Possibly nowhere in antiquity is there a more relevant
manifestation of the epic, mythical hero’s journey than in the Roman triumph.
[i] If
the Romans did not make the obvious connection between the exploits of the demigod
heroes Achilles from Homer’s Iliad, Gilgamesh from Sumer, or Dionysus from
Greek culture, and those of the triumphing general, it would be surprising. After
all, these heroes were well known to them by the time of Paulus. Indeed, the
attire of the general—including a red-painted face—has been described by
writers and debated by scholars as being associated with the god Jupiter. Whether
this association was a complete one, in that the Romans actually believed him
to be a god, or just a temporary association because of his personal qualities
and heroic actions, may never be proven.
[ii]
The cry, “Io triumpe,” by the soldiers and onlookers was another indication
that they either believed he was a god or considered him to be
like one because of his heroic feats. The
slave at his ear, of course, constantly reminded him that in spite of the
accolades he was but a man. Either way, he was very clearly a state hero.
Herein lay a problem. The social
status and political influence that attached to the conquering hero eventually
led to the triumph changing from a ritual with “primitive religious
significance to a political power play and self-advertising spectacle.”
[iii] For
army generals, gaining a triumph became highly competitive and the route to
political power. According to Robert Payne in his book detailing the history of
the event,
“The highest honor open to a Roman
was the honor of a triumph: for this men fought, intrigued, suffered and died.
For the honor of a triumph immense sums of money were expended, innumerable
people were needlessly killed, vast treasures were dissipated, and whole
countries were laid waste. The economy of Europe, Africa and Asia was
mercilessly disrupted, and a hundred cities and a hundred thousand towns were
pillaged, so that the conquerors could return laden with plunder to Rome and
show what they had accomplished.”
[iv]
Strangely, though, throughout the
long history of the triumph, the curious social mores of the Romans demanded a
certain reticence from the triumphator to take on a role that held such power.
Because of this, the triumphator was forced into a peculiar tug-of-war between
the intoxication of fame and the feigned false modesty of not being worthy of
such an award. In the end, those who played the game did well. Paulus was one
of them. According to all the source writers, he, of all too few, maintained
his integrity and his unflinching dedication to the Roman Republic, choosing to
remain poor rather than take a larger share of the spoils for his personal gain
and the loss of the state. To the populace, he was revered right up to his
death, according to Plutarch and others, in spite of continuing as a member of
the aristocracy. He was a true hero, achieving greatness in spirit and in
action.
Not all to follow modeled
themselves after him, and by the time of the Empire the “popular hero” in the
form of the army general was far too greedy and self-absorbed. (Could this have
been an early start to celebrity culture?) Finally, Augustus, the first
Emperor, put a stop to the competitive nature of the triumph by permitting only
Emperors to parade victoriously before the people. By then, though, the triumph
had become firmly entrenched as a defining feature of Roman culture.
The first legacy of the triumph,
then, is the implantation into an entire civilization’s culture of the concept
that a
human being could complete a
hero’s journey and achieve success. He—and the fact that the hero is male is
noteworthy—could leave home for a distant land, battle enemies, strange foreigners,
or evil forces, and return home to be rewarded. From thence forward it was to
be a dominant theme in
all western
culture.
As author Margery Hourihan states,
“It is a story about superiority, dominance and success. It tells how white
European men are the natural masters of the world because they are strong,
brave, skilful, rational and dedicated. It tells how they overcome the dangers
of nature, how other ‘inferior’ races have been subdued by them, and how they
spread civilization and order wherever they go…It tells how their persistence
means that they always eventually win the glittering prizes, the golden
treasures, and how the gods—or the government—approve of their enterprises. It
is our favorite story and it has been told so many times that we have come to
believe that what it says about the world is true.”
[v]
Some examples of relatively modern times, both fictional and real, include the
likes of Terry Fox, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Christopher Columbus, Yuri Gagarin,
and a host of other individuals. One could also argue that it influenced the
concept of the American Dream, typical heroes of which include Elvis Presley,
Bill Gates, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. Potentially, professional athletes
could fall under the term “hero” and major professional sports such as ice
hockey, golf, tennis, auto racing, baseball, soccer, and American football as
“miniature” manifestations of the journey itself. In fact, it has so influenced
our own culture that, with a handful of notable exceptions (e.g. Florence
Nightingale, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others), it
has not been until recently (i.e. from the mid-20
th century) that
the white, male characteristics of the hero, along with the dominant theme of
condoning physical violence to achieve a worthy goal, have been questioned.
Whether the basic story will ever change much, or a changed version wholly
accepted by western culture as a result, remains to be seen.
Although modern parades might have
had their genesis in much earlier processions as mentioned in the last chapter,
it was the Roman triumph that solidified this form of celebration in the
world’s consciousness. This is its second legacy.
The first example of this is in the
triumph’s relation to religion, specifically Christianity. The apostle Paul
wrote his letters to the people of Corinth around 56-57 CE, just near the
beginning of the Empire in Rome. He was well aware of the triumph. In 2
Corinthians 2:14 he famously refers to “God, who made us his captives and leads
us along in Christ’s triumphal procession.” He further compares the Christian
way of life to the smell of temple incense at a triumphal procession wherein
“to those who are perishing (i.e. sinners) it is a fearful smell of death and doom,
but to those who are being saved (i.e. following the Christian way) it is a
life-giving perfume.” Of course, the inevitable comparison of Christ as a
triumphator has been made ever since that period, with Christ entering
Jerusalem in triumph for the final time. As he entered perhaps he was even
mocking the Roman version, representing a humbler triumphator but
simultaneously representing God, the king (i.e. the Roman emperor),
and the prisoners about to be executed.
These comparisons were not lost on the
early popes in Rome. Possibly some, like Gregory the Great who grew up
basically
on the route of the triumphs in
Rome at the time the Empire was disintegrating in the 6
th century
CE, might have made the obvious connections by pure observation alone. Whatever
happened in the years between Constantine, the first Christian emperor in the 4
th
century CE, and the fall of the Empire, it appears that the papacy adapted many
of the rituals and symbols of the triumph. For example, the title
Pontifex Maximus originally referred to
the chief priest of Roman religion and was conferred on a person other than a
ruler. From Augustus onwards the title was part of those given only to the
emperor. At some indeterminate date after 376 CE, the title went to the
Christian pope, thus relating him with the same person who would be considered
a conqueror. Further, the tunica palmata became the
alb (the long white vestment worn by priests of today) and the toga
picta became the
dalmatic (the main
colored vestment worn on top of the alb by priests and higher ranking church
officials). Part of Papal coronations mirrored triumphal processions.
[vi]
Even today, the eminently practical and secure “popemobile” can be compared to
an absurd offshoot of the triumphal chariot, and a priest’s entry procession
into a church to a mini-triumph.
On secular western society, the
impact was even more profound. In the historically muddled Middle Ages, from
about the 8
th through the 12
th centuries, triumphal
celebrations were sporadic and subdued, primarily taking place in what was then
the center of the world, Constantinople. They did, though, begin to diverge
from the traditional. As Michael McCormick states in his well-researched book
on the triumph in this period, “In addition to the light they shed on the
organizational aspects of early medieval triumphs, the records of these
celebrations evidence a couple of significant trends. Special ceremonies are
staged involving audiences, in that the traditional triumphal parade through
the city and the victory races are flanked by a series of more private
festivities for the senatorial order and the bureaucracy at large. Secondly,
there may have been some movement away from the fusion of civil and military elements
which was typical of the late antique triumphal parade.”
[vii] Some
of these “separate” ceremonies included very large banquets for select guests
and, in 879 CE, the emperor Basil was actually crowned in the Hagia Sophia
church, perhaps the first time a coronation was attached to triumphal ritual.
[viii]
The real impact of the triumph on secular
western culture, however, would not be felt until the Renaissance, roughly
between the 14
th and 17
th centuries. During this period,
when the creative genius of artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers like
Tintoretto, Rubens, Petrarch, Dryden, Monteverdi, and Leonardo da Vinci was
applied to the triumph, the celebrations that emerged were truly spectacular.
They set the stage for the elaborate events of the present day.
Notes and Further Reading
[i] According
to Joseph Campbell who coined the phrase “monomyth” for this journey, it comes
in two versions: a physical trial or a spiritual quest. Although the
distinction between the two is not always clear, they both involve three main
phases: departure, initiation, and return.
Departure deals with the hero's adventure prior to the quest, initiation
deals with the hero's many adventures along the way, and return deals with the
hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey. See
Campbell (2008). Some of the best-known examples of this mythic journey from
the time of the Roman Republic or earlier include the Epic of Gilgamesh from
about 2700 BCE in Sumer, Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad probably written in the 8th
century BCE, the god Dionysus’s journeys introduced to Rome around 200 BCE, and
Aeneas’s mythical founding of Rome itself, the Aeneid, written by Virgil at the
end of the Republican era/beginning of the Empire.
[ii]
Beard (2007; pp. 219-256) discusses this at great length.
[iii]
See Beard (2007; p. 289).
[iv]
See Payne (1962; p. 17).
[v]
See Hourihan (1997; p.1).
[vi]
See Payne (1962; pp. 211-224).
[vii]
See McCormick (1986; p. 150) who covers the subject of the triumph in the
Middle Ages very well.
[viii]
McCormick (1986; pp. 155-157).
Bibliography
- Beard, M. (2007). The Roman Triumph. Harvard University
Press.
- Campbell, J. (2008). The Hero with
a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: New World Library.
- Hourihan, M. (1997). Deconstructing the Hero: Literary Theory and Children's Literature. London: Roiutledge.
- McCormick, M. (1986). Eternal
Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early
Medieval West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Payne, R. (1962). Rome Triumphant: How the Empire Celebrated
its Victories. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc.
