Page "Roman triumph" Paragraph 44

At the end of that same summer when M. Marcellus had come to the City from Sicily province the Senate was given for him at the temple of Bellona by the praetor C. Calpurnius.

( 2 ) There, once he had described his achievements, he complained mildly about his soldiers ' lot more than his own regarding the fact that after the settlement of the province he had not been permitted to bring his army home.

He also asked that he be permitted to enter the City in triumph.

He did not obtain his request.

( 3 ) After a lengthy debate whether it was less appropriate to refuse a triumph to man, in his presence, in whose name when absent a thanksgiving ( supplicatio ) had been decreed and honour paid to the Immortal Gods by reason of the things successfully accomplished under his leadership, ( 4 ) or for a man to triumph as though a war had been concluded whom they had ordered to hand over his army to a successor ( something that would not be decreed if no war remained in the province ) when his army, the witness of a deserved as of an undeserved triumph, was far away, the middle course seemed best: that he should enter the City in ovation ( ovans ).

( 5 ) The tribunes of plebs proposed to the People on the authority of the Senate that there should be command rights ( imperium ) for M. Marcellus on the day he should enter the City in ovation.

( 6 ) On the day before he was due to enter the City he triumphed on the Alban Mount.

Then in ovation he brought much booty before him into the City.

( 7 ) Together with a painting of the capture of Syracuse, catapults, ballistae and all the other engines of war were carried along, as well as the ornaments of a peace of long duration and of royal opulence, ( 8 ) plate of skilfully wrought silver and bronze, other household furniture, precious garments and many renowned statues by which Syracuse had been distinguished among the foremost cities of Greece.

( 9 ) In addition eight elephants were led by to symbolize his Punic victory and not the least spectacle were Sosis of Syracuse and the Spaniard Moericus proceeding in front with golden wreaths.

( 10 ) Of these the one had been the nocturnal guide of the entry into Syracuse while the other had betrayed the Island and the garrison there.

( 11 ) Citizenship was granted to them both and it was ordered that five hundred iugera of land be granted to each of them too: for Sosis in the Land of Syracuse which had belonged either to the king or enemies of the Roman People, plus such a house in Syracuse that he desired belonging to anyone who had been punished according to the laws of war, ( 12 ): for Moericus and the Spaniards who had gone over with him, a city and land in Sicily belonging to those who had defected from the Roman People.

( 13 ) M. Cornelius was commissioned to assign to them the city and land wherever seemed right to him.

Four hundred iugera of land in that same territory were decreed to Belligenes, by whom Moericus had been enticed to swap sides.