have joined in the procession; as well as a glamorous troupe of foreign
captives, including a little posse of Amazons and Zenobia herself (bound
with those golden chains so heavy that they had to be carried for her).65
Most discussions of this account have been concerned with proving
its inaccuracy or working out what the writer must have misunderstood
in order to have come up with this rubbish.66 Certainly, to imagine that
it was an accurate reflection of what was on show in the procession
would be naive. But the fantasy of the Historia Augusta is here more an
exaggeration of traditional triumphal concerns than sheer invention.
The stress on the exotic, on royal prisoners in particular, and on the po-
tential rivalry between triumphing general and the star victim all echo
major themes in triumphal culture that we have already identified. Simi-
lar echoes are found in other descriptions of third-century triumphs. On
one occasion, the Historia Augusta offers a notable variation on that fa-
vorite triumphal theme of representation and reality. In his speech to the
senate after his triumph of 233, the emperor Severus Alexander is imag-
ined listing the various spoils of the battlefield that he either did, or did
Th e
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not, parade in his procession. This includes 1,800 scythed chariots cap-
tured from the enemy: “Of these we could have put on display two hun-
dred chariots, their animals killed; but because that could be faked, we
passed up the opportunity of doing so.”67 Strangely inverted as the quip
may be, it closely chimes in with all those anxieties about fake triumphs
for fake victories.
In some other respects, however, even in the relatively sparse notices
of triumphs in this period, we can glimpse the characteristic style of later
“triumphal” celebrations of the fourth century and beyond. We find, for
example, a greater emphasis on shows and games connected with the
procession—as if they were now a much more integral part of the trium-
phal celebration than they appear to have been in earlier periods. Like-
wise the surviving descriptions increasingly blur the boundaries between
triumphal victory celebration and other forms of dynastic or imperial
display. In 202, for example, celebrations took place in Rome in honor
of the emperor Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla. Septimius had
secured victories in the East (as are commemorated on his famous arch
in the Forum). But did he celebrate a triumph? Our various accounts
appear to be agreed that he did not, but each with a different nuance.
The Historia Augusta states that the senate offered both the emperor
and Caracalla a triumph. Septimius himself declined on the grounds
(echoing Vespasian’s earlier complaint) that “he could not stand up in
the chariot because of his arthritis.” He did, however, give permission
for his son to triumph. Both Dio and Herodian suggest a different con-
figuration of ceremonial, without either of them mentioning a triumph.
Dio, who was a contemporary and even eyewitness, refers to a dazzling
concatenation of festivities. These included the celebration of the em-
peror’s tenth anniversary on the throne; the wedding of Caracalla (Dio,
a guest, claims that the menu was partly in “royal” and partly in “bar-
baric” style, with not only cooked meat on the menu but also “uncooked
and even live animals,” or so the Byzantine paraphrase has it); and mag-
nificent shows in the amphitheater in honor of Septimius’ return to the
city, his anniversary, and his victories. Herodian, another contemporary,
The Triumph of History
323
refers instead to the emperor’s reception on his return to Rome “as a vic-
tor,” and to sacrifices, spectacles, handouts, and games.68
This combination of ceremonial fits with the picture we have of
triumphal celebrations in late antiquity. We explored in the last chap-
ter the extension of triumphal symbolism and the way in which, by the
second century ce at least, the inauguration of consuls was represented
in triumphal terms (for Procopius, “the ancient manner”); and we have
noted in this chapter the connection between triumphs and imperial
accession and other dynastic events from as far back as the reign of Au-
gustus. These trends are usually taken to have become yet more pro-
nounced with time, as triumphal symbols came to serve as the markers
of imperial monarchy itself across the Empire as a whole and the tri-
umph became less directly connected with specific individual victories
and more associated with the emperor’s military power in general and
his dynastic anniversaries. It was at this period that the word trium-
phator entered common use—as part of the emperor’s title blazoned on
inscriptions and coins. Various imperial rituals too came to be expressed
in a triumphal idiom, and not necessarily only in Rome (a city that later
Roman emperors visited only rarely).
This is most clearly the case with the ceremony of the emperor’s
adventus, his formal “arrival” in Rome, Constantinople, or other cities of the Empire. This involved a ceremonial greeting of the emperor, his procession through the streets traveling in a chariot or carriage, and often
also the celebration of his victories.69 One vivid case is the famous entry
of Constantius II into Rome in 357 ce, his first visit to the city. In what
has become a locus classicus of the supposedly hieratic ceremonial of late antiquity, he sat in his carriage absolutely still, looking neither to left or
to right, “as if he were a statue.” Several years earlier he had defeated
Magnentius, his rival to the throne, and Ammianus Marcellinus de-
scribes his arrival in Rome as “an attempt to hold a triumph over Roman
blood.”70
Showing scruples about celebrations of victories in civil war that
would have been more at home in the first century bce (for by now
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many triumphal ceremonies were unashamedly rooted in conflicts be-
tween Roman and Roman), Ammianus continues, disapprovingly and
still in a decidedly triumphal vein: “For he did not conquer under his
own command any foreign people who were making war, nor did he
know of any such people who had been vanquished by the valor of his
generals. He did not add anything to the Empire either; nor in times
of crisis was he ever seen to be the leader or amongst the leaders. But
he was keen to show off to a people living in complete peace—who nei-
ther hoped nor wished to see this or anything of the sort—a vastly over-
blown procession, banners stiff with threads of gold, and an array of
retainers.”71
Accounts of this type lie behind the claim that by the end of the
fourth century the triumph was “in effect transformed into adventus. ”72
This is not the only way of understanding the realignment of ritual
practice, or necessarily the best. One could equally well argue that ad-
ventus had been transformed into triumph, or better (as I suggested in
the context of consular inauguration) that the symbolic language of the
triumph provided an apt way of representing this ceremonial form of
imperial entrance. Nor is it clear that the overlap between adventus and
triumph is as distinctive of this later period as is sometimes assumed. For