We made a complete circuit of the track so that the people on both sides could see us march past, then looped back around, exiting the Circus on the opposite end from where we had entered, then followed the street that circled around the base of the Palatine. My ears had started ringing from all the noise, while I could feel the sweat soaking my tunic. Frankly, I was beginning to grow bored. Once the novelty of people throwing flowers at you, while calling you the embodiment of Achilles or Ajax or Dentatus wears off, it is a bit of a bore, if the truth be known. At least it was for me, though I was happy to see that the men did not seem to grow tired of it. For the men in the ranks, marching in front of adoring crowds, being wreathed in garlands and cheered was the payoff for all the years of marching, digging, fighting, and bleeding and it had been long in coming to them. We finally turned onto the Via Sacra, where Caesar, at the head of the procession, had already reached the foot of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The wagons pulling the spoils continued past the temple to be taken back to the Campus Martius, while the prisoners were led away, most of them finally to be sold, except for Vercingetorix and others of similar rank and prestige. He was led to the Tullianum, the dungeon under the Gemonian Stairs, where he would be executed by being garroted. As we got near the sacred precinct and saw the huge temple that sits on top of the Capitoline, we finally got a glimpse of the crowning touch of Caesar’s triumph. Lining the last several hundred feet on both sides were 40 elephants, 20 to a side, each one holding a burning torch, a most impressive feat when you see it. These were some of the elephants in Juba’s army that were shipped back to Italy for just this occasion. Marching past, I will admit that I was a bit nervous as I wondered if the sight of men in Roman uniform marching past them would trigger some sort of memory of the battle, causing them to go crazy and stomp us into greasy red smears. Nothing happened though, and we marched past without incident, winding around the hill then circling back towards the Via Triumphalis. Meanwhile, Caesar made his offering to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, consisting of his garland crown, along with the ivy that had adorned the fasces of every one of his 72 lictors. The parade part of the triumph was over. However, the festivities were just beginning, as was the work of the Centurions.
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The second part of a triumph is a massive feast, and as was his habit, Caesar was determined that his one would be larger and more extravagant than anything the people of Rome had seen before. A total of 22,000 tables were set up, each table seating ten people, and that was just for the civilians. The army held their own banquet back at camp, a prudent measure to keep us separate from the masses, given the amount of wine that flowed. The fare was the most extravagant and exotic that the men had ever seen, rivaling what I had experienced at Cleopatra’s banquet the year before. Platters of meats of every description, pastries stuffed with both meat and sweets, loaf upon loaf of fresh, steaming bread, along with fresh fruits and vegetables prepared in more ways than one could count. Truth be known, the bread was the most popular with the men, as more than one of them turned their nose up at the meats, which was fine as far as I was concerned, since it meant more for me. I had taken a lot of teasing over the years about my preference for meat over bread, but I had long since learned to shrug it off.
As the day progressed, the conversation grew steadily louder and more boisterous. It had not even gotten dark yet when the first fight broke out. It did not start with my men, though it certainly did not take long for the violence to spread to the series of tables where my men were sitting and I was not surprised that one of the first men to be knocked to the ground was none other than my long-time tent mate, Didius. Sighing, I looked over at Scribonius, who was still Didius’ Centurion. He gave me a rueful smile and a shrug as he got to his feet to stride over to where Didius and another man were now rolling about in the dirt, as Scribonius administered a few whacks with the vitus that broke it up. This was the theme of the rest of the night: a few moments of drunken camaraderie, punctuated by flying fists and bodies rolling around on the ground, keeping the Centurions and Optios hopping from one brawl to the next. Even after all these years together, there were still grudges and disputes, some of them going back ten years or more, over gambling debts never paid, suspicions about cheating during dice or tables, or most commonly about a woman. As long as the men were sober and under our eye, these problems rarely flared into open hostilities, but with the wine flowing and the spirits high, fights were breaking out all over the place. In other words, it was a normal night of revelry and abandon and a good time was had by all, except for the Centurions.