How are we supposed to envisage this ritual? On the most basic level, we are dealing with a procession of soldiers and booty that had its notional center in the victorious general. The triumph was staged at the end of a campaign, after the return of the army, and was subject to the Senate’s approval. In legal terms, it involved the entrance of a bearer of imperium and armed soldiers into the city proper. The crossing of the boundary into the city was therefore emphasized.11 That said, the meager evidence for an elaborate entry ritual or fixed point of entry, tied to a fixed route, points to the variability of these elements and argues against totalizing interpretations based on them.12 Booty and captives were presented to the populace; some of the latter might be killed once the procession had reached the Capitoline. Sacrifices to Iuppiter Optimus Maximus concluded the ceremony, probably in correspondence to, and fulfillment of, vows made upon the general’s departure on campaign, which had been addressed to the same deity.13 The whole procedure was supposed to honor the triumphing general. Riding in the center of the procession, he wore a costume that Juvenal (whose testimony is also quoted by Servius) designated as tunica Iovis, “the tunic of Iuppiter.”
Other paraphernalia, too, might have been designed to relate the triumphator to Iuppiter: he wore a golden crown,14 held a scepter topped by an eagle, and rode on a quadriga that replicated the one displayed on the roof of the Capitoline temple. Modern scholars tend to view the satirical verses sung by the participants as apotropaic elements.15 On the other hand, ancient antiquarian research related some of the symbols used in the triumph culturally to Etruria and chronologically to the period of the kings. Taken together with the apparent connection to Iuppiter, this piece of antiquarian information set the agenda for two centuries of modern inquiry, which then revolved around the question whether the triumphator impersonated the god who was the embodiment of the entire res publica, Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, or instead revived the figure of the king.
Hendrik Versnel claimed that the ostensible alternatives are not mutually exclusive but two related facets of a religious ceremony known from the ancient Mediterranean world. According to Versnel, the triumph should be viewed as the modified form of a New Year ritual during which the king confronted the highest god of the state and, in turn, became his embodiment. The direct Roman descendant of this festival is to be found on the Ides of September, the epulum Iovis and the ludi Romani. These commenced with the pompa circensis, a ritual strikingly similar to the triumph, especially in the role played by the leading magistrate. One of Versnel’s most important arguments involves the element of the triumph from which the ceremony derives its name, namely the soldiers’ cry, (io) triumphe. This formulation is used in the archaic carmen Arvale, a song that explicitly asked Mars and other deities for an epiphany and must stem from a cultic address to a deity from Asia Minor, Dionysus, who was invited to appear with the cry thriambe.16
There is, however, a serious problem with Versnel’s solution: the historical Romans did not associate the appearance and acclamation of the triumphant general with his ascent to divine status, to say nothing of his transformation into Iuppiter ipse. The Roman nobility frowned on peers who laid claim to royal power or identified themselves with the highest god of the res publica. Caesar was killed for doing so. Full acknowledgment of this problem is crucial for any general interpretation of the ritual. In order to prepare the way for a new hypothesis, I now invoke Victor Turner’s principle of contextual meaning and start by addressing the relationship between the triumph and the pompa circensis. The conspicuous parallels in the apparel of the triumphator and the magistrate who led the pompa circensis have provoked several studies that postulate a historical relationship between the two ceremonies.17 Whereas Versnel argued for the godlikeness of the magistrate who supervised the pompa by way of analogy with the triumphator, and identified an original meaning for the triumph by analyzing the rituals of the Ides of September, I shall reverse his approach and concentrate on differences rather than similarities.
First, it must be pointed out that Versnel’s most convincing arguments in favor of the hypothesis that the triumphator impersonated Iuppiter are based on elements of the costume that he shared with the leading magistrate of the pompa circensis. Leaving aside the dream of Augustus’s father, in which the future Augustus appeared to him with the insignia of Iuppiter,18 two sources that employ the term ornatus Iovis (or the like) concern the triumphator, while the other two are about the magistrate.19 The same holds true of the golden crown (corona aurea or Etrusca), which is attested for both, triumphator and magistrate.20 But is there any reason to identify the magistrates in charge of the pompae with Iuppiter?21 They were neither victorious nor were they permanently honored, either in life or after death, for having performed this ritual role. They were—and this needs to be stressed—never acclaimed with io triumphe. There is one further argument that makes such an identification highly unlikely. The most important task of the magistrate was to round out a procession of gods to the circus. But IuppiterIuppiter himself had already appeared in the pompa,in the form of a statue that was paraded together with those of the other gods. Why should he appear twice?
All this has important consequences for our interpretation of the triumphator. I submit that we can no longer regard the paraphernalia that the triumphator shared with the procession-leading magistrate as viable evidence of the triumphator’s Iuppiter-like status. That the costume worn by the protagonists in these rituals matched that of Iuppiter,22 in recalling the (temporary? periodic?) clothing of his Capitoline statue, simply does not entail that the Romans regarded other bearers of the tunica palmata, the purple toga, or the gold crown (which was too heavy to be worn on the head and hence—in both cases!—had to be held by a slave instead),23 as indicators that Iuppiter was being impersonated.24 The same is true of the eagle-crowned scepter, which again was perhaps common to both ritual roles:25 it is too general a symbol of sovereignty to ensure a specific reference to Iuppiter.26 Given the ease with which this combination of symbols was applied to a variety of ritual roles in different ludi, the meaning of these symbols was most likely a generic one, not closely related to the specific contents of these rituals. The easiest way to interpret the costume is to see it as temporarily distinguishing an outstanding, extraordinary magistrate with regal symbols, which, in other ritual contexts, were also used to honor Iuppiter.27
There remain two differences between the triumphator and the game-leading magistrate. First, the triumphator rode on a quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, whereas the magistrate was granted only a biga, drawn by two horses.28 The quadriga, being the more prestigious vehicle, elevated the triumphator above the normal magistrate. This might be taken to imply a reference to Iuppiter, as well as to royal status—that is to say, to the highest degree of political power.29 And second, apart from the io triumphe, the triumphator was also colored in red, which is not attested for a game-leading magistrate. Does this mean that the Romans saw Iuppiter at the heart of the triumphal procession, as Versnel maintains?30 Or did they see something else?
Parading a Living Statue
The earliest and principal source for the coloring of the triumphator with red paint is Pliny the Elder:
Iovis ipsius simulacri faciem diebus festis minio inlini solitam triumphanti-umque corpora; sic Camillum triumphasse; hac religione etiamnum addi in unguenta cenae triumphalis et a censoribus in primis Iovem miniandam locari.
On days of festivals the face of the statue of Iuppiter himself was usually smeared with cinnabar, and likewise the body of triumphatores. Camillus was said to have triumphed thus; according to the same scruple it was added even at that time to the unction at the triumphal meal, and the commission of coloring Iuppiter was among the first things censors had to do.31
Now why should the face of the statue of Iuppiter be painted red?32 The answer has nothing to do with some protohistoric use of red color, as Versnel suggests,33 but with material conditions and a cultural code. The statue would have been made out of terra-cotta like the