STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ART, 56•

Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

Symposium Papers XXXIV

The Art of Ancient Spectacle

Edited by Bettina Bergmann and Christine Kondoleon

National Gallery of Art, Washington

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Abstracted and indexed in BHA (Bibliography
of the History of Art) and Art Index
Ancient Spectacle," sponsored by The Circle
of the National Gallery of Art and the Arthur
Vining Davis Foundations. The symposium
was held ro-1 I May 1996 in Washington
ISSN 009 I-7338
ISBN 0·300·0·7733·5
Illustrations redrawn by Patrice Moerman:
page 151 1 figs. IIa-b; page 154, figs 23a-b;
page 156, figs. 24-25; page 208, figs. 1-2;
page 226, fig. 5
Frontispiece: "The Riot in the Amphitheater,"
fresco fragment from Pompeii,
Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples

M ay father Mars ev the fateful fires of holy Vesta
Andrea Mantegna,
Th e Triumphs of Caesar,
canvas I (detai!J: Trumpeters,
Bearers of Standards and
Banners, late fifte enth
century, tempera on canvas
Hampton Court, London
RICHARD BRILLIANT
Columbia University
"Let the Trumpets Roar!"
The Roman Triumph
rursus, io, magnos clamat t1bi Roma
triumphos
JNV1crusque tua, Caesar, in wbe sonas
Martial, Epigrams vn.vi.7,8
grant
that before my days run to a close
I may see chariots returning,
axles groaning with plunder,
and hear the cheers of the crowd
as the horses pick through the throng.
And I will watch the procession,
Cynthia 's lap for a pillow,
and read out the list of cities seized,
gaze at the javelins
of the vanquished cavalry,
the bows of the trousered barbarians,
and their captured chieftains
sitting close by their stacked weapons,
all led by Caesar. ...
and the spoils of war go to those
who labor to win them.
I am content to applaud on the Via Sacra. 1
See, hear, watch, read, and applaud: these
words properly reflect the spectator's experi-
ence, reacting to an imperial triumphal pro-
cession. He reacts only passively at first, until
finally, being moved to applaud, he enters as a
responsive participant in the "event," while
still remaining an onlooker. This spectator
may be applauding because that is what people
who line such a parade usually do, or because
he wants to show his enthusiastic admiration
for the triumphator's prior achievements, or
because he is expected to do so and it would be
very unwise not to. Perhaps his particular mo-
tivation does not even matter, since the entire
scene and his reactions are wholly imagi-
nary-as if, like the triumph itself, his expec-
tant imagination could serve to fix the parade
and its varied representations so surely in his
mind that the triumph's alleged, historical
basis would- recede from his consciousness.
The visual splendor of the Roman triumph
could thus create memorable impressions of
such vivid authority that they put ceremony
before history, obscuring the anterior bloody,
violent, and precarious aspects of war. The
carefully confected triumphal procession, in
effect, substituted the celebratory parade with
all its color and sound for the difficulties and
dangers of the campaign and made the tri-
umph the center of social memory, shared by
many more Romans than ever went to war.
The more intense the spectator's experience
of the parade, the more he is psychologically
implicated in its performance, the stronger
the affect and, thus, his appreciation of the
transcendent triumphator, the cynosure of
all eyes.
Still, those battle-scarred veterans who
marched in the parade established, by their
very presence, the connection between battle
and victory, between dangers faced and glory
won, even by commanders. Marius' proud
boast that his wounds and decorations for
bravery established his nobility expressed the
.:l. U
 Roman fighting man's creed (Sall. lug. 85.29).
But for Marius and the great captains who
followed him, successful campaigns also man-
ifested their virtus, as if that spiritual, enno-
bling quality transcended the violent circum-
stances in which it was earned, just as the Pax
Romana was the benefit of spilling enemy
blood. Violence, in act and in effect, was also
made spectacular in the Roman arena, in pub-
lic executions, and in the circus. In those cir-
cumscribed locales, despite their immediacy,
such acts of violence soon became an integral
part of the urban population's ordinary experi-
ence, lacking the import of that great theater
of violence called war, whose drama unfolded
beyond the horizon. If the observation of such
controlled acts of violence, played out in pub-
lic, was a source of vicarious pleasure for
Romans, the triumph extended the dimension
of that pleasure by putting violent actions,
and the risks they entailed, out of sight but
not out of mind.
Marius' wounds spoke loudly of his cour-
age, but only in his presence; Roman veterans
brought back their stories of strife and glory
from the battlefield, vividly recalled, if not
always so well confected as Caesar's Gallic
Wars or so artfully represented as in the heli-
cal reliefs on Trajan's Column in Rome. The
spectacular, highly visible Roman triumphal
monuments-arches, columns, cuirassed and
equestrian statues, narrative relief cycles, and
paintings-proclaimed both the allegedrealia
and the symbolic truth of Roman victory and
the vanity of the victors. Nothing, however,
was so immediately felt, so spectacular, so
visually and psychologically demanding as the
celebration of the triumph itself. That splen-
did, highly ritualized public display of victor,
victim, and victory, actual and represented,
passed in parade to the cheers of the multi-
tude. The very extravagance of the triumphal
processions of Aemilius Paullus over the Mac-
edonians, of Pompey over Mithridates, of Ves-
pasian and Titus over the Jews, and of so many
other triumphators did not conceal the acts of
violence that had laid the foundations of vic-
tory, but rather sublimated them to the cere-
monial display of martial vigor, subjugated
enemies, and material wealth gained for all to
see and remember. 2
Unfortunately, the ancient texts describing
the triumph and the numerous ancient mon-
uments representing it lack the color and
222 BRILLIANT
interactive, noisy enthusiasm that accompa-
nied the event, the singing and cheering of the
attending crowds, the lavish expenditure of
the participants' treasure and energy, which
made the triumphal parade so vivid, so mem-
orable, and so spectacular. 3 As Guy Debord
has observed, "the spectacle appears at once
as society itself, as a part of society, and as a
means of unification .... The spectacle is not
a collection of images; rather it is a social
relationship between people that is mediated
by images." 4 The triumphal parade was suffi-
ciently extraordinary to constitute a "special
event"-transitory, to be sure, but so well
defined institutionally that it provided all
Romans with the opportunity to affirm their
cohesiveness and their superiority over "oth-
ers" through the agency of the triumphator.
Thus, as both a unifying structure and one
dominated by a resplendent protagonist, the
triumphal procession established an ideologi-
cally significant distinction between a single,
hegemonic presence and his many spectating
subjects. 5
The circumambient, responsive crowd as-
sembled as a mass, dependent upon the domi-
nant and dominating figure of the triumpha-
tor. Simultaneously, the triumphator himself,
the acme of the spectators' attention, looking
over the crowd, the parading troops, and the
city beyond, held them altogether subject to
the sweep of his gaze. This phenomenon was
fully recorded by Pliny the Younger in his
Panegyric to Trajan:
You towered above us only because of your
own splendid physique; your triumph did not
rest on our humiliation, won as it was over
imperial arrogance. Thus, neither age, health
nor sex held your subjects back from feasting
their eyes on this unexpected sight: small
children learned who you were, young people
pointed you out, old men admired; even the
sick disregarded their doctors' orders and
dragged themselves out for a glimpse of you
as if this could restore their health. 6
The dynamic nature of the relationship
between the focalizing presence and the spec-
tating ambiance is fully realized in several
Etruscan cinerary urns of the late second/early
first century BCE from Volterra, representing
the procession of the distinguished deceased
to the Underworld (fig. 1 ). This processional
imagery is a product of the Etrusco-Roman
practice of parading "great men" in the cele-
I. Funeral procession of an
Etruscan magistrate, Etruscan
cinerary urn, late second/
early first century BCE,
alabaster
Museo Guarnaecci, Volterra
Photograph: Fivizzelli, Pisa
bration of their triumph and during the course
of their public funerals, as a conventional sign
of the distinction that leads to remembrance.7
Preceded first by trumpeters who announce
his coming and then by lictors, the proper
companions of his dignity, the deceased in the
garb of a magistrate appears, riding in a tri-
umphal quadriga, his august passage marked
by a saluting equestrian. All the participants,
including the officials who follow the chariot,
are in the parade, but the ensemble is surely
conceived for those who stand by and look on,
whose presence needs no explicit representa-
tionbut can be assumed. Similarly, the funeral
procession could not have been noiseless de-
spite its somber formality; the clopping of
horses' hooves, the blare of trumpets, the
tramp of marching men, all are implicitly part
of the passing parade, accompanied, no doubt,
by crowd noise, muted perhaps with respect,
but not silent.
Such a work of ancient art represents, but
does not make, audible noise, the noise that
brings together parader and spectator in a com-
mon psychological space, especially effective
when the emotional response of the spectator
is to be induced. This powerful desire informs
the many representations of the pompa trium-
phalis of Dionysus, where the hurly-burly of
the Dionysiac cortege, the extravagant move-
ments of the participants, the active display of
musical ii;istruments, and the disorderliness
of the Bacchic ensemble create an impression
of visual noise that serves as an attractive met-
aphor for the god's raucous epiphany (fig. 2). 8
Callixenos' description of the god's Indian tri-
umph (preserved in Ath. Deipn. V.xxv) is the
verbal equivalent of the Bacchic sarcophagus
and suggests that he, like the sculptor, had
imagined the full dimension of Dionysus' pas-
sage, including its rhythmical sound effects. 9
Mantegna in his great Triumphs of Caesar
panels, painted for the Gonzagas in the late
fifteenth century and now in Hampton Court,
captured the essence of the triumphal pro-
cession as a spectacular event, vividly realized
and visually splendid. He portrayed the herky-
jerky movements of the parading troops, laden
with spoils or bearing banners, insignia, and
placarded inscriptions in honor of the trium-
phator; paintings illustrating the sites and
scenes of battle and victory held high; trophaic
piles of captured arms, somber captives, and
the captured images of their gods; lumbering
elephants and oxen, prancing horses; musi-
cians of various kinds, and trumpeters in large
BRILLIANT l.2j

numbers; and, finally, the triumphator Julius
Caesar in his chariot (fig. 3). 10 Mantegna's
great series, an amalgamation of ancient tes-
timonies perhaps closest to Josephus' report of
Vespasian's Jewish triumph (BT vu.132-152)1
is so full of visual incident and implied sound
that the spectator's attention passes rapidly
from one place in the parade to another, re-
sponding to the demanding stimulation of
the senses-the criterion of any successful
parade.
From well-established rhetorical practice
Romans were accustomed to visualize the
unseen, as if it were actually present. Visions
(visiones), induced by powerful verbal repre-
sentations, so stirred the emotions and stim-
ulated the imagination that complex scenes
could manifest themselves with convincing,
vivid immediacy before the mind's eye. 11 This
spirit informs Ovid's Tristia. Ex Ponto rv.21
written by the poet in exile yet still capable of
envisioning the glorious celebration of a Ro-
man triumph over the Germans, seen and
heard from afar.
Let us suppose a triumph-there's no reason
not to . . .. I can imagine it clearly, an impres-
sive tableau: beside Tiberius and Augustus,
Germanicus and Drusus with their wives,
Livilla and Agrippina, and next to them,
Livia . ... Outside, the loyal plebs cheer and
the knights look on from their enclosure . .. .
I can almost hear the names of the captured
towns and their leaders' names and titles as
224 BRILLIANT
2. Indian triumph of
Dionysus, Roman
sarcophagus, late second
century CE, marble
Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore
they are read out to the crowd. I can see the
chiefs march by in slow procession with
chains around their necks and chains of flow-
ers around their horses' necks. Some of their
faces are grim; others are dazed and dull; still
others betray the fear of what will happen
next . ... Between the displays of prisoners,
come the floats, representations of lakes,
mountains, rivers, and forts, the names of
which are familiar to us already. There, that
one, the woman with tresses flowing from her
lowered head, is Germany itself. And there in
the victory car is Caesar riding, pro_ud in cus-
tomary purple; the people cheer, strewing his
path with flowers, waving, shouting Harrahs
{i.o triumphej ~ t the tops of their voices, , , .
From a t.h.ousam;l mile.s ~way, I see it tis if 1
were there! 12
Bey nd poetic license, Ovid ha;a, indulged in
nostalgic reverie for a Rome in it mo 't cel-
ehratory moment o vivid sell-realization, th
triumph,d parade, an att.fully confected op-
portunity to display marti-al power and to en-
joy, simultaneously1 the sensations it aroused
among the peutators. As the triumphant
Aemilius onc:e remarked1 spectacles had ro be
prepared with as much care as the planning of
military strategy in order to make them effec-
tive (Diod. Sic. xxxr.8). Clearly, by the late
first century BCE the Roman triumph had be-
come "a very costly and ostentatious pageant,
being attended by a theatrical pomp that is
designed rather as a display of wealth than as
the approbation of valor, and it has departed
 in every way from its ancient simplicity." 13
Ostentatious display thus interacted with
conspicuous visual consumption to focus pub-
lic attention on the protagonistic triumpha-
tor and on the triumphal parade with its heav-
ily symbolic staging, providing a justification
for the magnificence of the celebration itself.
The triumph, conceived as a pageant of vic-
tory, was increasingly transformed into pub-
lic theater, drawing very large, vociferously
responsive crowds that lined the triumphal
route and filled stands erected to afford them
better views of the procession. 14 The soldiers
shouted, "lo triumphe!" or called out mock-
ing and scurrilous slogans as they marched. 15
Their cries were echoed by the spectators in
extravagant, acclamatory language, exempli-
fied by the senators and the Roman people
greeting Nero's entrance into Rome in 68 after
his victory in the Olympian Games with,
1. Andrea Mantegna,
"Hail, Olympian Victor! Hail, Pythian Victor!
rhe Triumphs of Caesar,
:anvas r: Trumpeters, Augustus! Augustus! Hail to Nero, our Her-
3earers of Standards and cules! Hail to Nero, our Apollo!" 16 Mass psy-
3anners, late fifteenth
;entury, tempera on canvas chology reveals that such active participation
-Iampton Court, London by the spectators must have been infectious,
spreading beyond the immediate spectating
crowd and giving pleasure to many. By the
early third century the Christian moralist,
Tertullian, severely criticized such spectacles
precisely because they gave pleasure to the
audience and, in giving pleasure, did violence
to the spirit (De spect. xv). Some two hundred
fifty years earlier, Cicero also had criticized
the triumph most severely, but on somewhat
different grounds:
What is the use of yon chariot, of the generals
that walk in chains before it, of the models of
towns, of the gold and silver, of the lieutenants
and the tribunes on horseback, of the shouting
of the troops, and of all the pageantry [pompa/
of the show! Vanity, mere vanity I tell you-
to hunt applause, to drive through the city,
to wish to be a gazing-stock [velle conspicif.
In none of them is there anything substantial,
anything you can grasp, anything you can
associate with bodily pleasure [ad voluptam
corporis/. 17
The display of the tangibles of victory,
either in their own right or by surrogate mod-
els, did not impress Cicero, although it seems
to have been a staple of the pompa trium-
phalis. Perhaps the most complete, certainly
the most famous representation of spoils on
parade, visible evidence of conquest and of
the depredation that follows, is to be found in
the passageway relief on the Arch of Titus in
Rome (fig. 4), the prologue or sequel to the
opposing relief on the other side, representing
Titus in his triumphal quadriga. 18 The figures
are carved so deeply and with such convincing
illusion that even now the parade seems to
pass before the modern spectator, the trea-
sures of the Jerusalem Temple moving in re-
view, borne on the shoulders of marching men.
Their passage is preceded by trumpeters and
placard-bearers, once probably inscribed with
names, or titles, of the places and treasures
won, all of them meant to be read. 19 Assum-
ing that the procession of the spoils probably
preceded the emperor's appearance, reserved
as the proper climax of the triumphal celebra-
tion, the head of the parade is shown about
to pass through an arch decorated with tri-
umphal imagery, possibly the Porta Trium-
phalis. This passage, actual or metaphorical,
extends the topicality of the represented
"event" into a more elevated realm of signifi-
cation, manifesting a perpetual vision of un-
dying triumph quite beyond the transient
BRILLIAN T 225
 4. Procession of spoils from
the Temple in Jerusalem,
relief from Arch of Titus,
c. 90 CE, marble, Rome
Photograph: Deutsches
Archaologisches lnstitut, Rome

sound of cheering that once accompanied the

original celebration.
A relief in the Museo Archeologico Pre-
nestino, Palestrina, densely crowded with fig-
ures, represents a Trajanic triumph that is im-
perial in its imagery, though apparently not of
metropolitan workmanship. Part of the relief
is missing, but Luisa Musso has provided a
sensible restoration of the whole that in-
cludes the subjects of both passage reliefs on
the Titus Arch within a single composition
(fig. 5). 20 The connection of these motifs of
display-personal and trophaic-seems close
to the confected imagery of a fragmentary,
late Antonine relief in Rome in which tro-
phaic figures have been miniaturized (fig. 6).
Carried on a ferculum (portable platform), this
trophaic ensemble serves as a token of the
enemy's submission and inferiority, while also
indicating the relative size of the images actu- Evident in these works of visual art and in s. Drawing of Triumph of
ally carried in the triumphal procession. 21 In the otherwise ephemeral triumphal displays, Trajan, Trajanic limestone
relief
his Roman History xn.117 Appian noted that so carefully crafted, is an ability to formulate Museo Archeologico Prenestino,
Palestrina; hypothetical
in Pompey's triumph over Mithridates images codified representations, immediately acces- reconstruction by Luisa Musso
of Tigranes and Mithridates were carried in sible to a viewing audience, whether that au- From Luisa Musso, "Ritievo con
pompa tci.onlale di Traiano al
the procession; those images represented the dience is physically present at the triumph Museo di Palestrina,"
Boll. d'Arte 72 I19871, pl. x, 46
hostile kings as fighting, then defeated, and or only imagines its attendance. Pliny the
finally put to flight-visual evidence, as it Younger displays the power of such a vicari-
were, of the historical background of the ous sensibility in a passage from his Pane-
Roman victory being celebrated. gyricus (17.1-3), offered to Trajan with the

2.2.b BRILLIANT

6. Miniaturized trophaic
figures borne on a ferculum,
fragment of triumphal relief,
late Antonine/Severan, marble
Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome
Photograph: Gabinetto Fotographico
Nazionale, Rome
appropriately flattering v1s10n of triumph,
recollected by Pliny and seen again in his
mind's eye (videor):
Alieady I seem to see before me a triumph
piled high not with the spoils of plundered
provinces and gold wrung from our allies, but
with our enemies' arms and the chains of cap-
tured kings. I can recognise the high-sounding
titles of chieftains whose persons are not
unworthy of such names, and watch the wag-
ons pass with their loads to show the fearful
ventures of the savage foe, each prisoner fol-
lowing, hands bound, the scene of his own
deeds; then, close behind the conquered
nations your own self standing high in your
chariot, before which are the shields pierced
by your own hand. The spoils of supreme hon-
our would be yours if any king would dare to
match himself against you, shuddering with
terror though the whole field of battle and
army might lie between, when confronted not
only by your weapons but by a glance from
your threatening eye.22
The transition from the direct experience of
a triumphal procession to its subsequent revi-
sualization in one's own imagination, often
stimulated by works of art, seems to have oc-
curred without significant interference. Both
the triumph and its conventionalized imagery
conformed to the demands of a symbolic rep-
resentation of such a high order of resolution,
so theatrically compelling, that being "there"
merged easily with remembering how it was,
or would be again. Thus, the more intense
the display-and the triumph is essentially
a grand display-the more intense the audi-
ence's reception and the creation of vivid
memories.
Testimonia of various kinds are effective
instruments of persuasion, not just in Roman
law but also in the enhancement of historical
or quasi-historical arguments in support of the
triumphator's glorification. Pegmata (mov-
able, painted stages) were carried in the Fla-
vian triumph, representing various incidents
in the Jewish War (Jos . BT v1u39-147). This
form of pictorial theater offered a narrative
reenactment that allowed the spectators, who
had not been present themselves, to imagine
that the noble actions were taking place in
front of them. To complete the effect, the gen-
eral of one of the captured cities whose fate
was pictorially represented was placed on the
stage, his posture recapitulating the attitude
of his surrender, as if to confirm the validity
of the pictorial representation and bring
together the "then" and the "now." This dra-
matic tableau, or lived-in image, constitutes a
form of partial reenactment that intensifies
the humiliation of the vanquished, thereby
enlarging the measure of the conqueror's vir-
tue. In the asserted axial relationship of
servility and supremacy, the staging of the tri-
umph moved along familiar lines from histor-
ical to typological representation, signaled by
the kneeling figure of the barbarian captive
and his reduction as an attribute, defining an-
other's superior character. 23 The application
of the historical tableau-vivant to the reper-
tory of triumphal imagery partakes of a broad
convention in which Romans also staged exe-
cutions as mythological enactments and de-
based willing martyrs as helpless victims in
bloody public spectacles. 24 Claudius, not the
bravest of triumphators, even went so far as to
create an ad hoc spectacle on the Campus Mar-
ti us in Rome over which he presided, dressed
in a military cloak, while the storming and
B RILLIANT 227
 sacking of a town and the surrender of the
British kings were enacted-thus, Claudius
ImperatorBritannicus (Suet. Claud. 2r.6). The
audience's response to this charade can only
be imagined, although treating an imperial
triumph as farce, even if it is only minimally
historical, could be very dangerous.
Still, the physical degradation of the enemy,
the deprivation of the dignitas humana, seems
to express an institutionalized preference for
acts of cruelty as an instrument of Roman
public policy, well received by the populace. 25
It was endemic in Roman political culture, and
never more so than in those great public spec-
tacles that vaunted the military prowess of
the Roman state and its leaders. Even Tertul-
lian, that moralizing Church father, when he
exulted in the imminent triumphant advent
of Christ, envisioned his coming as a moment
of glory, punctuated by the destruction of the
former persecutors, the pagan philosophers
and poets, the actors, charioteers, and ath-
letes-all of them enemies of the Christians
who thus deserved to be cast down (De spect.
xxx). In whatever form and by whomever cele-
brated, "triumph" in Roman ideology posses-
sed a well-established mechanism for lift-
ing up the victor and pressing down the van-
quished for all to see, and know. To paraphrase
Shakespeare (Henry v, act iv, scene r):
What do triumphators have that private sol-
diers have not too, save ceremony! 0 cere-
mony, show me but thy worth! Art thou aught
else but place, degree, and form, creating awe
and fear in other men!
228 BRILLIANT
NOTES
r. Prop. m .4.11-22, in The Poems of Sextus Proper-
tius, trans. J. P. McCulloch (Berkeley, 1972), 146-147.
2. For Aemilius Paullus, see Plut. Aem. xxx11-xxx1v;
for Pompey, App. Hist. Rom. x11. r16 - u7; for Ves-
pasian and Titus, Jos. Bf vn.132-152. In general, see
H. S. Versnel, Triumphus (Leiden, 1970), 94-131;
Concetta Barini, Triumphalia (Turin, 1952); Ernst
Kilnzl, Der romische Triumph (Munich, 1988); and
Robert Payne, The Roman Triumph (London, 1962).
3. See Claude Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in
Republican Rome, trans. P. S. Falla (London, 1980),
343-356.
4. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans.
Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York, 1995), 12 1 nos .
3 and 4.
5. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans.
Alan Sheridan (London, 1977), 32-69 and 200-217,
especially 212, 217; Eric de Kuyper and Emile Poppe,
"Vair et regarder," Communications 34 (1981), 85-
96, on the spectacular space of the panoramic view.
6. Plin. Pan. 22.2.3 1 trans. Betty Radice, Pliny, Letters
and Panegyricus, vol. 2, Loeb (Cambridge, Mass.,
1969), 371.
7. Peter J. Holliday, "Processional Imagery in Late
Etruscan Funerary Art," AfArch 94 (1990), 73-93;
Larissa Bonfante Warren, "Roman Triumphs and
Etruscan Kings: The Changing Face of the Triumph,"
fRS 60 (1970), 62-64; see also Robert Heidenreich,
"Tod und Triumph in der r6mischen Kunst, " Gym-
nasium 58, no. 4 (1951) 1 326-340.
8. Karl Lehmann-Hartleben and Erling C. Olsen,
Dionysiac Sarcophagi in Baltimore (Baltimore, 1942),
12-16 figs . 5-8; for similar Dionysiac sarcophagi,
1
see Friedrich Matz, Die Dionysischen Sarkophage,
Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs 4.2 (Berlin, 1968),
nos. 129-134, 138-145; and Robert Turcan, Les sar-
cophages romains a representations dionysiaques
(Paris, 1966), 441-509. For mosaic representations of
this motif, see Katherine Dunbabin, "The Triumph
of Dionysus on Mosaics in North Africa," PBSR 39
(197 1), 52 - 65; and Christine Kondoleon, Domestic
and Divine: Roman Mosaics in the House of Dionysos
(Ithaca, 1995), 191-229,
9. See Jens Kohler, Pompai: Untersu chungen zur hel-
lenistischen Festkultur (Frankfurt am Main, 1996);
Kathleen Coleman, "Ptolemy Philadelphus and the
Roman Amphitheater, " in Roman Theater and Soci-
ety, ed. William J. Slater (Ann Arbor, 1996), 49-65.
The conflation of Roman and Dionysiac triumphal
imagery is explored, inter alia, by Robert Turcan,
"Deformation des modeles et confusions typolo-
giques dans l'iconographie des sarcophages romains,"
Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa,
Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, ser. 3 17, no. 2 (1987),
1
432, 433, pls . LX-LXIII .
ro. The Mantegna Triumph series is fully discussed
by Andrew Martindale, The Triumph s of Caesar
(London, 1979), 56-74; also Carla Cerati, I trionfi di 2.4. See Kathleen M. Coleman, "Fatal Charades:
Cesare di Andrea Mant egna e il palazzo di S. Sebas- Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enact-
tiano in Mantova (Mantua, 1989); for Roman trium- ments," !RS 80 (1990), 44-73; David Potter, "Martyr-
phal paintings, see Peter J. Holliday, "Ad Triumphum dom as Spectacle," in Theatre and Society in the
Excolendum: The Political Significance of Roman Classical World, ed. Ruth Scodel (Ann Arbor, 1993),
Historical Painting," Oxford Art fournal 3 (1980), 3-8. 53-88.
11. After Quint. Inst. vr.2..2.9-32 on visiones orphan- 2. 5. See Andrew Lintott, "Cruelty in the Political
tasiae. Life of the Ancient World," in Crudelitas: The Poli-
tics of Cruelty in the Ancient and Medieval World,
12.. Quoted from Ovid's Poetry of Exile, trans. David
ed. Toiro Viljamaa, Asko Timonen, and Christian
R. Slavitt (Baltimore, 1990), 73-74.
Krotz! (Krems, 1992), 9-27, especially 26-27.
13 . Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom . 11.34.3, trans. Ernest Cary
(Cambridge, 1950), 409 .
14. Plut. Aem. XXXII (stands); Joseph Bf VII.I2.2.
(packed crowds); Prop. m.iv.2.2. (cheering the victors
along the Sacred Way). For the route itself, see Diane
Favro, "The Street Triumphant: The Urban Impact of
Roman Triumphal Parades," in Streets: Critical Per-
spectives on Public Spa ce, ed. Zeynep <;:elik, Diane
Favro, and Richard Ingersoll (Berkeley, 1994), 15 1-
164; Alan Plattus, "Passages into the City: The Inter-
pretive Function of the Roman Triumph," Princeton
Journal: Thematic Studies in Architecture 1 (1983),
93-115.
15. Varro Ling. vr.68; Suet. Jul. 51, on the versus qua-
drati.
16 . Preserved in the Epitome of Bk. 1x11.2.o.5 of Cas-
sius Dio; compare with Christ's entry into Jerusalem
as reported by Matt. 2.r.8-1.
17 . Cic. Pis . 60, trans. N. H. Watts, Loeb (Cambridge,
Mass., 1931), 2.13 ,
18. Michael Pfanner, Der Titusbogen (Ma,inz, 1983),
44-76, pis. 45-67 .
19. For such an inscribed banner, displayed in Pom-
pey's triumph of 61 BCE, see Plin. HN VIr.xxvi; note
John of Salisbury (c. 1150), Policratus r.12., which
states, "Triumphal arches add to the glory of illustri-
ous men only when the writing upon them informs
in whose honor they have been reared, and why"
(trans. Joseph B. Pike, Frivolities of Courtiers [Min-
neapolis, 193 8], 6).
2.0. Luisa Musso, "Rilievo con pompa trionfale di
Traiano al Museo di Palestrina," Boll. d'Arte 72
(November- December 1987), 41-46, reconstruction
pl, I, 46.
2.1. See Hanns Gabelmann, "Romische ritterliche
Offiziere im Triumphzug," JDAI 96 (1981), 437-439,
fig. IO; Antonio Giuliano, ed., Museo Nazionale
Romano: Le sculture, vol. r.5 (Rome, 1983), no. 831
19 5- 198. See Jens Kohler's discussion of this relief in
the context of late Antonine triumphal imagery
in his "Zur Triumphalsymbolik auf dem Feldherrn-
sarkophag Belvedere," MDAl(R) ro2 (1995) 1 371-379 ,
2.2.. Radice 1969, 363 .
23. See Rolf M. Schneider, Bunte Barbaren (Worms,
1986 ), 18-57; in general, Tonio Holscher, "Die
Geschichtsauffassun~ in der romischen Repriisenta-
tionskunst," /DAI 95 (1980 ), 265-32.r.

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