Customer Reviews

The Roman Triumph

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This book more than fulfills expectations. It is a much needed correction to earlier studies of the triumph. B. calls into question much that has been considered factual knowledge about the triumph by showing the inconsistencies and scarcity of the ancient evidence. A must read for everyone interested in the topic. B. has also gone to great lengths to make the text accessible to a non-scholarly audience, while maintaining high expectations of that audience's willingness to think critically about problems of historical research.

When a Roman general won a great victory the Senate would frequently vote for him to be given a triumph. The Roman triumph was Rome at its most glorious, according to many. It was mostly "about display and success" (p 31). The entire city seemed to shut down to watch the gaudy parade; work was suspended, songs were sung, and everyone came to cheer on the victors.

Imagine seeing Pompey's booty carried through the streets, the beaks of wrecked pirate ships, the gold and plunder, and the beaten captives, now in chains. Floats were popular. Tacitus mentions "replicas of mountains, of rivers, and of battles" (p 109). In case anyone in the crowd wasn't aware of what happened, actors were hired to perform the roles of the soldiers.

It appears that nearly every general and politician and Rome longed to have a triumph.

The defeated were so horrified at the thought of the display and ignominy that we know of quite a number who preferred suicide to participating in a triumph. Famously, of course, Cleopatra, but also Mithradates and Virrius. "When defeat appeared inevitable, Virrius persuaded some twenty seven of the Capuan senate to join him in drinking poison" (p 116).

Those captives who were made to walk through the streets in a Roman triumph to the jeers of the mob had little future happiness in store later. Many were slain. Some, like the defeated Jews driven to Rome after the end of the war in 70 AD, ended up as slaves who helped to build Vespasian's coliseum.

For anyone with an interest in Roman history, this is a book to savor.

Ms. Beard possesses such command of the subject and immense erudition that she can pull off an enjoyable and well-written book on a specialized topic.

Of particular value are Ms. Beard's insights into the process by which scholars - from antiquity to today -- have established "facts" of Roman History, and their fragile (if not inaccurate) basis.

This is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of Rome or Roman History.

Not all history books are written to be read by those of us who are not academics. When Mary Beard takes on a subject matter, all that changes and history not only comes alive, it becomes clear and enjoyable. Thank you, Ms. Beard. This book has, of course, led to me looking for related subjects of the Roman Empire, as well the as the Republic.

The Roman Triumph. Author: Mary Beard. 448 pages. 2007.

I picked this book up at the library while I was browsing for another title. It proved to be an interesting read.

The book is not a definitive treatise on what a Roman Triumph would have looked like. Rather this book is a survey of all research related to the topic of the Roman Triumph. The author choose not to provide a word picture of a triumph or to take a stand on what a triumph was, how it operated, its origins, or its meanings and purpose.

What you get is a survey of theories and scholarship about the origins, the route, the parade order, the meaning, the history, and the legacy of the Roman Triumph. Some of these theories raise more questions than they answer and in a sense it is up to the reader, provided with the information, to make up their own mind.

What I found especially interesting was the history of the Triumph. How what we know about the Triumph has been shaped by historians. Much of what we know as history is either political/cultural propaganda or revisionist history. In a sense it was very Orwellian with the historian using the present to project into the past as a justification for what is present. This use of history was on going through both the Republic and the Empire and clouds our understanding of what a Triumph was and how it worked. This revisionism also clouds our understanding behind the meaning or reason for a Triumph.

The meaning of the Triumph is one of the more interesting fields of inquiry. The meaning is every thing from a raucous homecoming celebration much akin in spirit to mummery, to a solemn religious ritual of atonement for blood shed, to a political act of affirmation and many things in between.

The book proved thought provoking and I will never think of a triumph in quite the same manner. It calls in to question how I experience and view parades and processions of all types.

The book did have some drawbacks. The author had the academic tendency of constantly saying "as we will see in Chapter or later on" and other such habits of the academy. All told a book which provokes more questions then it answers and that was I think its intent.

Lots of interesting info on the Roman triumph, but unfortunately the author gets in the way of her own topic. Statements like "The book will show..." and "I will prove..." belong in the Introduction. Instead, they're all over the place. Phrases such as "Now I'll turn my attention to" and "as we'll see in chapter 9" are littered throughout the book, leaving the reader to feel as though the actual book will, in fact, begin any minute now, we just have a few more previews to get through. I can't stand it when authors continually call attention to themselves like this. Just GET ON WITH IT. Also, whole paragraphs full of rhetorical questions (which historians should we believe? why should we believe them? how do our beliefs color who we end up believing? blah blah blah) put a frequent, and deadly, stop to the narrative. Maybe academicians like this sort of thing, but I don't think the average reader appreciates it. I know I don't. I'm halfway through the book; I'll finish it because of my interest in the subject, and in spite of the author's well-meant but exasperating prose.

Mary Beard rightly chairs the Classics Department at Cambridge University. This work on the history of Roman triumphs should more properly be described as the ancient psychology behind the hundreds of types of triumphs across a thousand years and scores of cultures. I am stunned that one person has enough knowledge to commit this work to paper in a coherent and enjoyable manner. You will be best served if you have a working knowledge of Roman history because Ms. Beard moves quickly and expects much from her readers.

She essentially deconstructs a celebration by the victorious general and, although its' origins are lost to history, handles the Etruscan roots and the eventual Christian hijacking of the ceremony with a keen eye and an even hand. Her sources are almost exclusively the ancient historians themselves. Although I went into the book with the cartoon version of the slave whispering to the general "remember you are only a man" and the idea of booty and prisoners being displayed in a parade, I came away with what I was seeking. An education. The Roman Triumph was the vehicle to go inside the minds of the ancients, as best as possible. Once there the military, practical, religious, petty personal, and propaganda values of the Triumph become much more clear. You will be reading the writings of a mind of the first order. If you are a classics scholar, I am sure you can take issue with this or that idea she proposes throughout the book; but if you are a regular Roman history reader, you have just struck gold.

This book is not intended for the general public. Very well researched with a bibliography that takes up no less than 24 pages, it intends to be a serious contribution to the apparently hot debate among certain academes regarding Roman triumphs.

For the non specialist, however, it is of very limited interest. The essence of the work is that the sources on the topic are very incomplete and not necessarily trustworthy.

The liveliness and originality demonstrated by the same author in `The Fires of Vesuvius' is totally absent here.

Consequently, this book can only be recommended to those who are already experts in the field.

The author gives us bits of information here and there - sometimes quite interesting, as in regards to
Pompey the Great - but is completely unable to knit them together into a whole. After all, the triumph
was one of the more obvious and straightforward features of Roman life! God help us if ever Beard tackles
the Arval Brotherhood!

Beard's itsy bitsy approach works well with her account of daily life in Pompeii but is useless for this topic.

This book did not keep my interest. It nit-picked the roman Triumph to death. A continous flow of information would have been helpful. But we stop at each street corner, and nit pick the corner and then proceed a little further, and nit pick some more...I still don't know the how, why or wherefor's of the triumph.