Publica,” where he “would apply to the senate for the right to hold a tri-
umph.”48 If so, even with the capacious parkland, it must have been im-
possibly (and implausibly) overcrowded at some periods in the late Re-
public, when more than one general was simultaneously waiting for his
triumph, sometimes over a period of years. This process of conjecture,
wild extrapolation, and over-confidence is how many of the “facts” of
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the triumph are made. To repeat: no ancient evidence whatsoever links
the villa publica with the ritual, beyond the ambivalent and uncertain
implications of Josephus’ description.
RECONSTRUCTING THE “TRIUMPHAL GATE”
Even more confusion surrounds the “gate” where Vespasian and Titus
went after addressing the senate and others in the Portico of Octavia—a
monument that has been the subject of more pages of learned dispute
than any other part of the triumphal route. Josephus’ rather awkward
periphrasis (“the gate which took its name from the fact that triumphs
always pass through it”) has always been taken to be a gloss on the mon-
ument known in Latin as the porta triumphalis (“the triumphal gate”).
This is mentioned for certain on only four other occasions in ancient lit-
erature. It is referred to once by Cicero, in his attack on the ignominious
return to Rome in 55 bce of his adversary Cnaeus Calpurnius Piso: “It
doesn’t matter what gate you entered the city by,” he sneers at one point
in the proceedings, “so long as it wasn’t the triumphal one.” And it ap-
pears three times in connection with the funeral of the emperor Augus-
tus: Tacitus and Suetonius both record a proposal that Augustus’ body
should be carried to its pyre “through the triumphal gate.” Dio goes fur-
ther and states that this was exactly what did happen “by decree of the
senate” (all implying that the gate was not usually open or a free thor-
oughfare).49
None of these writers give any hint of its form; the term “porta” (in
Greek pulÃ) rather than “arcus” or “fornix” more easily suggests a gate in
a city wall than a free-standing arch (as is also implied by Cicero’s de-
scription of Piso “entering” the city), though many recent theories have
opted for a free-standing structure. None refer to its function in the tri-
umph. None, apart from Josephus, give any clue to where it stood;
though, if Augustus’ body was to be carried through it in his funeral
cortège without a vast detour, we should probably have in mind some
place between the Forum (where the eulogies were delivered) and the
northern Campus Martius (where the pyre and his mausoleum stood).
Constructions and Reconstructions
97
Despite this vagueness, most modern scholars have been convinced
that this structure represented a significant point at the start of the pro-
cession. The idea of the ceremonial passage through an arch or gate
(whether as rite de passage, a purificatory ritual, or an entry ritual) has proved predictably seductive.50 And most scholars have also been convinced that, with the help of a variety of other evidence, the location of
the gate might be pinpointed. Only one independent mind of the early
twentieth century ventured to suggest that the porta triumphalis may not
have been a fixed structure at all but the name applied to whatever gate
or even temporary arch the general passed through as he began his pro-
cession. And she has been much ridiculed for it (rightly maybe; for the
idea certainly seems to conflict with Josephus’ account).51
Leaving to one side the various hypotheses of Renaissance scholars
(who regularly, and quite wrongly, conscripted the Vatican into the itin-
erary), enthusiastic arguments have been advanced over the last two
hundred years for placing the gate in the Circus Maximus, the Circus
Flaminius, the Campus Martius near the villa publica, as well as on the
road that led from the Forum to the Campus Martius around the east
side of the Capitoline hill.52 The most recently fashionable theory,
though floated as long ago as the 1820s, is that the triumphal gate was
identical with, or at least closely linked to, the Porta Carmentalis, a gate
in the old city wall at the foot of the Capitoline hill to the west, not far
from where the Theater of Marcellus still stands. Originally (part of ) the
city gate itself, the triumphal gate was later replaced—so the most influ-
ential version of the argument goes—by a free-standing arch. This is so
much the modern orthodoxy that it can now be treated as “fact.”53
It is, of course, not “fact” at all; and no ancient author states directly
or indirectly that the porta triumphalis was identical, or nearly identical, with the Porta Carmentalis. Yet a careful look at the arguments used to
support this case offers a marvelous object lesson in the methods of
modern historians of the triumph. We can trace the decidedly flimsy se-
ries of inferences and sleights of hand that claim to transform the myste-
rious and frankly opaque references in a few ancient texts into a physical
structure whose form we can reconstruct—and whose image survives.
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9 8
The idea takes off from what is almost certainly a Renaissance com-
mentary on Suetonius, explaining that “the porta triumphalis seems to
have been between the Porta Flumentana and the Porta Catularia.” We
do not know whether or not the Renaissance scholar was here drawing
on reliable ancient evidence. Nor do we know where in the old city wall
the Porta Catularia was situated (it is itself referred to in only one sur-
viving passage of ancient literature, without any precise location). But
assuming that our Renaissance informant is correct and assuming that
we can conveniently pinpoint the Catularia between the Capitoline and
the Campus Martius, then the implication would be that the porta
triumphalis belonged just where we believe the Porta Carmentalis to
have stood (though no agreed traces have been discovered).54
At this point, a story in Livy and Ovid helps out. When in 479 bce
the ill-fated posse of the Fabian clan marched out of Rome, to be de-
feated in their battle against the Veientines, Livy explains (according to
the usual translation) that they left by the wrong side of the Porta
Carmentalis, under the right-hand arch. Ovid chimes in with a refer-
ence to the curse of the right-hand arch (“Don’t go through it anyone,
there’s a curse on it”). This story is, of course, much later elaboration;
and even as told by Livy and Ovid, the exact significance of the “wrong”
arch is far from clear. Was there one side for entrances and the other
for exits, which the Fabii got wrong? Or was the right-hand side not
in regular use at all? It does seem to show, however, that the Porta
Carmentalis was a double gate, one side of which, or maybe both, was
governed by special customs or regulations. Notwithstanding all the dif-
ficulties (and, frankly, none of the proposed solutions make sense of all
the evidence), one of the arches of the Porta Carmentalis has become the
prime candidate for being the porta triumphalis, which was, the theory
goes, ritually opened on special occasions, such as triumphs.55