Triumph and Civil War in the Late Republic, Papers of the British School at Rome 81, 2013, 67-90. (original) (raw)
2013, Papers of the British School at Rome 81, 67-90.
Many of the wars of the Late Republican period were largely civil conflicts, and there was thus a tension between the traditional expectation that triumphs should be celebrated for victories over foreign enemies and the need of the great commanders to give full expression to their prestige and charisma, and to legitimate their power. Most of the rules and conventions relating to triumphs thus appear to have been articulated as the development of Roman warfare brought new issues to the Senate’s attention. This paper will examine these tensions and the ways in which they were resolved. The traditional war-ritual of the triumph and the topic of civil war have both received renewed interest in recent scholarship. However, attempts to define the relationship between them have been hampered by comments in the ancient evidence that suggest the celebration of a triumph for victory in a civil war was contrary to traditional practices. Nevertheless, as this paper will argue, a general could expect to triumph after a civil war victory if it could be represented also as over a foreign enemy (the civil war aspect of the victory did not have to be denied); only after a victory in an exclusively civil war was this understood to be in breach of traditional practices.
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This article examines how the victors in late Republican Rome expressed and celebrated military success in civil war. It is argued that the Senate and the victorious generals turned to the traditional triumph as a means to embrace civil war victories within an accepted frame of external conquest. It is further argued that the triumphal procession, in its capacity as a well-established spectacle performed as a role-playing between Roman victors and foreign losers, proved an inadequate means to give voice to Romans conquering other Romans. Novel forms of expressions were hence exploited: the memorial and the calendar. The memorial was alien to the Roman culture and did not succeed in winning acclaim. The calendar proved a more effective means. Both Caesar and Octavian were able to use the fasti anni as a medium to articulate their success in civil war, commemorating even their victories at Pharsalus and Philippi.
A Ritual Against the Rule? The Presentation of Civil War Victory in the Late Republican Triumph
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 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.
This paper investigates the impact of civil war on triumphal rulership for the period from Constantine’s triumph over Maxentius in 312 to Honorius’ triumph over Priscus Attalus in 416. These victory performances mark the starting and ending points of a series of triumphs in the city of Rome that deliberately included dramatic representations of martial achievements in civil war. I argue that the need to celebrate a civil-war victory with performances, monuments, and narratives that were formerly restricted to external victories (e.g., a triumphal procession, a triumphal arch, a battle frieze, etc.) resulted, on the one hand, from significant structural changes of the Roman monarchy in the third and fourth centuries and, on the other, from the fierce rivalry between emperors in the period of late Tetrarchic collegial rule, a situation in which a massive display of the emperor’s military achievements was an important prerequisite for the formation of loyalty and obedience within the imperial apparatus.
The present paper will present the significance of Roman triumphs and the purpose behind it in the history of Rome .Triumph refers to a conclusive success following an effort or confrontation and imposing ceremonial performed in honor of a victor .Any triumphal procession ; a pompous exhibition , a stately show or peagant .Mary Beard remarked that the Roman triumph was the victory ritual par excellence ,its celebrates the greatest height to which political Roman of the republic would aspire .Instances of the Roman triumphal victories included as Mary Beard put it ,Pompey had dealt decisively with two of the greatest dangers of Rome security and boasted a range of conquest that justified comparison with King Alexander himself hence (the title the great,(2007:7).Triumphal procession had celebrated Roman victories from the very earliest days of the city .Or so the Romans themselves believed tracing their origins of the ceremony back to their mythical founders Romulus and other early kings .The triumph was about display of success .Many of these occasions were memorized by Roman writers who recounted .The logic of the triumph was a celebration of victory over external enemies only: however on the war between Ceasar and Pompey , civil war could in a sense be defined as a war that would have no triumphs ;Mary Beard(2007:123).
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