in some sense the triumph always had been, in essence, the arrival of the
successful general and his re-entry into the city—and it was certainly
cast in those terms by writers of the Augustan period, looking back to
the ritual’s early history.73 Nonetheless, the “seepage” of triumphal forms
into other rituals does seem to be a particular marker of the ceremonial
from the fourth, or even the third, century on. One could almost say
that the adjective tends to replace the noun: we now deal as much with
ceremonies that are “triumphal” or “like a triumph” as with triumphs
themselves.
That said, a group of notable triumphs or triumphal occasions be-
tween the fourth and sixth centuries have been taken as turning points
in the history of the ritual, or possible candidates for being “the last Ro-
man triumph.” Modern fingers have often pointed at the triumph of
Diocletian and Maximian in 303, which joined together celebrations of
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325
the twentieth anniversary of Diocletian’s reign with those for victories
won by the co-rulers in both East and West, some of them many years
earlier. (One surviving speech in praise of Maximian turns this delay to
the emperor’s advantage: “You put off triumphal processions themselves
by further conquering.”) The evidence for this occasion is murkier than
many of the confident statements about it would encourage one to
think. Not only are there some troubling—though probably not com-
pelling—doubts about whether this is anything more than a figment of
unreliable historical imagination. But the repeated view that the proces-
sion incorporated paintings or models of the defeated, in the traditional
way, is no more than a rationalization of the awkward conflict of differ-
ent assertions in different literary accounts: that the relatives of the
Persian king Narses were on display in the procession, that they had
been restored to him according to the peace treaty after the war with the
Persians, and that the whole family was put on display in the temples
of Rome. Nonetheless, the description offered by Eutropius, a fourth-
century pagan historian, has been felt to be reassuringly familiar and “in
the ancient manner”: he refers to the “wonderful procession of floats
(fercula)” and to the victims being led “before the chariot (ante
currum). ”74
A clear break is often detected between this and the triumphal entry
of Constantine after his defeat of his rival Maxentius at the battle of the
Milvian Bridge in 312. There is no question here of anything so refined
as a model of the defeated being on display. In contrast to those occa-
sions in the earlier history of the triumph when the crowd was reported
to be upset by the mere sight of paintings of the dying, Maxentius’
severed head itself was paraded for mockery before the people (a not
uncommon element in these later ceremonies). One writer of a speech
in praise of Constantine, moreover, plays with the idea that this was
the most illustrious triumph ever, precisely because it used and sub-
verted triumphal traditions: no chained enemy generals were hauled
ante currum, but the Roman nobility marched there “free at last”; “bar-
barians were not thrown into prison, but ex-consuls were thrown out”;
and so on.
Th e
R o m a n Tr i u m p h
3 2 6
But the key idea for most modern commentators has been an omis-
sion of a different kind. It is widely assumed that this was the first occa-
sion when the emperor broke with tradition and, under the influence
of Christianity, chose not to end the procession with honor paid to the
pagan gods. Or so we infer from the fact that no ancient account men-
tions Constantine performing sacrifice on the Capitoline (there is no
firmer or more positive evidence than that).75 Almost a hundred years
later in 404, the triumph-cum-consular-inauguration of the emperor
Honorius may represent another turning point. Written up in aggres-
sively traditional idiom by Claudian—with images of white horses
(though only two, not four), praise for triumphs over foreign rather than
Roman enemies, and a reference to the once significant boundary of the
pomerium—this is the last triumph we know to have been celebrated by
an emperor in Rome.76
The significance of any of these turning points depends on how we
interpret the triumph more generally. There is no right answer to the
teasing question of when the traditional Roman triumph grinds to a
halt. For those who see the culminating sacrifice on the Capitoline as
an essential part of the institution, the triumph of Diocletian and
Maximian will be the end of the road. A Christian triumph will be a
contradiction in terms, or at best a new ceremony imitating the old.
Those, by contrast, who emphasize physical location as an integral part
of the ritual—and so regard a triumph outside the topography of the
city of Rome, or the Alban Mount, as an impossible hybrid—might take
the history of the ceremony as far of 404 but no further. In those terms,
a triumph in Constantinople could be only a copy. The case for extend-
ing our reach as far as Justinian and Belisarius in the sixth century would
depend on taking literally Procopius’ claims to place it (notwithstanding
all its radically new elements) in the tradition of triumphs stretching
back even before the advent of the Roman Empire. In the end, it proba-
bly does not matter very much where we choose to stop, so long as we
realize that different choices offer different views not only of the history
but also of the character of the institution.
Here too, however, there are also big issues of discursive as well as
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327
more strictly ritual practice. As we have seen repeatedly, ceremonies such
as the triumph are defined not only by the actions of the participants,
the costume, the choreography, and the paraphernalia. No less impor-
tant are the terms in which they are described, represented, and under-
stood by their ancient observers. In part, it was the description or repre-
sentation of a ritual as a triumph that made it one. Greek and Roman
writers, no less than we ourselves, made rhetorical choices about which
ceremonies to cast in triumphal terms and which not. Some writers,
from the fourth to the sixth century, and especially those who saw them-
selves in the lineage of the “pagan” classics, were heavily invested in por-
traying a range of ceremonies in traditionally triumphal terms, even at
the cost of some tension between image and practice.
It has often been noticed, for example, that the triumphant emperor
was still said to have traveled in the traditional currus, even when there is clear evidence that the regular vehicle was now a cart or carriage in
which (as we saw in the case of Constantius) he sat down. In another
speech in praise of Constantine, the mockery of the head of Maxentius,
and of the man who had the misfortune to be carrying it in the proces-
sion, is seen in terms of the ribaldry (ioci triumphales) of the traditional triumphal ceremony. And there are many examples of the parade of illustrious Roman triumphal forbears: Belisarius’ ceremony is, for exam-
ples, seen alongside the triumphs of Titus and Trajan, as well as the
heroes of the Republic; the poet Priscian likens the triumphal ceremony