The central contention of L.’s monograph, that there was no rule that prevented military commanders from celebrating triumphs for civil war victories, is utterly convincing. Despite ample ancient testimony that gave historiographic life to such a rule, L. can point to triumphs awarded for exclusively civil conflicts (e.g. Munda and Mutina), spoils from civil conflict carried in triumph (e.g. Praeneste) and even a triumph featuring narrative depictions of the deaths of rebellious Romans (Caesar's African triumph). In reconsidering such violations of this supposed rule, L. joins a cadre of historians of the Roman Republic who have challenged traditional legalistic understandings of Roman institutions in favour of a view in which Roman institutions evolve as the mores surrounding them adapt to historical change on an ad-hoc basis (most notably for the ‘rules’ surrounding triumphs, see M.R.P. Pittenger, Contested Triumphs: Politics, Pageantry, and Performance in Livy's Republican Rome [2008]). Such a rule, L. points out, ‘could only have been articulated in the first century bce when civil wars became common’ (p. 101). The very idea that it was inappropriate to celebrate a triumph over fellow Romans could only have arisen as the Roman elite struggled to accommodate the new conflicts into an existing triumphal tradition. L.’s central Chapter 5 details how the era of the civil wars adapted triumphal custom during the course of each conflict, setting new precedents in some areas while resisting change in others.
Although victory in a civil conflict did not in practice bar the award of a triumph, victory celebrations were no doubt seen as inappropriate (nefas?) for civil war. The fullest expression of Roman abhorrence is Valerius Maximus’ chapter on the ius triumphandi, in which he presents a list of the earliest civil conflicts, concluding that ‘The senate gave no man a laurel nor did any wish to be given one with part of the community in tears’ (L.’s translation, p. 96; Val. Max. 2.8.7). Other Roman authors including Cicero were equally dismissive of civil war honours, revealing so distinct a discomfiture with the notion of celebrating military victories over fellow Romans that L. may even write of ‘an ancient consensus on the matter of the triumph and civil war’ (p. 98). L. too rarely acknowledges this anxiety and the role it likely had in shaping triumphal precedent in an era when substantive triumph debates in the senate were largely a thing of the past. By his dictatorship, Caesar could decide what honours he dared accept; he chose to break new ground by depicting the suicides of Pompeian leaders in his triumph (App. BC 2.101), a spectacle L. rightly describes as ‘outrageous, indeed gratuitously provocative’ (p. 110). Caesar's later triumph for Munda likewise provoked controversy for being celebrated exclusively over Roman opposition. Surely the public outrage at the civil aspects of these triumphs, along with Caesar's subsequent fate, helped set more firmly the precedent of triumphing for civil wars only if they could plausibly be celebrated as victories over foreign enemies. L.’s limited statement that the second triumvirate ‘did not follow these controversial precedents in holding triumphs for wars which were exclusively civil’ (p. 114) should perhaps be expanded all the way down to Octavian's era-culminating triple triumph, notwithstanding the ovationes celebrated in between.
L. leads up to his central argument with four chapters considering material both important and tangential to his central arguments. Chapter 1 provides an overview of modern approaches to civil war including theoretical approaches, although L. does not explicitly adopt a theoretical model for his study. In Chapter 2 he considers the institution of the triumph, especially the relation of lesser celebrations such as ovatio, Alban triumph, and naval triumph to ‘full’ triumphs. I found his arguments about incidents from Middle Republican history, especially Marcellus’ Alban triumph, to be too briefly argued to add much to the scholarship on these questions. No doubt this is in part because they are tangential to the purpose of the monograph, but if this is so, they may have been better left to be discussed at fuller length in other publications. Chapter 3 on the triumphal Fasti is filled with intriguing observations and arguments. Particularly pertinent for his later argument is the status of the lesser triumphal honours, which he shows appear regularly on the Fasti, including even the unsanctioned Alban triumphs. L. asserts that the Fasti represent not the monumental duplication of some existing official record of triumphal honours but rather a Late Republican construct that strove to be as comprehensive as possible. It is a pity his later discussions of Augustus’ triumphal record do not fully develop his ideas about what he calls the ‘historico-antiquarian reconstruction’ (p. 61) of the Fasti. Chapter 4 represents a more direct preamble to his central argument in Chapter 5, presenting a survey of the triumphs from Marius to Augustus. It is perhaps most obvious in this section that L. is forced by the poor state of our textual evidence to make many assumptions about the award of triumphal honours, especially through reliance on Cassius Dio, who is often our only relevant source, and when discussing triumphs awarded in absentia, which is often not mentioned at all in our sources.
One important conclusion of L.’s central discussion is the idea that the Late Republican civil war victors, especially Augustus, sought to represent themselves as having re-established a peace that had been sundered by the rebellions of their rivals. Emphasis on peace is central to Augustan propaganda even before Actium, and L. argues (in Chapter 6) that the reappearance of the famous phrase pace parta terra marique on Augustus’ Actium Victory Monument substitutes for any identification of the enemy. Likewise, the enemy remains nameless in his Res Gestae, which proceeds from civil war at the beginning of the inscription to a peace made when Augustus quenched civil wars (RG 34). L. establishes precedents for both the omission of enemy identity and the emphasis on ending (civil) war in the Late Republican tradition.
An equally convincing argument is that Caesar and Octavian/Augustus reimagined the ovatio both in topographical and conceptual terms in ways that prefigure the imperial adventus. Unfortunately, this is also one of the best examples of L.’s tendency to spread his arguments across different chapters (pp. 63–9, pp. 114–15, Chapter 7 passim), possibly reflecting the origins of these chapters in separate publications. He argues that Caesar's ovatio ex monte Albano of 44 bce set a precedent for celebrations of peace rather than war that were imitated by the triumvirs’ ovatio in 40 after their meeting at Brundisium, and several of Augustus’ other ‘triumph-like returns’. Entry through the south-facing Porta Capena rather than the traditional Porta Triumphalis is crucial to his topographical argument, though our sources do not often provide enough detail for certainty on this point. L. interprets these processions within the context of triumphal honours for civil war, since they are mentioned alongside triumphs on the triumphal Fasti. In my view, his argument instead suggests that these spectacles are the starting point of an entirely new type of processional entry with an imperial focus on the rulers, unrelated to the Republican triumphal tradition.
A few outstanding quibbles remain. Both the frieze of the Actium Victory Monument and the Casa di Pilatos Relief discussed in the epilogue are too poorly illustrated to follow L.’s arguments without reference to better illustrated publications. Moreover, while these sculptures are certainly relevant to the depiction of civil war in Augustan monuments, they open up an entire new field of material evidence that cannot be easily accommodated to the historical subject of his monograph. I think the visual material from these reliefs would have been better considered separately and in greater detail than they are here. I found few typographical errors, and one dating error (the date of C. Duilius’ triumph is given as 693 ab urbe condita rather than 493 = 260 bce [p. 43]). L. has produced a well-written, well-produced contribution to the considerable recent bibliography on the triumph, with a particular focus on the important changes the era of the civil wars wrought to triumphal traditions.
