The Roman Triumph, Mary Beard
The Roman Triumph, Mary Beard
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The Roman Triumph

Author: Mary Beard

Narrator: Lucy Rayner

Unabridged: 13 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/28/2023


Synopsis

It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his prisoners, as well as the booty he'd captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days.

A radical reexamination of this most extraordinary of ancient ceremonies, this book explores the magnificence of the Roman triumph, but also its darker side. What did it mean when the axle broke under Julius Caesar's chariot? And what are the implications of the Roman triumph, as a celebration of imperialism and military might, for questions about military power and "victory" in our own day? The triumph, Mary Beard contends, prompted the Romans to question as well as celebrate military glory.

Her work is a testament to the profound importance of the triumph in Roman culture—and for monarchs, dynasts, and generals ever since. But how can we recreate the ceremony as it was celebrated in Rome? How can we piece together its elusive traces in art and literature? Beard addresses these questions, opening a window on the intriguing process of sifting through and making sense of what constitutes "history."

About Mary Beard

Mary Beard is a professor of classics at Cambridge University and the author of the bestselling SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, Women & Power: A Manifesto, and the National Book Critics Circle Award-nominated Confronting the Classics. A popular blogger and television personality, Beard is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Erik

This book is at once a study of the Roman triumph and a critical examination of the evidences for that phenomenon--and, by implication, much of what passes for historical 'fact'. The result is inconclusive to the extreme: there were 'triumphs', a thousand years' worth of them, but we aren't very cle......more

Goodreads review by Inés

I read a review somewhere complaining that this is not a book on Roman History. Well, no. If anyone had any doubts, this is a book on the Roman triumph, which was a very specific type of ceremonial parade carried out after a great victory on the field of battle. How specific, how ceremonial, how muc......more

Goodreads review by Kara

Beard begins by discussing how other historians have examined the Roman Triumph's misty origins, the careers before and after of generals who had a Triumph, the effect the Triumph had Renaissance art, how it was copied by 19th and 20th century politicians, and other parts surrounding the Triumph. So,......more