TRIUMPH (Lat. triamphus, ()Lat. trianyns, triumph, victory, shout of joy, Gk. Opta43os, thriambos, procession at the feast of Bacchus, name of Bacchus; of uncertain etymology). The name given in ancient Rome to the highest public honor bestowed on a general who had been suc cessful in war. The victor, after having pro nounced a eulogy on the bravery of his soldiers, ascended his triumphal ear and passed through the Perth Triumphalis (which probably stood on the Campus, _Martins), where the senate met him, and the procession was organized and entered the city, passing by the Via Sclera to the Capitol. First marched the senate, headed by the magis trates; next came a holly of trumpeters; then a train of carriages and frames laden with the spoils of the vanquished; then a body of Bute players, followed by the oxen to be sacrificed, and the sacrificing priests; then the distinguished captives with hands of inferior prisoners in chains; after whom walked the lictors of the im perator, having the fasces wreathed with laurel. Next came the hero of the day—the imperator in a circular chariot. He was attired in an em broidered robe and flowered tunic, bearing in his right hand a laurel bough, in his left a sceptre, and having his brows garlanded with Delphic laurel. He was accompanied by his children and his intimate friends. His grown-up sons. the legates, tribunes, and equites, rode behind; and the rear was brought up by the rest of the sol diery, singing or jesting at their pleasure, for it.
was a day of carnival and license. When the procession had reached the foot of the Capitoline some of the captive chiefs were put to death; the procession, after waiting to hear their death an nounced, mounted to the Temple of Jupiter Ca pi tolinus, where the oxen were sacrificed, and the laurel wreath placed in the lap of Jupiter. In the evening the imperator was publicly feasted, and it was customary to provide him a site for a house at the public expense. Under the Empire generals serving abroad were considered to he the Emperor's lieutenants, and therefore, however successful in their wars, they had no claim to a triumph. They received instead triumphal deco rat ions and other rewards.
The oration, or lesser triumph, differed from the greater chiefly in these respects: that the imperator entered the city on foot, clad in the simple toga prwtexta of a magistrate, and wear ing a wreath, not of laurel, but of myrtle; that he bore no sceptre, was not preceded by the sen ate and flonrish of trumpets, nor followed by his victorious troops, but only by the equites and the populace, and that the ceremonies were con cluded by the sacrifice of a sheep instead of a bull, whence, doubtless, the name ovation (from ovis, a sheep). Some variations of these cere monies are found in various authorities and on various monuments.