Chapter 3 Gendering the Roman Triumph: Elite Women and the Triumph in the Republic and Early Empire
In: Gendering Roman ImperialismSearch for other papers by Lewis Webb in
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Abstract
This chapter re-evaluates the relationships among elite women and the triumph in the Republic and early Empire (509 BCE–47 CE), demonstrating that during the Republic female relatives of triumphal generals were associated with and integrated into the triumph via the triumphal chariot, ancestor masks, funerals, and names, and that these associations continued and grew in the early Empire to encompass imperial innovations.
We show that during the Republic and Empire some unmarried elite daughters accompanied their fathers in the triumphal chariot itself, that triumphal ancestor masks and painted images celebrated both patrilineal and matrilineal triumphal ancestry in elite houses, that triumphal ancestor masks were also present at public funerals for elite women and some of these funerals contained further triumphal themes, that some elite women were connected through their nomenclature to the triumph, and that in the Empire imperial women were increasingly integrated into and associated with the triumph, and some hosted triumphal banquets.
We argue that through these associations elite women were invested and involved in the triumph, accruing status for themselves and their families. We conclude that female relatives of triumphal generals were beneficiaries of the triumph and that the triumph itself was fundamentally a family affair.