I heard Mary Beard speak about her new book the Roman Triumph at the London Review of Books Bookshop on Thursday, in conversation with Christopher Clark, an expert in Prussian nineteenth century history.
She was entertaining and erudite, as I expected, having first heard her on Radio 3 a few years ago talking about her book on the Colosseum.
Christopher started by describing how the book works in three ways, firstly as an account of how triumphs worked, secondly as a study of their contradictory meanings, and thirdly as an investigation of how scholars have understood triumphs since, and thereby what we can and cannot know about the past.
The triumph was, said Mary, a celebration of a significant military victory., The successful general would be conveyed, dressed as the god Jupiter Optimus Maximus, in a chariot through the streets of Rome. Before him went prisoners and the spoils of his campaign, behind the chariot followed his soldiers, signing ribald songs about him. Our best source for descriptions of triumphs is Ovid, but Ovid's mind may not have been entirely on the triumph itself, for he recommends them as a chance for seduction. The route was probably from the Campus Martius, past the Colosseum, through the Arch of Titus, ending at the Capitol.
Triumphs could be ambiguous: there was real danger that the general could be upstaged by the captives, which makes us wonder about the nature of victory. A modern equivalent, Mary suggested, might be the execution of Saddam Hussein. The choreographed nature of the triumph, akin to Bush's 'mission accomplished' television stunt, which in fact took place off the coast of California, though intended to appear as if the aircraft carrier was in the theatre of war, could reach ridiculous lengths, as when Caligula is supposed to have taken Gaulish captives, dyed their hair blonde and taught them a Germanic language, in order that they might be taken for German prisoners.
What was the last triumph? Mary mentioned the triumph of Ras Tafari, later to become Haile Selaisse, as witnessed by Wilfred Thesinger and his father in 1916. It could be said have been in the reign of Constantine, though the tradition did continue in Byzantium. Then again, a renaissance author traced a direct line of triumphs from Romulus to Charles V. The triumph persisted in various forms. Napoleon paraded looted works of art through the streets of Paris, Hitler spent much of his time drawing triumphal arches. Mary reminded us of disagreement about the commemoration of the end of the Falklands/Malvinas war, between the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, who had taught classics, and the Thatcher government, which wanted a jingoistic celebration of military success.
The origins of the triumph are obscure. Some tried to attribute the practice to the Etruscans, others to the god Dionysus returning form the Orient.
Someone asked, as I wished to, how triumphs were regulated and granted. Though Roman lawyers tried to lay down criteria, such as the general had to have killed at least 5,000, the Senate had to approve the triumph, and so on, in practice generals might well take a triumph if they thought they could get away with. On the related question of who paid, if the Senate did ratify the triumph, the public purse would then meet the costs. Someone else asked about the similarities with funeral processions, someone who was making a translation of the Aeneid wondered if Helen was going back to a triumph. It was a fascinating evening.
There's a podcast of an interview with Mary here: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/audio/BEAROT.mp3
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