Contested Triumphs: Politics, Pageantry, and Performance in Livy’s Republican Rome by Miriam R. Pelikan Pittenger (review)
459 apart the components of a sentence to understand its meaning. It is difficult to recommend Stroup’s work wholeheartedly, since it does have some major omissions in its approach, which limits its value for the social and cultural historian. And curiously, at first glance this seems to be the market at which the book is primarily aimed. Nonetheless, I suspect Stroup’s monograph would better serve the interests of philologists working on Cicero (and to a more limited extent Catullus) and students of literary history of the Late Republic. For these, Stroup does have some valuable insights and interpretations that are well worth further consideration.
Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire by Josiah Osgood (review)
461 her conclusion (275-298). Thus, the second section as a whole builds upon two important works of Livy scholarship of the last decade, Chaplin’s Livy’s Exemplary History and Feldherr’s Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History. It has become a topos of a review of a book on Livy to begin or end by referring to the successful rehabilitation of author in the last half-century. This book makes a contribution to our understanding of the sophistication of the AVC. P.’s Livy is both a confident and adept historian, representing faithfully Roman (hyper)sensitivity towards their collective identity and the complexities of the consensus political discourse of the Middle Republic.
The Roman Triumph
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 most glamorous 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 re-examination 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? Or when Pompey's elephants got stuck trying to squeeze through an arch? Or when exotic or pathetic prisoners stole the general's show? 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 richly illustrated 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 re-create 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."