world (or lost system or even lost reality) beyond.
The book is also prompted by a series of reflections—my own puzzle-
ment, if you like—about Roman ritual and public spectacle. I am not
so much concerned with definitions of ritual as a symbolic, social,
semiotic, or religious activity. Nor am I concerned with the tricky
boundary disputes that can still provoke intense academic debate. Is
there a difference (and, if so, what) between “ritual” and “ceremonial”?
Is ritual always focused on the sacred? Is there such a thing as “secular”
ritual? In fact, one singular advantage of some of the most recent theo-
retical studies of ritual in a cross-cultural perspective is that they tran-
scend such narrow definitional problems. I am thinking particularly of
work by Catherine Bell and by Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw.
All of these stress the idea of “ritualization” rather than “ritual.” On
this model, ritual actions are not seen as intrinsically different from
nonritual actions. What is crucial in distinguishing ritual from nonritual
behavior is the fact that participants themselves think of what they are
doing in ritual terms and mark it out as separate from their everyday,
nonritual practice.33
But if an approach of this kind makes it easier to take the triumph as
“ritualized activity” without becoming embroiled in the dead-end argu-
ments that have sometimes dogged its study (Is it a “religious” cere-
mony? If not, can it count as “ritual”?), all sorts of other questions still
remain. How can the history of an ancient ceremony best be studied?
How should we understand the relationship between written ritual (“rit-
uals in ink,” as they have been termed) and ritual practice?34 What were
The Impact of the Triumph
59
large-scale public ceremonies and processions for? Can we get beyond
the easy, even if sometimes correct, conclusion that such rituals, in clas-
sical antiquity no less than in any other historical period, acted to reaf-
firm society’s core values? Or beyond the more subtle variant that sees
them rather as the focus of reflection and debate on those values, and as
such always liable to disruption, subversion, and attack no less than to
enthusiastic participation, patronage, and support?35 In pondering these
questions, and in setting up an interplay between such theoretical re-
flections and the rich texture of the primary evidence (rather than at-
tempting to reach for neat solutions and definitions), I have found the
Roman triumph a uniquely telling object lesson. This is for a combina-
tion of reasons.
First, the triumph is the only public ceremony at Rome—with the ex-
ception of the infrequent Secular Games, the semi-private festival of
Dea Dia recorded by the priesthood of the Arval Brethren, and some el-
ements of the funerary tradition—for which we can reconstruct a histor-
ical series of individual, identifiable performances. True, the Roman cal-
endar included a whole variety of annual festivals whose celebration
likewise was supposed to extend back into the earliest periods of Rome’s
history and lasted as long as the pagan city itself, or longer: the Parilia,
the Vinalia, the Consualia, and so on. But each of these is usually repre-
sented to us as an undifferentiated cycle of more or less identical tradi-
tional ceremonies. Although ancient writers may dwell on the colorful
myths of these festivals’ origins, only rarely are later innovations or
changes in the ritual explicitly recorded.36
Even more rarely do we catch a glimpse of any individual occasion,
and then usually for reasons of political controversy: the memorable cel-
ebration of the Lupercalia on February 15, 44 bce, for example, when
Mark Antony took advantage of his lead role in the proceedings to offer
a royal crown to Julius Caesar; or the procession of the Hilaria (in honor
of the goddess Cybele, the “Great Mother”) on March 25, 187 ce, which,
with its elaborate fancy dress, provided the cover for an (unsuccessful)
assassination attempt on the emperor Commodus.37 Because the tri-
umph, though frequent, was not regular in this sense, because a fresh de-
Th e
R o m a n Tr i u m p h
6 0
cision to celebrate a triumph was required on each occasion, and be-
cause it was by definition tied to outside events, the circumstances and
honorand different each time, it has a history unlike any other ritual at
Rome.
Second, ancient writers offer a wealth of detail on the performance
and spectacle of the triumph, and of individual triumphs, as for no
other Roman ceremony. Pompey’s triumph in 61 bce is one of the most
richly, if not the most richly, documented. But the lavish accounts, fan-
ciful or not, of many other triumphs also go far beyond descriptions of
anything else in the repertoire of ritual at Rome. This is due in large part
to the triumph’s centrality in Roman political and cultural life and to the
undoubted impact of its celebration. Writers lingered on their triumphal
descriptions because the ceremony seemed important to them.
But more strictly literary factors are also relevant. It would be wrong
to imagine that the details of the triumph were necessarily more compel-
ling than those of other rituals, certainly not for everyone all the time. It
would have been possible to write up ceremonies such as the Lupercalia
or Hilaria in a way that focused on the individual performance, the vari-
ations in their picturesque procedures, and the tensions and conflicts
that lay behind the yearly celebrations. Conversely, there were, as we
know, numerous triumphs in the course of Roman history—the pinna-
cle of glory for the general concerned, maybe—which figure in surviving
literature as briefly and routinely as any minor annual festivaclass="underline" “Marcius
returned to the city, celebrating a triumph over the Hernici,” “a triumph
was held over the Privernates.”38 Yet the competitive individualism of
the triumph, its association with many of the most prominent names in
Roman public life, as well as its links to the powerful narrative of impe-
rialism and Roman military success gave it a rhetorical charge which
those other ceremonies could not often match.
Third, the triumph attracted the interest and energies of Roman
scholars themselves more than any other ritual or festival. The combina-
tion of, on the one hand, the researches of ancient anthropologists and
antiquarians in their interrogation of the various features of the cere-
mony and its organization and, on the other, the work of literary com-
The Impact of the Triumph
61
mentators, puzzling over the more obscure vocabulary and difficult pas-
sages in the written versions of the triumph, offers us an unusually
nuanced view of ancient attempts to explain and make sense of a ritual.
It presents Roman intellectuals in action, themselves trying to under-
stand the traditions of their own culture; and it gives us a memorable
opportunity to work with them. In this respect, again, no ritual can
touch it.
“FASTI TRIUMPHALES”
The single most impressive monument—in both the literal and meta-
phoric sense—of this ancient scholarly interest in the triumph is the
register of triumphant generals, that once stood inscribed on marble, in
the Roman Forum. Part of an ensemble erected during the reign of Au-
gustus, the names of the generals were listed, side by side with those of