THE CONVENTIONAL PROHIBITION ON CIVIL WAR TRIUMPHS

A general's quest for a triumph began in the field. The army acclaimed a victorious commander as imperator, and the commander then sent a despatch to the Senate, adorned with laurel, in which he reported the victory and requested a supplicatio, a ceremony in which all the temples were open and the whole people gave thanks and made offerings. The decreeing of a supplicatio typically predicated the subsequent grant of a triumph. When the commander returned to Rome and sought a triumph, a Senate meeting was held to hear his report and decide on his request, and it is in connection with these debates, as reported by Livy for the late third and early second centuries, that we generally hear of the various rules and conventions governing the award of triumphs.Footnote ⁶

The chief ancient source that outlines the rules and customary practice relating to triumphs is the chapter (2.8) that Valerius Maximus devotes to the topic as part of his treatment of disciplina militaris. The last section of this chapter (2.8.7) asserts that no supplicationes, ovations or triumphs had ever been held for a civil war and runs as follows:

Two recent discussions maintain that Valerius Maximus's whole chapter, and this section in particular, were driven by contemporary political requirements. Johannes Engels (Reference Engels, Zecchini, Gattinoni and Barzanò2001) argued that Valerius Maximus writes here as an imperial propagandist, Fabian Goldbeck and Peter Franz Mittag (Reference Goldbeck, Mittag, Krasser, Pausch and Petrovic2008) that he insinuates criticism of the regime. Neither view convinces. Here, as elsewhere, Valerius Maximus, who composed his work under Tiberius, writes as a loyal supporter of the house of the Caesars, but his primary purpose is to moralize and inform. Goldbeck and Mittag's most persuasive point relates to Valerius Maximus's puzzling insistence at 2.8.3 (based on an otherwise unknown and surely mistaken anecdote) that it was an offence to decline a triumph, which contradicts Augustus's frequent refusals of triumphs (Res Gestae 4.1) (Goldbeck and Mittag, Reference Goldbeck, Mittag, Krasser, Pausch and Petrovic2008: 62–3).Footnote ⁷ However, he cannot intend to imply criticism of the regime, in view of his loyal statements elsewhere and of the fulsome tribute to Augustus with which he ends the chapter.Footnote ⁸ In that section Valerius Maximus in fact neatly avoids the question of whether Caesar and Octavian accepted or declined to accept the prohibition on civil war triumphs, by refusing to pursue his survey of the civil wars beyond Catilina. This may well be intentional loyalism, as Engels suggested (Reference Engels, Zecchini, Gattinoni and Barzanò2001: 168). However, there is no reason to think that the topic had been introduced for this reason.

These and other recent discussions of the chapter have disregarded the question of Valerius Maximus's likely sources and method of composition for the chapter.Footnote ⁹ Recent discussions rightly have rejected older views that Valerius Maximus worked chiefly from an earlier collection of exempla and have shown that he made his own selection and arrangement of material drawn from a limited range of sources, principally Cicero, Livy and (for non-Roman items) Pompeius Trogus (Bloomer, Reference Bloomer1992: 59–146; Wardle, Reference Wardle1998: 15–18). However, it is likely that for some topics he started with a core of items taken from an individual source and then elaborated these with additional material from other sources, and for some chapters he can be shown to have used Cicero in something like this fashion (Bloomer, Reference Bloomer1992: 29–48). For chapter 2.8 on triumphal laws it seems unlikely that he built up the whole selection himself from different sources. More probably, he started with an earlier writer's treatment of the topic, and then added his own elaborations and additional instances, drawing either on other sources or on his own general knowledge. A likely candidate for the primary source for the chapter is Varro, either in his Antiquitates, in the De vita populi Romani or in his logistoricus, De bello et pace.Footnote ¹⁰

Valerius Maximus's own additions will account for the erroneous information at various points in the chapter, as with the strange story at 2.8.5 or the false statement that Marcellus was denied a triumph over Syracuse because he had been sent to the command without a magistracy. In 2.8.7 the primary source may have asserted the principle that no celebration was held after civil war and mentioned the case of Sulla, and may well have gone on to note the contrary instance of Caesar; Valerius Maximus may have been responsible himself for at least some of the further illustrations from the Gracchi to Catilina, and will certainly have contributed the avoidance of mentioning later civil wars.Footnote ¹¹

As Mommsen noted (Reference Mommsen1887: 133),Footnote ¹² the principle that triumphs and related ceremonies should not be held for civil wars is well attested in other sources besides Valerius Maximus. Cicero, in Philippics, maintained that supplicationes had never been requested or decreed for civil war victories.Footnote ¹³ Lucan, at the start of his poem, laments that the civil wars that were to be his theme were wars that could win no triumphs (1.12). Various sources, to be discussed further below, note the rule in relation to particular commanders: thus Florus (2.10.1, 9) mentions it in connection with Pompeius's Spanish triumph, Plutarch (Caes. 56.7–9) and Dio Cassius (42.18.1, 43.42.1) mention it in connection with Caesar's triumphs, and Dio Cassius (51.19.5) does so also in respect of Octavian's, while Tacitus (Hist. 4.4.2) reports the grant of ornamenta triumphalia to Vespasian's commanders as in breach of the rule. There was thus an ancient consensus on the matter of the triumph.

In Roman politics it was sometimes alleged of an opponent that he was seeking to triumph over a fellow-citizen, and thus Livy in his account of the year 386 bc reports that, when the dictator Cornelius Cossus, who had been opposing the agitation of Manlius Capitolinus, celebrated a triumph against the Volscians, the discontented claimed that he was really holding it over a citizen, not an enemy.Footnote ¹⁴

How did this principle come to be recognized? As Lundgreen has argued recently (Reference Lundgreen2011: 178–253), the question of triumphal rules needs to be considered in the larger contexts of Roman political rules and rule conflicts.Footnote ¹⁵ Most of the rules relating to triumphs appear to have been formulated alongside the development of Roman warfare, which brought new issues to the Senate's attention as it came to decide on the award of triumphs. Thus it was only on Marcellus's return from Syracuse in 211 bc that the issue first arose of whether a commander could triumph without bringing back his army (Livy 26.21.2–4), and only when Scipio returned from Spain in 206 that the question came up of whether a triumph could be held following a campaign in which the victorious general had been appointed to the command not as a magistrate, but as a privatus.

Similarly, the principle that triumphs should not be held for civil wars could have been articulated only in the first century, when civil wars actually broke out. However, unlike the other triumphal rules and conventions, the principle is unlikely to have been formulated through senatorial debate, since the issue of civil war triumphs generally had not been brought to the Senate's formal consideration. Thus it was probably through the informal dialogue of contemporaries that the principle came to be given expression, uttering the general inappropriateness of such celebration. It was perhaps particularly in connection with Caesar's triumphs that the issue came to the fore. However, Caesar's actions followed in a tradition that had begun earlier, with Sulla and Pompeius, as we shall now examine.

SULLA AND THE WAR AGAINST MITHRIDATES

During the period from 87 to 82, Sulla and his adversaries fought Rome's first civil war. The political turmoil did not cease with Marius's death in 86. The son of Marius was elected consul in 82, even though not eligible, and was defeated near Praeneste. The city later surrendered and Marius's son committed suicide. Stating the obvious will hopefully help to clarify the matter at hand right at the outset: in 81, Sulla celebrated a two-day triumph de rege Mithridate (Degrassi, Reference Degrassi1947: 84–5, 563).Footnote ¹⁶ On the second day the procession carried gold and silver that the younger Marius had taken to Praeneste (Plin. HN 33.16):

According to Plutarch (Sull. 34) Romans returning from exile were part of the triumphal procession. In this way Sulla celebrated post-civil war restorations.Footnote ¹⁷ However, this does not mean that this triumph was deemed to be celebrated over his civil war enemies.Footnote ¹⁸ Contra to this Sumi has argued:

Our evidence does not mention civil war enemies in connection with the granting of the triumph. The only Romans present in the procession were the returning exiles. Valerius Maximus states (2.8.7) that even though Sulla had won more civil wars than any other Roman, no Roman towns were paraded at his triumph; only towns from Greece and Asia were shown.Footnote ²⁰

Cicero states that Sulla received no supplications (Phil. 14.23). He also points out that two men had celebrated triumphs against Mithridates, who nevertheless was still on the throne.Footnote ²¹ Pliny mentions the gold and silver carried in the triumphal procession, but does not suggest that the triumph was after a civil war, and neither does Appian (B Civ. 1.101) nor Plutarch (Sull. 34). In this case a foreign war certainly did not have to be invented, and nothing suggests that the Mithridates triumph was part of a cover-up of a civil war triumph. Having said this, the blurring between civil and foreign war is already visible at this early stage of the civil wars: the younger Marius is mentioned on a placard at Sulla's triumphal procession, thus acknowledging his defeat.Footnote ²² This may be a way of integrating civil war into the Republican triumphal procession.

There is, however, another aspect of Sulla's rule of great relevance to the development of the late Republican triumph.Footnote ²³ In 88 Sulla had Marius and others declared public enemies (hostes) (Flower, Reference Flower2006: 90–8).Footnote ²⁴ The leading opponents of Sulla could thus be killed with impunity. The heads of those executed were displayed in the Forum Romanum and the bodies thrown into the Tiber.Footnote ²⁵ Marius's body was even exhumed and the remains scattered on the orders of Sulla (Cic. Leg. 2.56), and the trophies commemorating his victories removed.Footnote ²⁶ Sulla's triumph was for a real foreign war, unrelated to the civil war. However, he did use it to celebrate recovery/restoration arising out of the civil war — the returned exiles and recovered moneys.

POMPEIUS'S AFRICAN AND SPANISH TRIUMPHS

The next stage came with Pompeius, as both his African and Spanish triumphs were for conflicts that were in reality civil wars. By decree of the Senate Pompeius was ordered to proceed to Africa in order to end Marian resistance.Footnote ²⁷ Pompeius's African triumph, for which the date is uncertain, followed the suppression of the Marian opposition led by Domitius Ahenobarbus.Footnote ²⁸ Domitius had been joined by Hiarbas, king of Numidia, so this enabled the conflict to be presented as a foreign war, and we do not hear of the foreign/civil issue being raised. Pompeius insisted on triumphing against Sulla's opposition, but Sulla is said to have based his objection on Pompeius's commanding as a privatus (and not even a senator).Footnote ²⁹

In 77 Pompeius went to Spain to fight the enemies of Sulla. He returned in 71 to celebrate his Spanish triumph together with Metellus Pius. These were for wars in which the enemy commanders had been Roman (Sertorius, Perperna).Footnote ³⁰ This point is raised by Florus (2.10.1): ‘Bellum Sertorianum quid amplius quam Sullanae proscriptionis hereditas fuit? Hostile potius an civile dixerim nescio, quippe quod Lusitani Celtiberique Romano gesserint duce’ (‘What was the war with Sertorius except an inheritance from the Sullan proscription? I know not whether to call it a war against enemies or a civil war, for it was waged by the Lusitani and Celtiberi under a Roman leader’) (trans. Forster, Reference Forster1984). However, it could be justified on the grounds that their soldiers were largely Spanish non-Romans. This point is certainly made by Florus (2.10.9): ‘Victores duces externum id magis quam civile bellum videri voluerunt, ut triumpharent’ (‘The victorious generals desired that the struggle should be considered a foreign rather than a civil war in order that they might celebrate a triumph’). It is not clear, however, whether there was any concern at the time — Pompeius's huge popularity at this point may in any case have overridden this. Pompeius's Spanish triumph thus provided a partial precedent for Caesar's Spanish triumph. Sadly, the notice of the triumphs of Pompeius and Metellus is lost in the Fasti Triumphales, but they were most likely specified just as ex Hispania. Similarly, Pompeius's African triumph provided a precedent for Caesar's African triumph, over Juba.

CAESAR AND THE ENEMIES OF ROME

The year 49 once again saw civil unrest turn into civil war proper with Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon. The Senate had ordered him to dismiss his army and return to Rome, thus effectively relieving him of his command.Footnote ³¹ While initiating civil war was reprehensible, fighting one was not necessarily so, certainly not in Caesar's own view. Caesar's justification — as it would be for Augustus after him — was the rei publicae causa (‘for the sake of the commonwealth’): by defending the res publica the Romans might again be freed from fear (metus), the result of civil strife.Footnote ³²

Civil war was disgraceful, but the principal theme running through the Bellum Civile is that Caesar's cause was that of peace (1.5.5), versus Pompeius, who wanted war (1.4.5) (Gelzer, Reference Gelzer and Rasmussen1967: 443; Collins, Reference Collins1972: 957; Henderson, Reference Henderson1998: 37–69). The enemies of Caesar had initiated the turmoil and thus were to blame (1.32.3). However, Caesar had scrupulously avoided even sending a despatch after his victory at Pharsalus (exclusively a civil war) in 48.Footnote ³³ However, he had sent despatches and so received supplicationes for the foreign wars in Egypt and Pontus. Instead of obscuring the obvious truth that many conflicts during the late Republic were civil wars, the victors utilized that fact against their rivals: their opponents started the civil conflicts that they then quelled. This process of political justification is aptly described by Kurt Raaflaub: ‘We need to keep in mind what seems obvious but is easily overlooked: to begin a civil war was no minor matter’ (Reference Raaflaub, Breed, Damon and Rossi2010: 162).

Caesar returned to Rome in 46 to celebrate four triumphs, for his victories against Gaul, Egypt, Pontus and Africa. Suetonius associates these triumphs with civil war, as he lists Caesar's Roman enemies (Suet. Iul. 37): ‘Confectis bellis quinquiens triumphavit, post devictum Scipionem quater eodem mense, sed interiectis diebus, et rursus semel post superatos Pompei liberos’ (‘Having ended the wars, he celebrated five triumphs, four in a single month, but at intervals of a few days, after vanquishing Scipio; and another on defeating Pompeius’ sons') (trans. Rolfe, Reference Rolfe1951). Plutarch stresses that the African triumph was apparently over Juba, the African ally of L. Scipio, not Scipio himself (Plut. Caes. 55). In this respect it followed the precedent of Pompeius's African campaign. Sumi has stressed that the triumph of 46 could not avoid allusions to the recent past, to civil war (Reference Sumi2005: 57–60, esp. p. 59). Appian, however, shows that he did not try to avoid this allusion in any way. Caesar's fourth triumph in 46 was over King Juba, but this was just a pretext for celebrating his civil war victory.Footnote ³⁴

A Senate decree of 48 had authorized Caesar to fight the Pompeians in Africa and to be arbiter of war and peace.Footnote ³⁵ The justification seems to have been that, since they were enemies not citizens, collaborating as it were with foreign powers, Caesar was within his rights to fight them. According to Martin Jehne, this assignment only ended with its accomplishment (Reference Jehne1987: 43–56, esp. p. 52). The Senate even voted the triumph to Caesar, over Juba and the Romans fighting with him, before the war had begun and then, after the victory, 40 days' supplicationes and the right to triumph with white horses.Footnote ³⁶ The vote before the war may have been in compensation for their inability to celebrate Pharsalus. However, the precedent of triumphs voted in absence to honour dynasts was to be followed.

Thus the African triumph itself was respectable and followed Pompeius's precedent. However, Caesar included depictions of the deaths of Scipio, Petreius and Cato, although without inscribing their names, according to Appian (B Civ. 2.101). Even though he did not parade an image of Pompeius in his triumph, it needs to be stressed just how outrageous this must have been – seemingly gratuitously provocative. However, Caesar still had established a model with his Juba triumph: he held ovations/triumphs only for civil wars which could be represented as external.Footnote ³⁷ Importantly, he was certainly not concealing the civil element of the conflict (contra Gurval, Reference Gurval1995: 23).

Caesar's final triumph, following his defeat of Pompeius's sons at Munda in 45, was only over civil opponents.Footnote ³⁸ This is seemingly a new departure, unequivocally triumphing after a civil war victory, and it is said to have provoked disapproval.Footnote ³⁹ At the same time, there was a further flouting of the rules in the grant of triumphs ex Hispania to his legates, Fabius and Pedius, who had no independent imperium.Footnote ⁴⁰ This was probably anomalous, but was later regularized in the Fasti Triumphales, where Pedius is called ‘proconsul’ (by the time of the triumph Fabius was consul), so as to suggest that they had had an independent imperium.

The assignment to pacify the empire was finally accomplished with the concluding of the civil war, and after Munda Caesar may have relinquished the powers invested in him by the Senate in 48, although we cannot know for certain (Dio Cass. 42.20.1) (Jehne, Reference Jehne1987: 55).Footnote ⁴¹ Caesar's Spanish triumph in 45 thus unequivocally broke the taboo on civil war triumphs. The question remains how different was it from the Spanish triumphs of Pompeius and Metellus Pius? These were also over Roman commanders, and both these and Caesar's triumphs were no doubt recorded as simply ex Hispania (although we lack Fasti notices). The difference was the predominantly non-Roman forces fighting on the Sertorian side. But the anti-Caesarian forces at Munda must have been to a considerable extent raised in Spain.Footnote ⁴² The resentment evoked by the Munda triumph may reflect not so much its novelty as the continuing strength of Pompeian sympathies in Rome.Footnote ⁴³

MUTINA: FIGHTING FOR THE RES PUBLICA

In the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (1.1) Augustus claims that Antonius had oppressed the res publica through the tyranny of a faction. Liberating the state from the faction transformed the contentious act of raising an army into something legitimate (Lange, Reference Lange2009: 14–18). The ‘betrayal’ of libertas is used as a denouncement of the defeated faction: Pompeius and Caesar had done the same,Footnote ⁴⁴ as had Sulla before them (App. B Civ. 1.57). The main justification in 44–43 was that Antonius started the war against Decimus Brutus at Mutina.Footnote ⁴⁵ This is mentioned only indirectly in Res Gestae 1.1, but it is most probably the idea behind mentioning the tyranny of a faction.

That this was the basis is made clear by Cicero's use of a comparable argument shortly before, in Philippics 14, to defend the legitimacy of the imperatorial acclamations of Hirtius, Pansa and Octavian. This speech was delivered on 21 April 43, after the news of the battle of Forum Gallorum on 15 April, in support of a proposal to recognize the three commanders' acclamations and to decree supplicationes, and raising the latter to 50 days. Cicero, who since January had been trying to get Antonius declared a hostis,Footnote ⁴⁶ argues that decreeing supplicationes would imply that Antonius was a hostis and so make the acclamations as imperator legitimate. In sections 22–4, he maintains that supplicationes and imperatorial acclamations had not occurred in earlier civil wars (24):Footnote ⁴⁷

The argument brought forward by Cicero is of course subtle and intricate. He conveniently omits Caesar's African and Spanish triumphs, and of course his argument that a supplicatio implied a hostis declaration was invalid: supplicationes could be voted for other reasons than victories over external enemies, and his own supplicatio (conspiracy of Catilina) showed that relief from a civil threat was one such reason (a point he does not adequately rebut at 24).Footnote ⁴⁸

The Mutina victory (21 April) also initially was hailed with enthusiasm at Rome (although eventually fatal, with the consuls' deaths and Antonius's escape). Now Cicero at last got his way and the logic of his recommendation at Philippics 14 followed: Antonius and his followers were declared public enemies, and a triumph was voted to Decimus Brutus. The justification was thus that, since they were enemies not citizens, it was permissible to triumph over them. Cicero was of course happy to support Decimus Brutus's triumph, but in the end Brutus never celebrated it, as he never returned to Rome.Footnote ⁴⁹ In effect the Senate's decision went beyond the Munda precedent, since the triumph was to be celebrated not ex Hispania, but over Italy itself. And this was perhaps the first time where such a triumph had been justified directly by a hostis declaration. The Senate also carried further Caesarian precedents by voting 50 days' supplicatio, and Cicero proposes that Decimus Brutus be included in the Fasti (Ad Brut. 1.15.8).

To their credit, the triumvirs did not follow these controversial precedents in holding triumphs for wars that were exclusively civil (hostis declarations or not): no triumphs followed Philippi or Perusia. However, Octavian did stage a triumph-like return to the city after Perusia, even wearing triumphal dress and a laurel crown (Dio Cass. 48.16.1).Footnote ⁵⁰ This willingness to take traditions to their limits and beyond is also obvious in the joint ovation of Antonius and Octavian in 40.

BRUNDISIUM: PEACE RESTORED

After the Perusine war Antonius arrived at Brudisium in 40 and Rome almost had a new civil war on its hand, this time between the two triumvirs. In the end, however, their soldiers refused to fight. The settlement of Brundisium extended the triumvirs' assignment: the new task given to Octavian was to deal with Sextus Pompeius and thus to conclude the civil war.Footnote ⁵¹ The Fasti Triumphales mentions the ovation for Antonius and Octavian after the signing of the treaty (two similar entries):

The entry is in itself surprising, as it does not mention a foreign foe. The context and wording ought to convince most that this is about avoiding civil war. This was peace through diplomatic concord, as opposed to civil war (Osgood, Reference Osgood2006: 191; Beard, Reference Beard2007: 267). This was a novel celebration, although Caesar's ovation in 44 had provided a precedent for an ovation without a preceding war (or indeed an enemy) (Degrassi, Reference Degrassi1947: 86–7, 567). Lepidus earlier had received a supplicatio for negotiations with Sextus Pompeius (Cic. Phil. 3.20–4, 5.38–41; Cic. Fam. 10.34–5). Amidst the proscriptions foreign wars appear to have faded into the background — and the Senate attempted to appease Lepidus by decreeing him honours (Sumi, Reference Sumi2005: 189–91). Lepidus's triumph of 43, however, was mainly for victories in Spain.Footnote ⁵²

The ovations after Brundisium were of a quite different and novel form, namely the ovation as simply a ceremonial entry into Rome, without a preceding war (Lange, forthcoming). But even if the occasions for these ovations were altogether different from those that followed wars, they clearly implied a link between the idea of the triumph and that of civil war.

SICILY: A SLAVE WAR

In 36 Octavian returned to Rome, entering the city in ovatio.Footnote ⁵³ This was an appropriate honour after a slave war (Res Gestae 25.1); the slave wars of 132, 99 and 71 all provided the victor with an ovation.Footnote ⁵⁴ As already mentioned this was part of the new task given to Octavian; to deal with Sextus Pompeius and thus to end the civil war.

The pretext of a foreign war was particularly strained in the case of the war in Sicily, but Alison Cooley (Reference Cooley2009) is certainly mistaken to argue that it was a civil war and thus did not qualify for a triumph, only an ovation.Footnote ⁵⁵ It is true that Suetonius perhaps fell into this error, since he supposes that Octavian's first ovation was for Philippi (Aug. 22), but in that of course he was altogether wrong.Footnote ⁵⁶ And if Valerius Maximus is reliable, this would in any case have been impossible, as a civil war victory could not earn the victor an ovation either (2.8.7).

It should be noted, incidentally, that Aulus Gellius appears to be mistaken in supposing that victory over pirates could win only an ovation (5.6.20–1). M. Antonius in 102 bc appears to have been voted a full triumph, although the only evidence is Plutarch's reference to him as ‘a man who had triumphed’ (Pomp. 24). In addition, the Fasti Triumphales include the pirates among those over whom Pompeius triumphed in 61 (Degrassi, Reference Degrassi1947: 84–5, 566). However, the precedents for the 36 ovation were those given for slave wars. In 36 Octavian genuinely could claim to have suppressed any form of internal war (App. B Civ. 5.130); but the war was still represented as a slave war. The civil war was not denied, but the war was declared or mainly represented as something else — and thus qualified for an ovation. A similar pattern can be seen in the aftermath of the battle of Actium.

ACTIUM: THE LAST CIVIL WAR OF THE REPUBLIC

The single most important piece of ancient evidence for the ideology of Augustus is the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Scheid, Reference Scheid2007; Cooley, Reference Cooley2009; Lange, Reference Lange2009: esp. pp. 5–8).Footnote ⁵⁷ The chapters of the Res Gestae should be read as Augustus's justification for his actions. Augustus mentions civil and foreign wars in chapter 3.1: ‘Bella terra et mari civilia externaque toto in orbe terrarum saepe gessi’ (‘I have often conducted wars by land and sea, civil and foreign, across the whole world’) (trans. Cooley, Reference Cooley2009). The ending of the civil wars is prominently mentioned in Res Gestae 34.1: ‘In consulatu sexto et septimo, postquam bella civilia extinxeram …’ (‘In my sixth and seventh consulship, after I had put an end to the civil wars …’).

The ending of the civil wars, as mentioned in Res Gestae 34.1, must include Actium (Res Gestae 25.2), as part of the triumviral assignment (Lange, Reference Lange2009: 18–26). The adversary in chapter 24.1 is Antonius, and the oath for the war at Actium (Res Gestae 25.2) is again mentioned prominently in Res Gestae 34.1, with clear reference to the oath of 32. Here it is described as consensus, in the same sentence as civil war. Egypt is mentioned in Res Gestae 27.1 as a foreign expansion, and thus the victory over Egypt and Cleopatra cannot constitute the ending of the civil wars as mentioned in Res Gestae 34.1, at least not in the official ideology of the regime. Actium is thus also a civil war in the Res Gestae, but it was as a foreign war against Egypt and Cleopatra that it became eligible for a triumph.Footnote ⁵⁸

Res Gestae 4.1 records triumphal matters and the triple triumph of 29 is mentioned. Less controversially than the triumph decreed to Caesar in 48, all of Octavian's triumphs and ovations were voted to him by the Senate before he returned, on learning of his successes — so without the indignity of his having to request them in person.Footnote ⁵⁹ This is clearly the case for the Actian and Alexandrian triumphs (Dio Cass. 51.19.1, 5).Footnote ⁶⁰ The returns of Caesar and Octavian constitute a change to the known pattern of triumphal return, as they did not have to meet with the Senate outside the pomerium.

As I have suggested elsewhere (Lange, Reference Lange2009: esp. pp. 79–90), Actium was considered as both a foreign and a civil war in the official ideology of the regime. Contrary to this, as mentioned, in traditional interpretations of Augustan ideology the war was represented only as a foreign war against Egypt and Cleopatra, even though in reality it was also a civil war.Footnote ⁶¹ Indeed, there can be no doubt that the war, when it finally came, was represented as a foreign war; the spear rite of the fetiales was performed by Octavian in person in 32, as a fetial, at the temple of Bellona on the Campus Martius (Rich, Reference Rich, Richardson and Santangelo2011: 204–9). This way Octavian successfully avoided starting a new civil war. But there were Romans helping Cleopatra, fighting against Rome, and these citizen-traitors automatically became enemies of the state when taking up arms against Rome. At the same time they, by their actions, turned a foreign war into a civil war. Octavian never denied that he fought Antonius (Lange, Reference Lange2009: 60–93). Accordingly, Dio Cassius underscores the official ideology of the Augustan regime when he states that the war was declared against Cleopatra, but was in reality against Antonius (50.4.5).

Dio Cassius also states (50.4.3–4) that not only was the war declared against Cleopatra, but that Antonius was not declared a hostis (see also Plut. Ant. 60.1). He was, however, deprived of all of his powers and of the consulship that he was due to hold in 31.Footnote ⁶² Antonius was now a privatus, and if he were to take up arms against Octavian and the res publica, he would declare war on the state and thus declare himself a hostis (Lange, Reference Lange2009: 68–9).Footnote ⁶³

Antonius's main folly was in allowing Cleopatra to remain with his forces in Greece, and thus lend some colour to Octavian's claim to be defending the fatherland against a foreign aggressor. With Cleopatra close to Italy it was easy to declare a foreign war, a war that would turn automatically into a civil war when Antonius and Cleopatra's forces fought against Rome. Beard is thus wrong to claim that Actium was ‘a victory in a civil war, without even a euphemistic foreign label’ (Beard, Reference Beard2007: 303).Footnote ⁶⁴ As far as we know, Octavian also abstained from directly commemorating the defeat of his citizen opponents in the ceremonies of 36 and 29: we do not hear of any representation of Antonius in the 29 procession, in contrast with Caesar's African triumph.