Editing Roman triumph (section)

===The procession===
Rome's earliest "triumphs" were probably simple victory parades, celebrating the return of a victorious general and his army to the city, along with the fruits of his victory, and ending with some form of dedication to the gods. This is probably so for the earliest legendary and later semi-legendary triumphs of Rome's regal era, when the king functioned as Rome's highest magistrate and war-leader. As Rome's population, power, influence, and territory increased, so did the scale, length, variety, and extravagance of its triumphal processions.

The procession (''pompa'') mustered in the open space of the [[Campus Martius]] (Field of Mars) probably well before first light. From there, all unforeseen delays and accidents aside, it would have managed a slow walking pace at best, punctuated by various planned stops en route to its final destination of the Capitoline temple, a distance of just under 4&nbsp;km (2.48&nbsp;mi). Triumphal processions were notoriously long and slow;<ref>Emperor [[Vespasian]] regretted his triumph because its vast length and slow movement bored him; see Suetonius, ''Vespasian'', 12.</ref> the longest could last for two or three days, and possibly more, and some may have been of greater length than the route itself.<ref>The "2,700 wagonloads of captured weapons alone, never mind the soldiers and captives and booty" on one day of [[Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus|Aemilius Paulus]]'s triumphal "extravaganza" of 167 BCE is wild exaggeration. Some modern scholarship suggests a procession 7 km long as plausible. See Beard, p. 102.</ref>

Some ancient and modern sources suggest a fairly standard processional order. First came the captive leaders, allies, and soldiers (and sometimes their families) usually walking in chains; some were destined for execution or further display. Their captured weapons, armour, gold, silver, statuary, and curious or exotic treasures were carted behind them, along with paintings, tableaux, and models depicting significant places and episodes of the war. Next in line, all on foot, came Rome's senators and magistrates, followed by the general's [[lictor]]s in their red war-robes, their [[fasces]] wreathed in laurel, then the general in his four-horse chariot. A companion, or a public slave, might share the chariot with him or, in some cases, his youngest children. His officers and elder sons rode horseback nearby. His unarmed soldiers followed in togas and laurel crowns, chanting "io triumphe!" and singing ribald songs at their general's expense. Somewhere in the procession, two flawless white oxen were led for the sacrifice to Jupiter, garland-decked and with gilded horns. All this was done to the accompaniment of music, clouds of incense, and the strewing of flowers.<ref>Summary based on Versnel, pp. 95–96.</ref>

Almost nothing is known of the procession's infrastructure and management. Its doubtless enormous cost was defrayed in part by the state but mostly by the general's loot, which most ancient sources dwell on in great detail and unlikely superlatives. Once disposed, this portable wealth injected huge sums into the Roman economy; the amount brought in by [[Octavian]]'s triumph over Egypt triggered a fall in interest rates and a sharp rise in land prices.<ref>Beard, pp. 159–161, citing Suetonius, ''Augustus'', 41.1.</ref> No ancient source addresses the logistics of the procession: where the soldiers and captives, in a procession of several days, could have slept and eaten, or where these several thousands plus the spectators could have been stationed for the final ceremony at the Capitoline temple.<ref>Beard, pp. 93–95, 258. For their joint triumph of 71 CE, [[Titus]] and [[Vespasian]] treated their soldiers to a very early, and possibly traditional "triumphal breakfast".</ref>