Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West

by Michael McCormick

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

472 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1987

Reviews

[Kemaya Linton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the most boring book I’ve ever read. However, I think if I was into Roman Triumphs and not just reading it for class, I would have found it very interesting. I did find it a little confusing to follow the timeline.

[Derek Lee]

Added to shelf: mentioned in Patrick Wyman’s The Fall of Rome podcast as excellent source on Late Antiquity regimes’ claims to legitimacy via military victory

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

McCormick's range and breadth of scholarship is remarkable and undeniable. I was thoroughly impressed and found myself a bit awed by his exhaustive research.

I loved the book overall, but I found myself questioning some of the connections he made. It is possible, as he concludes, that Goths in Spain in the 7th century were conscious of imitating antique Roman and contemporary Byzantine triumphial ritual. But it is also possible that the Goths were celebrating a victorious battle in a way that wasn't at all conscious of these things and was simply reflective of the culture they lived in.

I felt often that the connections were tenuous and that obviously all kings in all times and all places celebrated their victories often with parades or parties in their capitals and it would be possible to analyze a Chinese Emperor's victory celebrations as imitating Roman traditions if you didn't already know that wasn't possible. Surely, the Carolingians and Lombards had a lot more cultural contacts with Romanized peoples than the Chinese and surely some of the ritual obviously descended from the late antique triumph but my personal conclusion is that there was a lot fewer examples of conscious imitatio imperio than the authors would assume.

I don't mean to be negative because I greatly enjoyed the book and learned quite a bit. I came away from it deeply impressed with McCormick's painstaking research. It is an extremely specialized topic and definitely a scholarly work that isn't suited for mainstream lay audiences, but anyone who is interested in the topic would greatly enjoy it.