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Since war was the chief arena in which members of the elite could exhibit their virtue and gain fame and glory, leading citizens craved public recognition of their military accomplishments. The chief celebration of victory was the triumph, a formal procession of a victorious general and his army through the city. The triumph was in fact an old ceremony in Rome. At first, the triumphal procession, which may have originated among the Etruscans, was primarily a rite intended to purify an army returning from battle or to thank the gods for a victory. In the late fourth and third centuries, however, under the influence of the elaborate ceremonies of the Hellenistic kingdoms to the east, the Roman triumph became less a celebration by the community and the army than a glorification of the virtues and achievements of the officeholder who had commanded the army in its victory. In the triumph, the victorious general or triumphator, accompanied by senators and other elected officials, led his army through the city together with prisoners, displays of captured property, and tableaux and paintings depicting key episodes in his victory. The figure of the triumphator stood out clearly, because he wore the gold and purple costume of the old kings, he painted his face to resemble the cult statue of Jupiter Best and Greatest in the temple on the Capitoline Hill, and he rode a four horse chariot, just as did representations of the god. Everyone in the procession wore crowns. Trumpeters led the advance, and wagons laden with spoils. Towers were borne along representing the captured cities, and pictures illustrating the campaigns; then gold and silver coin and bullion, and similar captured materials; then came the crowns presented to the general as a reward for his bravery by cities, by allies, or by the army itself. White oxen came next, and after them elephants and the captive Carthaginian and Numidian leaders. Lictors wearing purple tunics preceded the general; also a chorus of harpists and pipers in imitation of an Etruscan procession wearing belts and golden crowns, and marching in regular order, keeping step with song and dance. One member of the chorus, in the middle of the procession, wearing a body length purple cloak as well as gold bracelets and necklace, caused laughter by making various gesticulations, as though he were dancing in triumph over the enemy. Next came a number of incense bearers, and after them the general himself in a richly decorated chariot. He wore a crown of gold and precious stones, and was dressed, in traditional fashion, in a purple toga woven with golden stars. He carried a scepter of ivory, and a laurel branch, which is invariably the Roman symbol of victory. Riding in the same chariot with him were boys and girls, and on the trace horses either side of him young men, his own relatives. Then followed the men who had served him on campaign as secretaries, aides, and armor bearers. After these came the army itself marshalled in squadrons and cohorts, all of them crowned and carrying laurel branches, the bravest of them bearing their military prizes. The men praised some of their officers, and ridiculed or criticized others; during a triumph there are no restrictions, and everybody can say whatever they like. When Scipio arrived at the Capitol the procession came to an end, and he hosted the traditional banquet for his friends in the temple. The triumph was the single most important ceremony that any Roman in pub¬lic life could hope to perform. Eventually a list of triumph winners, the fasti tri-umphales, would be put on prominent display in the city to mark out their accom plishments for all time. The decision over whether or not a victory warranted a triumph was too important to be left to the commander alone. At some point, the senate asserted its control. In consequence, victorious commanders and their armies waited outside the pomerium while the senate debated their accomplishments. Because a triumph was so prestigious, conflicts were common. When the senate denied one to Gaius Papirius Maso, consul in 231, for his efforts on the island of Corsica, he proceeded to stage his own at the Alban Mount, the old cult center of the Latins, without senatorial approval. Other disappointed commanders, too, would come to celebrate triumphs here on their own authority, and although these ones offered less prestige than those which ended at the Capitol in Rome, they like wise were recorded and remembered.
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