the Republic was at risk, so the message went, the members of
the senatorial elite could settle their differences and acknowledge political realities.72 Nevertheless,
if a general had to face potential senatorial opposition and did not want to act as provocatively as
Caesar, it could be convenient to make use of a victory over an external enemy in order to avoid unnecessary discussions and to secure the chances of success.
The next stage in the process of presenting military victory to the Roman public was the triumphal ritual itself. As soon as such a ceremony was decreed, the mechanisms that characterized the
preceding debates in the Senate were obviously pushed to the background: control over the ritual
shifted from the Senate to the individual general.73 This enabled the triumphator to set individual
priorities and to lay emphasis on particular elements of the ritual. Thus M. Claudius Marcellus (cos.
222, II 216, III 214, IV 210, V 208) dedicated the spolia opima, T. Quinctius Flamininus (cos. 198)
extended his ceremony from one day to three days, and Pompey (as noted above) entered the city
dressed in the cloak of Alexander the Great. Although all of these acts were clearly designed as provocations (symbolising the generals’ claims to unprecedented military success), the Senate obviously
did not have the possibility to thwart them. The same can be said of the civil war triumphs of the
Late Republic. As has been shown in the previous sections, it was absolutely possible for a success
over Roman citizens to be celebrated by means of the ritual form of the triumphal procession without the presence of an external enemy being a mandatory requirement: even if the triumph as such
had been decreed for a victory over external enemies, the victory over Roman opponents could be
presented as an independent achievement in the context of the ritual, an achievement which was
clearly distinguished from the victories over external opponents. If Caesar decided to put his Roman
opponents on display in a most drastic way, nobody could keep him from parading a large-scale
painting depicting Cato’s suicide through the streets. It is thus of decisive importance to distinguish
between possible formal prerequisites for a triumph being decreed, strategies of justification which
had to be developed in order to ensure the cooperation of the general’s senatorial peers, and the actual representation of the victories.74 However, such a course of action also always presented the opportunity to criticise the victors and the new power structures. Thus, every commander saw himself
confronted with the question of whether and to what extent he wanted to (not could) carry out such
an offensive triumph as well as with the challenge of weighing up the advantages and risks of his
actions. The present contribution has presented different strategies which protagonists of the civil
war period implemented in order to successfully master this balancing act. All of them made use of
the possibility of individual influence provided by the triumphal ritual in order to convey specific
messages. They did that by means of the variation and the implementation of the ritual’s different
elements which were tailored to the particular political circumstances. At this point, it should be
noted that the civil war triumph in the Late Republic proved to be a means of presenting claims to
political power to a wide public.
Having said this, the fact that none of these civil war triumphs was included as such in the Fasti
Triumphales cannot be denied. There are two reasons to account for this absence. Firstly, every tri-
72. Cf. Gotter 1996, 129-130 and 169-172.
73. Flaig 2003 and 2004, 32-48 has demonstrated this with
regard to the booty: the victorious general alone decided
which part of the booty was to be presented during the
procession.
74. Cf. Lange 2013, 86: “Importantly, apart from a few exceptions – perhaps mainly justified by declaring Romans
public enemies – a general could not expect to triumph
after a victory in an exclusively civil war, only for a civ-
il war that could also be represented as a foreign war;
it was by nature of their external character that they
qualified for a triumph.” This statement is doubtlessly
appropriate with regard to the process of the granting
of a triumph with its specific strategies of justification.
However, as it has been possible to show in this contribution, it can be questioned whether and to what extent
this principle actually presented a binding stipulation in
the carrying out of the ritual.
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umphal procession was a unique and unrepeatable event. Thus the last stage of representing military
success in Rome was its perpetuation. The opportunities for provocation provided by the ritual necessarily made the question of how to make a victory part of public historical memory a delicate one,
especially with regard to civil war. A general’s opportunity to convey his particular messages during
the triumphal ceremony was mainly due to the ephemeral character of the ritual. But in order to ensure that his success was remembered favourably, a triumphator always had to consider the conventions and norms of the public discourse. It is hard to imagine that the Senate would have consented
to a permanent reference to civil war victory and thus to a never-ending provocation. Against this
background, the entries of the Fasti Triumphales have to be understood as results of another process
of negotiation between the victorious generals and their peers.
Secondly, if one considers the Fasti Triumphales Capitolini in particular, the key to the question
why they do not mention any civil war triumphs can be found in their Augustan context: the civil
wars form the crucial background to the princeps’s definition and legitimation of his rule. In the Res
Gestae, the termination of the internal Roman conflicts represents the point of departure for the
establishment of the Principate.75 Octavian had emerged as the sole winner from these conflicts – a
fact which he stressed again and again during his entire rule and on which his position of power was
ultimately based. In order to maintain this position, it was of vital importance to the person who had
now become Augustus that his actions could not be repeated: he drew his power from the civil war
victory and from the prestige of a military success which had been gained over Roman citizens and
which was symbolised by the triumph. After the end of the civil wars, it was important to secure this
power and to monopolise the possibility of making military successes the basis of political power,
successes especially against an external enemy, but even more in internal Roman wars. Turning the
civil war triumph into a taboo was one element of this monopolisation: Octavian’s triumph was necessary in order for Augustus to be able to guarantee that such a ceremony never had to take place
again.76 The promise that he would not allow any further bella civilia was a crucial building block in
the justification of his sole rule. An unsavoury aftertaste remained, however: in his elegies, Propertius laments Rome’s fate, “so oft beset on every hand by her own triumphs”.77
75. RG 34.1.
76. For a detailed treatment of this subject, cf. Havener (in
preparation).
77. Prop. 2.15.45-46: “nec totiens propriis circum oppugnata
triumphis / lassa foret crinis solvere Roma suos” (translation modified, WH).
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Wolfgang Havener