Africanus in the Temple of Jupiter, depicted their subjects in triumphal
dress—as if that captured the very moment of their highest renown.91
The adjective triumphalis (“triumphal”) could be used to distinguish
those who had triumphed, and even to mark out their children. On a
grossly overblown early imperial family tomb at Tivoli, for example, one
epitaph blazoned the man commemorated as triumphalis filius (“son of a
triumpher” or “triumphal son”), in place of the usual Roman formula
of filiation (“son of Marcus”); his father, whose epitaph was alongside,
had been awarded “triumphal ornaments” under Augustus.92 In the race
for more direct political rewards, there is some evidence of a link be-
tween the celebration of a triumph and future success. Livy occasion-
ally refers to the impact of a celebration on up-coming elections, and
Cicero linked the splendid triumph celebrated by the father of his client
Lucius Licinius Murena to Murena junior’s subsequent election to the
consulship.93
Modern scholars have made some attempts to look beyond individual
cases. Tracking the careers of those men of praetorian rank who secured
triumphs seems to show that this group had particular success in secur-
ing a consulship. Between 227 and 79 the unusually high proportion of
fifteen out of nineteen triumphing praetorians went on to the higher of-
fice; and of the remaining four who did not, some may have died before
they had a chance to stand for election. It is hard of course to isolate the
significant variable here: the victory itself may have been a more impor-
tant factor than its celebration. Nonetheless, statistics such as these have
helped to entrench the modern view that triumph signaled success.94
But as I have repeatedly shown, triumph could signal failure too—
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and not only for those generals who, despite what they themselves re-
garded as a triumph-worthy victory, were refused a celebration. Time
and again, ancient writers told the story of triumphs that went wrong
for all kinds of reasons. Humiliating incidents might occur in mid-
procession, as when Pompey’s elephants became jammed in the archway
or when Caesar’s axle broke. Or the spectacular highlights might misfire,
as when Caesar’s paintings of his dying enemies called forth more revul-
sion than admiration among the gawping crowd, or the tragic prisoner
Arsinoe reduced them to tears. A poor show might go down badly.
Scipio Aemilianus’ triumph over Numantia in 132 bce was noticeably
austere. The Roman destruction of the city had been so complete that
not a single captive nor any booty could be put on display: “It was a tri-
umph over a name only,” as Florus put it disapprovingly, reflecting on
the absence of spectacle and also no doubt on the brutality that ac-
counted for it.95 But, on the other side, there was always a fine line be-
tween splendor and morally questionable excess, a line which, in Pliny’s
eyes at least, Pompey ominously crossed with his portrait head made out
of pearls.
Even if nothing of this sort was drastically awry, the general in his
chariot still risked being upstaged by any number of other participants
in the parade. What could he do, standing helpless in the chariot, if he
realized that the eyes of the spectators were being drawn increasingly to
the glamorous prisoners or to the valiant battle-scarred soldier walking
behind him? And what could he do about the negative spin that might
always be put on his finest hour? We cannot be sure how many of the pi-
quant jibes on triumphal celebrations that we find in the written record
went back directly to contemporary reactions and to the street talk that
no doubt accompanied the show itself. But plenty of evidence suggests
that even (or especially) the most splendid triumphs could come to be
seen more as an own-goal than as a glorious reflection of success. How-
ever mythologized it may have been, Camillus’ extravaganza in 396 bce
is usually presented as the catalyst for political opposition to the general.
Significantly, too, the triumph is an important rhetorical theme in
Livy’s story of Scipio Africanus’ fall from favor. After a brief backward
Playing God
253
glance to Scipio’s triumphal celebration over Syphax in 201 bce, Livy re-
counts the debates at Scipio’s trial a decade or so later. For his oppo-
nents, he was a tyrant who had robbed Romans of their liberty and had
(in a phrase that makes a more shocking paradox in Latin than in Eng-
lish translation) “triumphed over the Roman people”; his accusers were
accused in return of “seeking spoils from a triumph over Africanus.”
One implication here is that his triumph cast a dark shadow, rather than
glorious luster, over the succeeding years.96
Extraordinary marks of honor always entail high risk. For the tri-
umphing general himself, the pride, excitement, and sense of richly de-
served glory must regularly have gone hand in hand with fear and appre-
hension for the occasion itself and for the future. More things, after all,
could go wrong than could go right with a triumph.
ACTING UP?
The figure of the general also raises issues of representation and mimesis,
similar to those raised by the prisoners and the spoils. But in his case
they have an extra dimension, which brings us back, in a different way,
to his divine status—raising the question not merely of what he repre-
sents but how he represents, and of his role in the wider hermeneutics of
the parade. If the models and tableaux could be read as both brilliant
artifice and treacherous sham, could the general be seen as both the di-
vine double and ludicrous actor?
I mean “ludicrous actor” quite literally. For one of the most potent
ancient explorations of the figure of the triumphing general is found in
Plautus’ comedy Amphitruo, a piece of theater that is framed by and ex-
poses the mimetic conventions of the triumph and the general’s role
within those. The action of this play leads up to the birth of Hercules,
by way of an intricate tale of adultery, disguise, and mistaken identity.
Amphitruo himself is a Theban general, just returned from a heroically
successful campaign against the “Teleboans.” Geographical precision
would place this people in Acarnania, in western Greece, but the Greek
would literally mean that they are “a far cry” (tele boe) from where we
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are. While Amphitruo has been away, Jupiter has taken a fancy to his
wife, Alcmena, and has been making love to her, cunningly disguised
as her husband. The return of the real Amphitruo causes the predict-
able confusion, archly complicated by the god Mercury—also in dis-
guise as Amphitruo’s slave Sosia. The ensuing slapstick and carnival sa-
dism (part of which is lost in a gap in our text) finally ends with a
resolution in which divine unction is poured on the proceedings:
Alcmena bears twins—Hercules, son of Jupiter, and Iphicles, son of the
cuckold Amphitruo (Fig. 33).
The comedies of Plautus are derived and adapted from Greek ante-
cedents (hence Thebes and the Teleboans) and for that reason have of-
ten played a marginal role in modern studies of Roman culture and soci-
ety. Sometimes the precise Greek model used by the Roman playwright