ABSTRACT
Among the many transplants from the Tiber to the Bosporus was also a well developed Roman tradition of public triumphs, which formerly could be celebrated only in Rome. These elaborate civic rituals not only celebrated the deeds of the victor, in almost all cases the emperor, but provided a venue by which the citizens of the city could take part in a corporate activity that unified them into a common identity – as opposed to the public games which divided them along circus faction lines.2 Triumphs in Constantinople were not precisely like those in Rome, yet, as Michael McCormick has demonstrated, they were triumphs nonetheless and they continued to be celebrated in one form or another well into the Middle Ages.3 They could be grand processions, akin to ancient Roman imperial triumphs, or smaller affairs held in the Hippodrome or a forum – as was often the case for generals.4 Belisarius, for example, had to walk from his house to the Hippodrome for his own triumph.5
