Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Past and Present Publications)

As the Roman empire declined and 'fell', contemporary glorification of the emperor's triumphal rulership reached new heights, strewing traces of the empire's perennial victory across the physical and mental landscape of late antiquity. In this, the first comprehensive study of how a great imperial ceremony actually developed and how it influenced both the eastern and western heirs to the Roman legacy, the Roman triumph's resurgence and afterlife is documented from the Tetrarchy to the end of the Macedonian dynasty in Byzantium and to Charlemagne's successors in the early medieval West. This perspective shows that celebrations of the ruler's victory experienced unceasing change in ritual form and content and that these changes mirrored broader trends in the development of society and the monarchy. At the same time, it casts new light on the late Roman origins of the trappings of early medieval kingship. Far from the imperial capital, the cult of triumphal rulership permeated local elites, as commanders in the provinces imitated the supreme victor by staging triumphs of their own, and the new Germanic kings followed suit. Classicists, medievalists, Byzantinists, specialists of art and ritual will find here new data and approaches to a central problem in the transformation of the Roman Empire which culminated in the new civilization by Byzantium and the Germanic Kingdoms. Front Cover......Page 1 Title Page......Page 3 Copyright......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Foreword......Page 8 Note to the paperback edition......Page 10 Abbreviations......Page 14 Introduction: imperial triumph as a historical problem......Page 18 1 Invincible empire: the ideology of victory under the principate......Page 28 2 Out of the streets and into the circus: the development of imperial victory celebrations in the later Roman empire......Page 52 1. FROM CONSTANTINE I TO THEODOSIUS I......Page 53 2 . FROM THE THEODOSIAN SUCCESSION TO ANASTASIUS......Page 64 3. FROM JUSTINIAN TO THE OUTBREAK OF ICONOCLASM......Page 81 CONCLUSION......Page 95 1. USURPERS AND BARBARIAN5......Page 97 2. IMPERIAL VICTORY RITUALS: EVIDENCE FROM ROME......Page 101 3. IMPERIAL VICTORY RITUALS: NON-ROMAN EVIDENCE......Page 108 4. THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF IMPERIAL VICTORY CELEBRATIONS......Page 117 5. THE DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE AND THE COLLEGIALITY OF VICTORY......Page 128 6. VICTORY CELEBRATIONS AND THE THRONE......Page 137 4 The development of imperial victory celebrations in early medieval Byzantium......Page 148 1. TRIUMPHS OF CONSTANTINE V......Page 151 2. AN AGE OF GENERALS: VICTORY CELEBRATIONS IN THE LATE EIGHT CENTURY......Page 154 3. AMORIAN TRIUMPHS......Page 161 4. THE LEGITIMATION OF BASIL I......Page 169 5. HIGH TIDE OF TRIUMPH: 956-72......Page 176 6. THE CELEBRATION OF VICTORY UNDER THE LAST MACEDONIANS......Page 195 CONCLUSION......Page 201 5. Organizing a Byzantine triumph......Page 206 6 A distant echo: victory celebrations in the imperial provinces......Page 248 1. TIES THAT BIND......Page 249 2. GOD AND COUNTRY......Page 254 3. LITTLE CAESARS......Page 269 CONCLUSION......Page 275 7 Ephemeral empires: triumphal rulership in barbarian Africa, Burgundy and Italy......Page 277 1. THE KING'S TRIUMPHAL MAJESTY IN VANDAL AFRICA......Page 278 2. VICTORY CUSTOMS IN THE KINGDOM OF THE BURGUNDIANS......Page 283 3. TRIUMPHAL IDEOLOGY IN OSTROGOTHIC ITALY......Page 284 4. LOMBARD KINGSHIP AND VICTORY......Page 301 8 The king's victory in Visigothic Spain......Page 314 1. ROYAL CEREMONY AND VISIGOTHIC KINGSHIP......Page 315 2. ROYAL VICTORY CELEBRATIONS......Page 319 3. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF VISIGOTHIC VICTORY CELEBRATIONS......Page 332 4 . THE RHETORIC OF VICTORY......Page 340 9 From late antique to early feudal society: Frankish victory celebrations......Page 345 1. MEROVINGIAN VICTORY CELEBRATIONS......Page 352 2. THE LITURGY OF VICTORY IN FRANCIA......Page 359 3. CAROLINGIAN COURT CEREMONIES AND THE KING'S VICTORY......Page 379 CONCLUSION......Page 401 Epilogue......Page 405 Bibliography of cited primary sources......Page 414 Select bibliography of secondary sources......Page 429 Descriptive list of figures......Page 433 Index......Page 436 Back Cover......Page 470 Collective manifestations of joy and relief at the successful conclusion of a military engagement occur throughout human society and throughout history, from the earliest times down to our own V-E and V-J Days of recent memory. Michael Mccormick. Based On The Author's Thesis (doctoral--university Of Louvain, 1979) Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 397-415.