disallowed it, granting only triumphal insignia. In 8 Augustus again
turned down a triumph for himself. In fact, this practice of turning
down triumphs is blazoned in his Res Gestae (Achievements): “The senate
decreed more triumphs to me, all of which I passed over.”27
Dio’s account takes this as a key theme. For if one of his explanations
for the new Augustan culture of the triumph focuses on legal rules, an-
other offers a genealogy of this style of triumphal refusal—centering on
the figure of Agrippa. We already noted that in Dio the founding myth
of the triumphal laurel grove was closely linked to Agrippa’s refusal of a
triumph in 37, when he was consul. In his discussion of the events of the
year 19 bce, Dio does not mention the triumph of Balbus but gives full
coverage instead to another refusal by Agrippa, now Augustus’ son-in-
law and probably his intended heir. On this occasion, the refusal came
after the senate, at the emperor’s own request, had offered him a tri-
umph for victories in Spain. “Other men,” wrote Dio, “went after tri-
umphs and got them, not only for exploits not comparable to Agrippa’s
but merely for arresting robbers . . . For at the beginning at least Augus-
The Triumph of History
301
tus was happy to bestow this kind of reward lavishly, and he also hon-
ored many with public funerals. The result was that these men glowed
with distinction.” But Agrippa, so Dio’s message is, gained more out of
refusal than the others did out of acceptance. For “he was promoted to
supreme power, you might say.”28
Dio, in other words, is identifying here a crucial moment of trium-
phal change, when a signal of power within the state can be seen in the
refusal rather than acceptance of a triumph. Agrippa’s third refusal in 14
bce finally defines the pattern. In a passage that, significantly perhaps,
just precedes his account of the ill-fated opening of Balbus’ theater (the
Tiber was in flood and Balbus could only enter the new building by
boat), Dio explains that Agrippa turned down the triumph offered for
victories in the East—and it was because of this refusal, “at least in my
opinion, that no one else of his peers was permitted to triumph in future
but enjoyed only the distinction of triumphal insignia. ”29
How far we should follow Dio’s hunch in seeing Agrippa’s example as
the catalyst to change is a moot point. The bigger question that Dio’s
narrative raises is how to explain the new culture of triumphal refusal in
general. It is understandable enough that Augustus should be keen to
keep potentially rival aristocrats off the triumphal stage. But why also
have his own family triumph so rarely? I am tempted to imagine that he
was canny enough to realize the ambivalence of the triumph, and wise
enough to see that these ceremonials courted humiliation and danger as
much as glory and success. It was safer to keep triumphal performance
on the streets to a minimum, while monumentalizing the ritual in mar-
ble, bronze, and ink.
But even this explanation does not capture the striking variety of an-
cient accounts of Augustan triumphal culture, which modern views of a
more or less radical restriction of the celebration tend to pass over.
Suetonius is possibly a maverick when he portrays Augustus’ reign as a
bumper period for performance of the ritual, claiming that Augustus
had “regular triumphs” (iusti triumphi) voted for more than thirty gener-
als.30 No commentator has convincingly explained this total—and, even
with the most generous definition of a “regular triumph” I can reach that
Th e
R o m a n Tr i u m p h
3 0 2
number only by starting to count immediately after the murder of
Caesar and including the whole of the triumviral period.
But ancient writers’ treatment of what has become famous in modern
scholarship as the “last traditional triumph,” Balbus’ celebration of 19
bce, is almost as surprising. True, this is where the list on the Forum in-
scription decisively ends, as if it were trying to indicate closure of the re-
publican tradition. But there is no surviving ancient writer who takes
the same line, or even mentions that Balbus was the last from outside
the imperial family to triumph. As we have seen, Dio—interested as he
is in the ritual’s history—is entirely silent on this particular procession.
Others, far from making him the last in any triumphal line, treat him as
a unique innovator; for as a native of Gades in Spain he was, according
to Pliny, the only foreigner to triumph at Rome.31
But this final section of the Forum inscription itself repays fur-
ther attention, particularly seen together with the only other surviving
fragment of triumphal chronology from the city of Rome, the Fasti
Barberiniani (Figs. 36, 37). Close inspection reveals all kinds of interesting details. For example, the description of Octavian at his ovation in 40
bce appears on the Forum inscription as “Imperator Caesar, son of a
god, son of Caius . . . ” This apparently refers to his descent by adoption
from Julius Caesar both in his divine aspect (“son of a god”) and in his
human aspect (“son of Caius”—unless that is meant to point us to
Octavian’s natural father, also called Caius). But, curiously, a closer look
at the stone reveals here, as in the entry for his ovation in 36, that the
phrase “son of Caius” ( C.f ) has been carved over some previous wording
that was erased. We do not know what that previous wording was. But
the general rule was that generals (apart from a handful of the early
kings with murky or mythical ancestry, and the “foreigner” Balbus) ap-
pear in this list with the name of their father and grandfather. Whatever
the exact history here, and however the awkward issue of Octavian’s pa-
ternity was hammered out, the erasure and the second thoughts it im-
plies gives us a hint of the problems of dealing with “normal” patterns in
human descent at the start of the new world of deification and (con-
structed) divine ancestry.
The Triumph of History
303
[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]
Figure 36:
The final section of the inscribed register of triumphing generals from the Ro-
man Forum, listing triumphs between 28 and 19 bce. Each entry normally includes the same standard information: the name of the general, with that of his father and grandfather; the office he held at the time of the victory; the year of the victory (expressed in years since the foundation of the city); the place or people over which the victory was won; the date of the triumph. So the final entry for Balbus reads: Lucius Cornelius Balbus, son of Publius, proconsul, in the year 734, over Africa, on the sixth day before the Kalends of April (that is, March 27). The omission of his grandfather reflects Balbus’ status as a new citizen.
No less revealing is the entry in the Fasti Barberiniani for Octavian’s
triple triumph in 29 bce (which does not survive in the Forum list).
Here the three separate celebrations—the first for victory over Dalmatia
and Illyricum, the second for victory at the battle of Actium, the third
for victory over Egypt—appear as just two: for Dalmatia and Egypt, ap-
parently separated by a day. This has been put down to sloppy stone
carving.32 But a more political explanation is also possible. Actium had