multaneously hinted that the equation might be reversed, and living
prisoners be likened to mute images. This idea is brought out even more
clearly in Josephus’ account of the Flavian triumph. He writes of the lav-
ish “floats” that were a conspicuous part of the parade, and on each one
he notes an “enemy general was stationed . . . in the very attitude in
which he was captured.” In a striking inversion, here the prisoners
themselves take on the role of actors, miming their moment of defeat on
the triumphal stage.6
Th e
R o m a n Tr i u m p h
1 4 6
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
Figure 26:
Fragment of a triumphal relief, showing captives in eastern dress under a tro-
phy, late second century ce. The small scale of these figures suggests either that the artist was literally cutting the victims down to size, or that what is represented here are sculptures, not live prisoners, being carried in procession.
This blurring of the boundaries of representation is also glimpsed in
some of the surviving sculptures of the procession. On several occasions
we see apparently “real” captives crouched down next to pieces of booty
and carried along shoulder high, as if they themselves were inanimate
objects. In fact, sometimes it is hard to tell whether the figures are meant
to evoke living captives or their representation or both (Fig. 26; see also
Fig. 23). Maybe this is how poor Arsinoe was displayed on her ferculum
in Caesar’s parade.7
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147
The procession, in other words, offered many different versions of
captives: not only as the walking, talking, live prisoners but also as im-
ages representing those who could not appear in the flesh, and as prison-
ers acting out the part of images and representations. This was one
distinctive element in the extravaganza of representation that was the
hallmark of Roman triumphal culture more generally—and especially of
the triumphal display of spoils, statues, curiosities, booty, gifts, treasures,
pictures, and models. Beyond the luxury and the embarrassment of
riches, we shall find in the triumph a context in which the potential of
the art of representation was exploited to the full, and its dilemmas and
ambivalences explored.
THE EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
The triumph of Pompey in 61 was one of a series of Roman victory cele-
brations, from the third century bce on, whose lavish spectacles of
booty and the other paraphernalia of triumphal display were enshrined
in the Roman historical imagination. Among these iconic occasions was
the procession of Marcus Claudius Marcellus after the capture of the
rich Sicilian city of Syracuse in 211 bce. Marcellus had, in fact, been re-
fused a “full triumph.” Political in-fighting with its usual array of objec-
tions or ex post facto rationalizations (the war in Sicily was not com-
pletely finished; it would be invidious to grant him a third triumph; he
had conducted his campaign as proconsul not consul; his army was still
in Sicily) resulted instead in a triumph on the Alban Mount and an
ovatio in the city itself.8 But this did little to dim the reported splendor of the occasion or its lively, and controversial, ancient reputation.
It was, according to Plutarch, the first triumph to display works of art
as a spoil of victory: “He transported the greater part and the finest of
the objects that in Syracuse had been dedicated to the gods, to be a spec-
tacle for his triumph and an adornment for the city. For before that time
Rome neither possessed nor was even aware of these elegant luxuries,
nor was there any love in the city for refinement and beauty. Instead
it was full of the weapons seized from barbarian enemies and blood-
stained booty, and crowned with memorials of triumphs and trophies—
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R o m a n Tr i u m p h
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not a pleasant nor a reassuring sight, nor one for faint-hearted spectators
or aesthetes.”9
Exactly how innovative Marcellus’ parade really was has been de-
bated. In the ancient world itself, there were other candidates for the
introduction of lavish displays into triumphal ceremony: Florus, for ex-
ample, pinpointed the triumph of Manius Curius Dentatus in 275 bce,
with its “gold and purple, statues and paintings” from Tarentum, as a
turning point in luxury: “Up to that time,” he wrote, “you would have
seen nothing [among the spoils] except the cattle of the Volsci, the
flocks of the Sabines, the carts of the Gauls, the broken weapons of
the Samnites.”10 Modern writers too have questioned the idea that
Marcellus’ ovation was such a radical break, listing the works of art said
to have been carried in triumphs before his.11
Nonetheless, an emphatic ancient tradition does see in this occa-
sion a crucial moment in the cultural revolution that we call the
“hellenization” of Rome. As Plutarch goes on to report (and to theo-
rize in terms of political and generational conflict), while some—the
rank and file, or demos—welcomed the works of art that appeared in
Marcellus’ ovation as elegant adornments for the city, “older people” ob-
jected to his display partly because so many of those wonderful objects
were sacred images taken from Syracuse: it was disgraceful that “not only
men but also gods were led through the city in triumph as if they were
prisoners.”12
Livy offers a brief catalogue of the booty Marcellus displayed in his
procession: “Along with a representation of the captured city of Syra-
cuse, catapults and ballistas and all kinds of other weapons of war were
carried in parade, plus the trappings that come with a long period of
peace and with royal luxury, a quantity of silver- and bronze-ware, other
furnishing and precious fabric and many notable statues with which
Syracuse had been adorned on a par with the leading cities of Greece. As
a sign that his victory had also been over the Carthaginians eight ele-
phants were in the parade.”13 Hints elsewhere can fill out the picture a
little. Cicero writes of a “celestial globe” in the house of Marcellus’
grandson—an heirloom that had come down through the family from
The Art of Representation
149
the spoils of Syracuse. This made a pair with another globe, both the
work of the Syracusan scientist Archimedes, which Marcellus dedicated
in the Temple of “Honor and Virtue” (Honos et Virtus) that he had
vowed to the gods in the course of his campaigns. It is a fair assumption
that these objects were displayed in the procession, among “the trap-
pings that come with a long period of peace.”14
Other evidence too sheds light on the final destination of part of the
spoils. Whatever we make of Cicero’s improbable insistence that, apart
from the globe, Marcellus “took nothing else home with him out of the
vast quantity of booty,” we can tentatively follow some of the statues
out of the procession into particular public or sacred contexts in Rome
and elsewhere. Two republican statue bases from the city, the statues
themselves long lost, carry inscriptions recording the name of Marcellus
as the donor. One is specifically a dedication to Mars, and the findspot
suggests that it was originally placed in the temple of the god just out-
side the city, on the Appian Way. Both of the original statues were very
likely taken from those paraded in the ovation.15 Plutarch claims that