In fact, though, the triumph did not begin with the first
day’s procession; it really began approximately a year and a half earlier with
a request to Aemilius Paulus by the Senate of Rome. At 60, he had long since
retired from military campaigning and was not actively seeking a consulship
(one of two leaders of the Republic); however, at the entreaties of his
friends, he agreed to let his name stand as a contender and was eagerly voted
consul, primarily for his military experience and the hope that he would put a
stop to rebellion in Macedonia. His last campaign as both consul and army
general thus began reluctantly and with the supercilious condition that he
would only take up arms against King Perseus of Macedonia if his more
politically inclined colleagues would cease their meddling in the war’s
conduct.
Given such imperium, he wasted no time and in five days had transported his
army of between 38,000 and 42,000 men, horses, and elephants from Brundisium
(present-day Brindisi) to Delphi, Greece. From there, he swiftly made his way
up the east coast to the gently sloping plain of farmland, shallow streams, and
low bushes that stretched from Pydna on the Aegean coast of Macedonia to the foothills
of Mt. Olympus (9570 ft high) to the west. After a skilful feinting maneuver toward
the sea followed by an exhausting trudge around the western side of Mt.
Olympus, he finally established his camp uphill from King Perseus’s army of
some 44,000, much to Perseus’s surprise. It was the evening of the summer
solstice, 168 BCE.
The night held dire forebodings.
The soldiers of both armies became terrified by an eclipse of the full moon.
Fortunately, Paulus’s knowledge of this type of phenomenon allowed him to convince
his own troops it was a good omen by sacrificing 11 heifers as the moon
re-appeared and another 21 oxen at daybreak. He vowed another hecatomb and
solemn games and put his army in battle array. Then he waited until the sun was
in the western sky, out of the eyes of his troops.
The battle was fierce but swiftly
decided. After an initial fear of the impressive Thracian allies of Perseus and
the rows of the Macedonian phalanx with their long sarissa spears—the very same battle formation that had won the
world for Alexander the Great—Paulus remained calm. As the phalanx advanced
uphill on uneven ground it broke apart allowing the Romans to fight in close
quarters. Within an hour of the battle’s start at three o’clock in the
afternoon, the plains were strewn with over 25,000 Macedonian corpses and about
100 Roman dead. Perseus and the remainder of his army had taken flight. The
Romans pursued them for the rest of the day, but Perseus eluded them and was
finally apprehended on the island of Samothrace some considerable time later
(most likely weeks). It was a complete rout.
Official news of the victory
reached Rome in short order. Paulus’s laurel-encircled letter was received by his co-consul, Gaius Licinius
Crassus, just after officially starting a chariot race in the annual Ludi Romani at the Circus Maximus. Crassus was so excited by the news he rode out on the track in the middle of the race
to read it aloud to the crowd. Bedlam ensued and the races were cancelled in favor
of letting the citizens go home to spread the news.
Meanwhile, back in Greece, while permitting his army time to rest
over the fall and winter in Amphipolis on the northern Aegean coast, Paulus set
about on a tour of the country, visiting all the major centers much like
tourists of today. As a philhellene he took great pains to treat everyone “honorably
and humanely.” Included in his itinerary were obligatory sacrifices to Zeus in
Olympia and to Apollo in Delphi where he also erected a statue to himself out
of one already started by Perseus. It was during this tour that the real
“victory celebrations” began. They would last in their entirety until after his
official triumph in Rome over a year later.
He kept his pre-battle promise to
deliver solemn games, with an eye for detail and perfection in organizing that
not many Romans possessed. He brought to Amphipolis, the site of the games,
leading emissaries from all the main Greek cities, using his tour to invite
them, as well as others from Europe and Asia. He took great care to make the festivities
obviously Greek by bringing top
artists and athletes to them and only having the types of contests as would be
found in similar Greek games, such as chariot races, equestrian events, and
dramatic contests. No Roman gladiator contests or wild beast hunts were
included, and for the numerous official banquets, he was especially conscious
of treating his vanquished Greek subjects with the greatest honor according to
their own customs. The accolades he received from his guests prompted a
now-famous quote from him—perhaps as one of the first admitted “event planners”
in history—that “the same spirit was required both in marshalling a line of
battle and in presiding at a banquet well, the object being, in the one case,
to cause most terror in the enemy, in the other, to give most pleasure to the
company.”
Immediately following the games,
he loaded all the valuable spoils of war onto his ships and publicly torched
the remainder, all gathered in enormous heaps. Visitors to the games would have
witnessed this and indeed, Livy states as much. The politically astute Paulus
had thus essentially used the festivities to proclaim that it was now a kinder
Rome that ruled the Macedonians, but by linking the games with his victory
(i.e. funding them from the spoils, burning the spoils, removing the spoils), there
was no mistaking that further transgressions would be dealt with harshly. In
the same way, he had made an unwritten statement to his Roman countrymen that Greek
culture was the better choice for spectacle than the extravagant and
increasingly abhorrent games that were growing in popularity in Rome (e.g. wild
beast hunts, paramilitary displays).
By now, it was obvious to all
around him—and to Rome—that he was intent on gaining a triumph upon his return.
After all, he had secured King Perseus and the royal family as high profile
prisoners, plus a large number of wealthy nobles and military leaders, and
about 11,000 military prisoners-of-war. But he needed more. On orders from the
Senate, he left Macedonia and marched against Epirus in western Greece, the
towns of which had allied with Perseus. In the space of one hour, in a highly
coordinated attack, the army ravaged 70 cities, taking 150,000 prisoners and
reducing the towns to rubble. The resulting booty was added to the already
massive amount from Macedonia. It was time to return.
On a hot summer afternoon in 167 BCE, a remarkable sight
greeted thousands of onlookers gathered along the banks of the Tiber River that
snaked through the countryside southwest of Rome. Slowly coming into view, its
three tiers of long oars splashing in stately unison, was the largest ship they
had ever seen, the royal galley of King Perseus.[i] It
had been richly decorated for the occasion—a sort of “teaser triumph”—at Paulus’s
command. Strung from the main mast, fore mast, gunnels, and rigging were reams
of scarlet and purple cloth interspersed with the most finely worked of the
captured Macedonian armor. Paulus stood on the bow in full uniform, his scarlet
cape billowing behind him. Spontaneous cheers followed the massive ship
upstream, and continued as the remainder of the Roman navy’s triremes under the
command of Gnaeus Octavius formed a long, water procession of victory.[ii]
It was a fitting beginning to what was to be a glorious homecoming.
But the impressive land triumph was
not immediate. Although the Senate voted quickly and approved a formal triumph,
there were still major organizational tasks to be accomplished: unloading and
recording the spoils of war; preparing them for display; constructing large
visual canvases and models depicting the various battles and cities won;
decorating temples and basilicas; erecting wooden scaffolds from which the
public could view the procession along the Via Sacra and in the Forum; ordering
and preparing food and wine for a public feast; rehearsing entertainment; and
much more.[iii]
At that time, Rome had a population of close to 300,000 and the popularity of
the triumph would no doubt attract most of them to view it, hence the elaborate
arrangements.[iv]
While all this was going on, the
army was encamped in leather wedge tents lined up with customary military
precision on the large tract of pastureland to the northwest of the city known
as the Campus Martius, the traditional “waiting area” for triumphing armies.
Although some of the men may have returned home, Paulus was obliged by
tradition to remain and control preparations.[v]
There was a lot to do, and weeks
passed. Those weeks were not particularly kind to the old general. He was a
religious pragmatist and in a prescient address to his officers following the capture
of Perseus, mused that good fortune is often followed by the reverse.
“For what occasion have men to be confident, when their conquest of others
gives them most cogent reason to be in fear of Fortune, and when one who exults
in success is thrown, as I am, into great dejection by reflecting upon the
allotments of Fate, which take a circling course, and fall now upon some and
now upon others?”
Indeed, during the waiting period and just before the triumph, one of his
sons died unexpectedly. It would certainly be in character for Paulus to retreat
into prayer, possibly in the nearby Temple of Hercules. But yet another blow
was to strike. His army, which had served him so loyally, was rebelling against
the amount of plundered treasure they had been given, feeling they deserved
more. All the misfortunes were lining up against him just as he had known would
happen to equalize good fortune with bad. It was his tremendous popularity with
the people of Rome that finally won back the soldiers’ loyalty after a rousing
speech of support given in the Forum by Marcus Servilius, a fellow magistrate.
I'll take a look at the actual triumphal procession in the next post.
I'll take a look at the actual triumphal procession in the next post.
Notes and Further Reading
[i] There
has been a longstanding debate about the configuration of the oars in these
ancient ships. Most scholars now seem to agree that all were propelled by
either a single, double, or triple bank of oars, with the number of banks
mentioned in primary sources as referring to the number of actual oarsmen. Thus,
as both Plutarch and Livy mention, Perseus’s galley had sixteen banks, but this
probably meant it had either two or three banks of oars with possibly as many
as eight men to a single oar. See Casson
(1994). The exact length and breadth of the ship is unknown.
[ii]
Since there were massive amounts of captured booty, probably well over 100,000
prisoners, and up to 40,000 troops to transport, this water procession would
have been very long. Most triremes, unlike the royal galley of Perseus, were
only capable of carrying possibly 600 passengers on deck at best, not including
the crew and oarsmen. If this were the case, there would have been literally
hundreds of ships coming home, probably somewhere between 200 and 700. Most
likely, Paulus would have used all of the Macedonian navy’s vessels as well as
all the Roman ones sent to Macedonia as part of his campaign. It is possible
that some troops preceded this homecoming and possibly landed on the east
coast, but the ancient sources do not mention it. The homecoming of the ships
still likely took more than one day.
[iii]
Although no public feast is mentioned for Paulus’s triumph in any of the
primary sources, it was traditional to have one at that time in the Republic,
as mentioned by Ramsay (1875) and Beard (2007; p. 83). A formal feast for the
senators, however, is mentioned in
the famous speech by Marcus Servilius found in Plutarch.
[iv]
Recent studies of coin hoards have determined that the population of Republican
Rome would be in the order of 300,000 around this time. See Turchin and
Scheidel (2009).
[v]
Apparently, the victorious general was required to remain outside the city
boundaries (pomerium) while he
awaited Senate approval for the triumph and until it was executed. See Versnel
(1970).
References
- Casson, Lionel. (1994). The Age of the Supergalleys, In Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times. University of Texas Press. pp. 61-95.
- Ramsay, W. (1875). Triumphus. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London: John Murray. pp. 1163-1167.
- Beard, M. (2007). The Roman Triumph. Harvard University Press.
- Turchin, P. and Scheidel, W. (October 5, 2009). Coin hoards speak of population declines in Ancient Rome. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 106 no. 41 17276-17279. Retrieved April 28, 2010, from http://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17276.full?sid=6ddac78e-2e8f-42a4-bc25-83acec858d4f.
- Versnel, H.S. (1970). Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
