Th e
R o m a n Tr i u m p h
7 6
of triumphal booty but also systematically inventoried the size, shape,
and attitude of each sculpture.6
Pompey’s triumphs were, as we have seen, trumpeted on inscriptions
in the temples that his victories funded, and Livy quotes the text at-
tached to a dedication to Jupiter in the Temple of Mater Matuta, which
details the achievements of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in Sardinia
and his subsequent triumph in 175. (The dedication was a tablet or
painting in the shape of the island, decorated with representations of the
battles concerned.)7 In fact, some aspects of triumphal chronology seem
to have been so well established in the Roman world that Varro could
treat a notable triumph in 150 bce as a fixed date against which to cali-
brate prices of wheat and other staples.8
Yet how far back in Roman history such documentation goes remains
quite unclear. None of the examples just quoted is earlier than the sec-
ond century bce, nor do we have any indication that material of this
kind was regularly used by historians and scholars in antiquity in deter-
mining or checking the history of the triumph. Moreover, the details of
triumphal history as it has been transmitted to us present all kinds of
difficulties and discrepancies. Livy, in fact, echoes Cicero when he com-
plains of the conflicting evidence for the campaigns, victories, and com-
manders of the year 322 bce and laments the lack of any contemporary
history of that period, the misleading influence of family histories, and
the outright “falsehoods” found in the eulogistic inscriptions attached to
the portrait statues of the republican elite.9 The compilers of the Fasti
Capitolini must have got their data from somewhere, but for us to imag-
ine hard-nosed archival research on their part, still less an accurate
source, would be an act of faith.
In fact, to follow the skeptics, there can be no doubt whatsoever that
some of the information on republican triumphs recorded in the in-
scribed Fasti as well as in literary accounts has been, at the very least,
“touched up” at some stage. Even supposing that we were prepared to
suspend disbelief and accept that the exact date of all triumphs, as well
as the full name of the general (including father’s and grandfather’s
name), could have been transmitted accurately from the fifth century
bce, a number of specific cases must arouse suspicion.
Constructions and Reconstructions
77
The very first triumph of the newly founded Republic in 509 bce,
supposedly celebrated by Publius Valerius Publicola, offers a usefully
glaring example. Dated to the first of March (the opening, appropri-
ately enough, of the month of Mars, the god of war), it falls on the anni-
versary of that first triumph of Romulus which launched the whole
series. It is, in theory, possible that we are dealing here with a lucky
coincidence, or with some canny politicians in the late sixth century
who already “knew” the date of the (mythical) first triumph and chose
to replicate it. Much more likely is that, in the retrospective construc-
tion of republican triumphal history, the first triumph of the Repub-
lic (mythical or not) was mapped onto the very first triumph of all,
as a second founding moment of the city and of its most distinctive
ritual.10
Similar issues arise with the six other celebrations assigned to the first
of March, making it, to judge from the Fasti, the single most popular
date for the ceremony through the Republic.11 Generals may well have
found this an attractive and symbolically resonant date to choose for
their own big day. But no less likely is it that, in the course of the long
scholarly process of fine-tuning and filling the gaps in the triumphal re-
cord, the first of March would have seemed a particularly appropriate
date to assign to dateless triumphs.
Besides, despite the generally consistent overall picture of triumphal
history given by the inscribed documents and different ancient writers,
there are very many individual discrepancies long after the obviously
mythical period of the early kings. We are not dealing, in other words,
with a single orthodox triumphal chronology publicly memorialized in
the Fasti Capitolini, but a number of chronologies, similar in outline,
while divergent—even conflicting—in detail. Several triumphs, for ex-
ample, are recorded in the Fasti but nowhere else, even at periods when
Livy’s detailed year-by-year historical narrative survives. We know noth-
ing at all, apart from what is inscribed on the stone, of the triumph of
Publius Sulpicius Saverrius over the Samnites on October 29, 304 bce.
Likewise, no mention is made in any surviving literary account of the
triumphs of Gaius Plautius Proculus in 358, Gaius Sulpicius Longus in
314, or Marcus Fulvius Paetinus in 299, though in each case Livy does re-
Th e
R o m a n Tr i u m p h
7 8
fer to an appropriate victory or campaign (one is tempted to ask whether
a triumph has been extrapolated from a victory, or even vice versa).12
It is not simply, however, that the Fasti are fuller, more gullible, or
more systematic in their records. For in other instances, even bearing in
mind the fragmentary nature of the surviving text, the inscription omits
triumphs that are claimed in some literary accounts: a group at the start
of the Republic (in 504, 502, and 495), but a couple later too—including
a celebration in 264 for the victory of Appius Claudius Caudex in Af-
rica, which is featured in Silius Italicus’ Punica, his epic on the Punic
Wars, as the subject of a painting that roused Hannibal’s indignation.13
What accounts for these discrepancies? Sometimes presumably the
partisan or self-serving inventions that Cicero and Livy imply. But—al-
though one modern critic has not unreasonably concluded that “tri-
umphs are more likely to be invented than ignored”—a variety of fac-
tors, not the least of which was sheer carelessness, could lead to the
exclusion of a ceremony from a particular record. So, for example, the
omission of Octavian’s triumph for his victory at Actium in 29 bce from
the Fasti Barberiniani may be the fault of an inattentive stone carver
(even though other more sinister explanations are possible, as we shall
see).14 In other cases it seems clear enough that, in constructing their his-
torical narratives, Roman writers failed to mention individual triumphs
because they had other historical priorities in mind. This may explain
the fact that two celebrations which took place during the Civil Wars of
the 30s bce (the triumph of Lucius Marcius Censorinus in 39 and Gaius
Norbanus Flaccus in 34) are recorded only in the inscribed Fasti. 15
Yet on other occasions a deeper level of uncertainty or more radi-
cally different versions of the details of triumphal history were at stake.
Polybius, for example, writes of the “very splendid” triumph of Scipio
for victories in Spain in 206 bce; Livy, by contrast, claims not only that
Scipio did not celebrate a triumph, but that he requested one only half-
heartedly, as it would have breached precedent. For up to that point, no
one who, like Scipio, had held command without being at the same
time a magistrate had triumphed.16 On the other hand, Livy makes
much of the triumph of Cnaeus Manlius Vulso in 187, as we have al-