In one day Pompey received his triumph, consulship and senatorship. That day was today in the Year 71 B.C.
What constituted a Triumph?
During the approximately 1900 years of the history from the beginnings of the Roman Republic to the final disappearance of the Eastern Roman Empire about 500 triumphs were celebrated.
- The Senate, headed by the magistrates without their lictors.
- Trumpeters
- Carts with the spoils of war
- White bulls for sacrifice
- The arms and insignia of the conquered enemy
- The enemy leaders themselves, with their relatives and other captives
- The lictors of the imperator, their fasces wreathed with laurel
- The imperator himself, in a chariot drawn by two (later four) horses
- The adult sons and officers of the imperator
- The army without weapons or armor (since the procession would take them inside the pomerium), but clad in togas and wearing wreaths. During the later periods, only a selected company of soldiers would follow the commander in the triumph, as a singular honour.
The imperator may possibly have had his face painted red and wore a corona triumphalis, a tunica palmata and a toga picta. He may have been accompanied in his chariot by a slave holding a golden wreath above his head and constantly reminding the commander of his mortality by whispering into his ear. However, this is based on slender and disputed evidence.
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