Hercules, Mummius, and the Roman Triumph in Aeneid 8
2016; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 112; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/689726
ISSN1546-072X
Autores Tópico(s)Historical and Literary Studies
ResumoPrevious articleNext article FreeHercules, Mummius, and the Roman Triumph in Aeneid 8Matthew P. LoarMatthew P. LoarUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreBook 8 of the Aeneid opens with Aeneas finally reaching the future site of Rome, where he meets Evander and the Arcadians sacrificing to Hercules in a grove near the banks of the Tiber. Evander invites the Trojans to share the Arcadians' feast, and after he sates his guests with food and wine he recounts the origins of the Arcadians' ritual, relating how Hercules vanquished the robber-monster Cacus, erstwhile landlord of the Aventine. Evander's initial description of Hercules reveals a triumphant hero, a victor arriving in Rome with the spolia from his prior conquest in tow (8.200–204):1attulit et nobis aliquando optantibus aetasauxilium adventumque dei. nam maximus ultortergemini nece Geryonae spoliisque superbusAlcides aderat taurosque hac victor agebatingentis, vallemque boves amnemque tenebant.Time brought to us in our time of need the aid and arrival of a god. For there came that mightiest avenger, the victor Hercules, proud with the slaughter and the spoils of threefold Geryon, and he drove the mighty bulls here, and the cattle filled both valley and riverside.2Interpreters predominantly read the spoils of threefold (tergeminus) Geryon as a precursor to the triple triumph Vergil envisions Augustus celebrating at the Temple of Apollo Palatinus, depicted on the shield of Aeneas at the book's conclusion (at Caesar, triplici invectus … triumpho, 8.714).3 The textual bond between Hercules and Augustus finds historical support in the "chronological flattening" of Book 8: Aeneas first encounters the Arcadians celebrating the feast of Hercules Invictus at the Ara Maxima on August 12, the same date on which Augustus arrived in Rome in 29 BCE before beginning his triple triumph to commemorate his Actian victory.4 Given Mark Antony's own prior connections with Hercules, this synchronization has been read as part of Augustus' efforts to appropriate Hercules from Antony. As such, interpreters have argued that Vergil similarly highlights Augustus' ties with Hercules in order to punctuate the emperor's triumph over Mark Antony.5Alternatively, I propose that Vergil uses the image of a triumphant Hercules as a way to tap into a rich layer of Republican triumphal history that is instantiated in Rome's monuments, portraying Augustus ultimately as one more in the long line of notable Republican triumphatores.6 In other words, Vergil's triumphant Hercules serves less as a proxy for Augustus' ideological battle with Antony and more as a critical link between Augustus, his Republican predecessors, and the pre-Actian monumental landscape of Rome. Central to this argument is the fact that Hercules' associations with the Roman triumph predate the Augustan period by more than two centuries, and, more importantly, these associations are visibly reified in the many Republican victory temples dedicated to Hercules in Rome. When Evander narrates the arrival of Hercules in Book 8, he evokes Hercules' triumphal associations by alluding to one of these extant victory temples: the Forum Boarium's second-century Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam. As I will argue in this paper, this allusion operates in two complementary ways, each answering the questions of how and where Vergil situates Augustus and his victory monument, the Temple of Apollo Palatinus, in the narrative of Rome's triumphal history. First, within this allusion Evander also recalls the temple's possible dedicator, L. Mummius Achaicus (cos. 146 BCE), who celebrated a triumph in 145 BCE for his previous year's victory over Corinth. The allusion to Mummius and his temple to Hercules at the beginning of Book 8 therefore offers a provocative triumphal pendant for Augustus and his temple to Apollo at the book's end. By this reading, Mummius and his temple encapsulate the Republican triumphal tradition onto which Vergil grafts Augustus.The second interpretation of this allusion, on the other hand, takes a more panoramic view of Rome, its triumphal history, and the role of Hercules' monuments in shaping the contours of that history. Since Mummius' temple to Hercules is only one of a number dedicated to the god in Rome, I suggest that we can read a further level of allusiveness in Evander's original allusion to the temple: the physical structure itself, by its appearance and location, alludes to other similar victory temples and so evokes the memories of other famous Republican triumphatores from the second and first centuries BCE. With one allusive passage centered on Hercules at the beginning of Book 8, Vergil activates a thick network of Republican triumphal associations embodied in Rome's pre-Augustan monumental landscape. Accordingly, while Hercules facilitates Vergil's efforts to position Augustus within Rome's existing triumphal tradition, he also speaks to how Vergil negotiates the visible reminders of Rome's Republican history in crafting his vision of Augustus' Rome.Hercules and the Roman TriumphTo appreciate how readily Vergil could use the figure of Hercules as a metonym for Rome's Republican triumphal past, it is worth briefly outlining Hercules' historical and material associations with the Roman triumph. According to Livy (9.44.16), already by 305 BCE Romans were commemorating military victories by erecting statues to Hercules. Pliny the Elder backdates Hercules' triumphal significations all the way to the time of Evander, crediting the Arcadian king with erecting a statue in the Forum Boarium of Hercules Triumphalis, notable because it would be clothed in triumphal garb during triumphal processions.7 In the second and first centuries BCE, Hercules insinuates himself even more deeply into the Roman triumphal tradition: he begins to appear regularly on triumphal coinage; a number of victory temples are dedicated to him along the triumphal route; and the precincts of some of these temples hosted the Lucullan feasts that would conclude the triumphal celebrations.8Modern scholars agree that anywhere from five to seven temples to Hercules would have been extant in Augustan Rome.9 We can fairly certainly connect five temples to known Republican triumphatores, though not all were necessarily triumphal dedications, per se. Two temples were located in the Campus Martius, where the triumphal procession would first assemble: the Temple of Hercules Musarum, dedicated between 187 and 179 BCE by M. Fulvius Nobilior and renovated shortly after 33 BCE by L. Marcius Philippus, Augustus' stepfather; and the Temple of Hercules Custos, likely renovated by Sulla in the 80s BCE.10 Most significantly for Aeneid 8, the other three known Republican temples cluster in the Forum Boarium, where Aeneas and his men make landfall and find the Arcadians sacrificing to Hercules at the Ara Maxima (8.101–6): the temples of Hercules Aemilianus, Hercules Pompeianus, and Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam. Each of these temples was affiliated with an elite Roman general of the Republican era. P. Scipio Aemilianus likely dedicated the Temple of Hercules Aemilianus in 142 BCE.11 Pompey the Great most likely renovated the Temple of Hercules Pompeianus in the first half of the first century BCE.12 And the triumphator L. Mummius Achaicus probably dedicated the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam (on this question, see below), putting its beginnings around 142 BCE as well. Even the Porta Trigemina, which was incorporated within the course of the old Servian walls encircling the Forum Boarium, may have displayed iconography associated with Hercules.13 Add to these five monuments the statue of Hercules Triumphalis, and the Forum Boarium begins to emerge as the space in Rome most richly evocative of Hercules' Republican connections to the Roman triumph.It should be noted, however, that we have no surviving record—either in inscriptions, coinage, the Res Gestae, or even post-Augustan literature—to indicate that Augustus' capacious building program aided the construction or renovation of any of these monuments to Hercules.14 Nor is there evidence to suggest that Augustus altered the feast day for any of the Hercules temples, as happened with more than a dozen of the thirty-five temples known to have been constructed or renovated between 38 BCE and 17 CE.15 Although the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is suggestive that none of the Hercules monuments are linked explicitly in the Augustan or post-Augustan period with either Augustus or any other members of the imperial family, as so many other structures are. These are, in other words, monuments that continued to recall Rome's Republican past, not its Augustan present. Not only that, but the historical figures behind these temples—M. Fulvius Nobilior, P. Scipio Aemilianus, L. Mummius Achaicus, Sulla, and Pompey—occupy exceptionally prominent places in the annals of Roman history, and we know that at least some were included in the gallery of summi viri erected in the Forum Augustum. Hercules' longstanding monumental associations with such important Republican triumphatores accordingly engenders the thick triumphal atmosphere that Vergil taps into in Book 8.Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam TrigeminamWith this monumental backdrop lurking just on the other side of Evander's Rome, we should not be surprised to find traces of it seeping into Vergil's narrative. When Evander describes Hercules' triumphant advent at the beginning of Book 8, he alludes to one of the Forum Boarium's Republican temples to Hercules: the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam, which stood near the Porta Trigemina.16 Three terms in Evander's description reveal the allusion (8.201–4): nam maximus ultortergemini nece Geryonae spoliisque superbusAlcides aderat taurosque hac victor agebatingentisFor there came that mightiest avenger, the victor Hercules, proud with the slaughter and the spoils of threefold Geryon, and he drove the mighty bulls here.First, the patronymic Alcides stands in for Hercules, which is not scannable in hexameters. Second, the epithet victor disambiguates this iteration of Hercules from the Hercules worshiped at the Ara Maxima, who is apostrophized with the epithet invictus ninety lines later (8.293).17 Third and finally, the adjective tergeminus, used here as an anomalous descriptor for Geryon, is the poetic form of trigeminus.18 Since Aeneas finds the Arcadians sacrificing to Hercules in the Forum Boarium, the conjunction of Alcides, victor, and tergeminus over the span of two lines suggests that Evander is alluding to the Forum Boarium's Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam.19Today, a round temple stands extant on the banks of the Tiber, approximately 100 meters northwest of the likely site of the Porta Trigemina. A peripteral temple that was once faced with expensive Greek Pentelic marble, it was long identified as a temple of Vesta, though it is now more commonly recognized as the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam.20 The temple's original dedication is dated to circa 143–132 BCE, a time of intense construction in and around the Portus Tiberinus. The question of who dedicated this temple and for what purpose remains unresolved. Two opinions prevail: Adam Ziolkowski credits the second-century consul and triumphator L. Mummius Achaicus with the temple's dedication, while Filippo Coarelli attributes its construction to the mercator M. Octavius Herrenus (late second century BCE).21 Coarelli's hypothesis has been most widely adopted. Since my own argument hinges on tying this particular temple's construction to Mummius, I will briefly summarize and assess the strengths and weaknesses of both positions before proceeding.Ziolkowski's claim relies on an intact inscription that commemorates Mummius' dedication of a manubial temple and statue to Hercules Victor following his triumph over Corinth in 146 BCE. The inscription, discovered during eighteenth-century excavations on the Caelian, is etched into a slab of travertine limestone (CIL 6.331 = ILS 20):1. L(ucius) Mummi(us) L(uci) f(ilius) co(n)s(ul) duct(u)2. auspicio imperioque3. eius Achaia capt(a) Corinto4. deleto Romam redieit5. triumphans. ob hasce6. res bene gestas quod7. in bello voverat8. hanc aedem et signu(m)9. Herculis Victoris10. imperator dedicat.Lucius Mummius, son of Lucius, consul, returned to Rome in triumph after Corinth was destroyed and Greece captured under his leadership, auspices, and imperium. On account of these successes, as imperator he dedicates this temple and statue of Hercules Victor which he had vowed in war.Based on its find-spot, scholars tend to assume that the inscription accompanied a shrine located on the Caelian. Ziolkowski notes, however, that no traces of a temple dedicated to Hercules have been found on the Caelian, and we have no evidence to indicate that the cult of Hercules Victor was celebrated anywhere outside the Forum Boarium. Nor would it make much sense for Mummius, a celebrated triumphator whose triumph over Corinth was widely considered to be particularly sumptuous and responsible for introducing all variety of Greek art to Rome, to construct his victory temple on the Caelian instead of in the Forum Boarium.22 Nonetheless, that the inscription is written on travertine and not the expensive marble that once adorned the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam has likewise led most scholars to discount the possibility that the inscription could be affiliated with the Forum Boarium's temple. Ziolkowski answers this concern by suggesting that this inscription may have been attached to some other lesser piece of Mummiana on the Caelian. We do know that Mummius' dedicatory inscriptions were prolific—with the quantity of inscriptions currently ascribed to Mummius exceeding that of any other Republican general—so Ziolkowski's suggestion is not entirely infeasible.23Coarelli, on the other hand, makes his case for the mercator M. Octavius Herrenus based on two sets of evidence. First, he adduces a partial inscription from a Severan-era statue base discovered near the Forum Boarium's temple, which reads ]o Olivarius opus Scopae minoris (CIL 6.33936). Based on a line in the regionary catalogues for Regio XI that lists an unspecified monument to Hercules Olivarius, he reconstructs the inscription as [Hercules Victor cognominatus volg]o Olivarius opus Scopae minoris ("Hercules Victor, called Olivarius, the work of Scopus Minor—for the people"). Considering Hercules' connection with Italian olearii on Delos, Coarelli suggests that the monument to Hercules Olivarius must be affiliated with an oil merchant from the second century BCE, since that coincides with the floruit of the younger Scopas. Coarelli then identifies this merchant as the M. Octavius Herrenus whom Servius and Macrobius, in their commentaries on Aeneid 8.362–63 (Alcides / victor), name as the dedicator of a temple to Hercules Victor in Rome (Serv. Aen. 8.363; Macrob. Sat. 3.6.10). There are, however, three potential issues with Coarelli's hypothesis: first, while the two ancient commentators are attempting to explain the presence of two temples to Hercules Victor in Rome, the one ad portam Trigeminam, the other in foro boario, they do not indicate which is Herrenus'. Second, Servius and Macrobius lose some of their authority since they are writing more than five centuries after the dedication of the Forum Boarium's temple, and they are likely working from the same fourth-century source, perhaps the commentator Donatus or a lexicographer like Festus, as Ziolkowski proposes.24 Third, the sobriquet Olivarius attached to Hercules is likely a later addition, which might make sense since the statue base itself is dated to the Severan era; the adjective olivarius does not appear in Latin literature until the early first century CE, and it is attested in only one other inscription—also on a statue base—which is dated to the middle of the second century CE.25Ultimately, it seems that there are three points on which everybody agrees: (1) L. Mummius Achaicus dedicated a temple to Hercules Victor somewhere in Rome; (2) there existed a temple to Hercules Victor near the Porta Trigemina—that is, even if the origin story that Servius and Macrobius forward is apocryphal, the temple prompting the story is probably real; (3) a round temple stands extant near the Tiber in the Forum Boarium that was most likely dedicated to Hercules. By the criterion of Occam's Razor, Ziolkowski's argument in favor of Mummius as the dedicator of the extant Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam seems most plausible. Through my analysis in the following pages, moreover, I will suggest that we can mobilize Vergil's allusion to the temple in Book 8 as further evidence in support of Ziolkowski's identification.Hercules, Mummius, AugustusL. Mummius Achaicus actually makes an important appearance in the Aeneid, as Anchises includes him and his Corinthian triumph in the parade of heroes in Book 6. And when Anchises announces Mummius' triumph, he does so in language familiar from Mummius' triumphal inscription discussed above (6.836–37):ille triumphata Capitolia ad alta Corinthovictor aget currum caesis insignisAchivis.He [sc. Mummius], triumphant over Corinth and famed for his Greek slaughter, will drive his chariot to the lofty Capitol.In particular, the three terms triumphata, Corintho, and Achivis appear in different forms in Mummius' inscription from the Caelian (3–5), though Anchises here substitutes the etymological relation Achivis for Achaia. Additionally, Vergil's adjective insignis echoes the signu(m) mentioned in the inscription.26 This does not mean that Vergil is necessarily quoting Mummius' triumphal inscription; rather, he may be alluding to the language that elsewhere characterized Mummius' triumph and triumphal dedications.27More suggestively, Vergil replicates elements from Anchises' description of Mummius when Evander narrates the arrival of Hercules, and alludes to Mummius' temple, in Book 8 (8.203–4):Alcides aderat taurosque hac victoragebatingentisHercules Victor came and drove the mighty bulls here.Just as Anchises pictures Mummius as a victor driving (aget) his chariot, Evander envisions Hercules as a victor driving (agebat) his bulls, and in both cases the words appear side-by-side. Notably, the pairing of victor with the verb agere appears only in one other instance in the Aeneid, when Anchises depicts the triumphant Liber as a victor driving his yoke of tigers (agens … tigris, 6.805). Suggestively, Liber is here offered as a matched pair with Hercules, and the famed travels of both deities are presented as paradigms that Augustus himself is prophesied to surpass (6.801–5).28 The proximity of Liber's triumph to Mummius' in Book 6, and its relation to Hercules in the preceding lines, may also work to subtly link Mummius and Hercules.A further bond between Mummius and Hercules lies in their similar triumphs over Greek opponents. Just as Mummius merited fame for slaughtering Greeks (caesis insignis Achivis), Hercules will ultimately earn the Arcadians' devotion in Book 8 for triumphing over Cacus, the Latin transliteration and embodiment of Greek κακός.29 All of this is not to say that Vergil intends Hercules as an avatar for Mummius, but rather that the figure of Hercules evokes memories of Mummius' triumph. When Evander alludes to the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam, these evocations therefore encourage the reader to think not just of the temple, but also of Mummius, its dedicator.By recalling Mummius' triumph through the image of the victor Hercules, Vergil fashions a triumphal frame for Book 8 that now has as its bookends two historical Roman triumphatores and (allusions to) their triumphal monuments: Mummius and the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam, and Augustus and the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. That Mummius and Augustus should be read as triumphal pendants is already suggested by the fact that they are the only two Romans in the Aeneid who are pictured explicitly in triumph (6.836–37; 8.714–16):30ille triumphata Capitolia ad alta Corinthovictor aget currum caesis insignis Achivis.He [sc. Mummius], triumphant over Corinth and famed for his Greek slaughter, will drive his chariot to the lofty Capitol.at Caesar, triplici invectus Romana triumphomoenia, dis Italis votum immortale sacrabat,maxima ter centum totam delubra per urbem.But Caesar in his triple triumph passed the gates of Rome and dedicated to Italy's gods three hundred temples throughout the city for grateful offering and immortal praise.Vergil further singles out the triumphs of Mummius and Augustus by presenting the two men similarly as the inheritors of a triumphal tradition that dates back to the origins of Rome itself. Earlier in Book 6, twenty lines before predicting Mummius' victory, Anchises foretells how Rome's third king, Tullus Hostilius, will awaken Roman armies long unaccustomed to triumphs (desueta triumphis / agmina, 6.814–15). Likewise in Book 8, while the ekphrasis of Aeneas' shield culminates with Augustus' triumph, it begins ninety lines previously with the observation that the shield is engraved with the history of Italy and Rome's triumphs (illic res Italas Romanorumque triumphos, 8.626). These are the only other moments in the Aeneid where Vergil refers to Roman triumphs.31 The parallel setups to Mummius and Augustus' triumphs, coupled with the fact that Mummius and Augustus are the only two Romans in the Aeneid shown in triumph, suggests that Vergil is intentionally forging a bond between these figures.Mummius, then, affords Vergil the means of situating Augustus himself within Rome's triumphal history. Additionally, we can point to an important monument in Rome's triumphal landscape that shares both Mummian and Augustan associations in the Aeneid: the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline. When Anchises describes Mummius' triumph in Book 6, he envisions Mummius ascending the lofty Capitoline (Capitolia ad alta, 6.836), the traditional terminus of the triumphal procession. This is notably the Capitoline's first appearance in the Aeneid.32 The Capitoline appears for a second time in Book 8, when Evander is guiding Aeneas on a tour of the future site of Rome and takes him to the Capitol, the seat of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (8.347–48):hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducitaurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis.From here he leads him up to the Tarpeian rock and the Capitol, golden now, though once thick with bristling brush.Based on the narrative aside that the Capitol is "golden now" (aurea nunc), scholars overwhelmingly interpret the golden temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus as emblematic of the golden age that Augustus ushers in, not least because the temple was one of the most prominent beneficiaries of Augustus' famed rebuilding campaign (RG 20). As such, the Capitol evokes one of the central themes of the Augustan period and therefore redounds to Augustus' legacy. I would suggest, however, that we should be careful not to read the Capitol only as an index of Augustanism, especially in the triumphal context of Book 8. On the contrary, the Capitol already, by virtue of its prominent role in the Republican triumphal tradition, carries strong Republican resonances, and Vergil underscores these resonances in Book 8.In the first place, despite the ideological significance of his renovations, Augustus was not the first to gild the Capitol; that distinction belongs to Mummius, who bedecked the mighty temple with golden roof tiles during his censorship in 142 BCE.33 To speak of the golden Capitol, then, could call to mind either Mummius or Augustus—or both. Secondly, after Evander points out the temple to Aeneas, he tells the Trojan hero that "the Arcadians believe they have seen Jupiter himself" (Arcades ipsum / credunt se vidisse Iovem, 8.352–53). Though this is widely considered a reference to the Temple of Jupiter Tonans dedicated by Augustus in or after 22 BCE, Evander could also be alluding to the statue of Jupiter in a quadriga adorning the apex of the Capitol—an image with rich symbolic meaning for the Republican Roman triumph, as it was in the quadriga that a triumphator would parade through the streets of Rome on his way up to the Capitoline.34 Lastly, in the ekphrasis of Aeneas' shield, one of the most elaborately inscribed scenes records a pivotal moment in Rome's Republican past that centered on the Capitoline: Manlius Capitolinus' defense of the Capitol when the Gauls were besieging Rome in 390 BCE (8.653–54).35 Consequently, for as much as we may be tempted to read the Capitol as an emblem of the new Augustan golden age, Vergil seems equally, if not more, invested in propounding its longstanding Republican associations.My insistence on drawing a sharp line between "Augustan" and "Republican" triumphal traditions reflects the historical evolution of the Roman triumph at the end of the first century. By the time of Vergil's death in 19 BCE, Augustus had not yet rebranded the triumph as a uniquely Augustan honor reserved only for himself and the imperial family, nor had he shifted the terminus of the triumphal procession to the Temple of Mars Ultor in the new Forum Augustum; the triumph was still recognizably a Republican tradition.36 Additionally, it seems implausible to suggest that we could read Augustus' triumph in 29 BCE as a "restoration" of a lost practice, as was the case with rites such as the Ludi Saeculares, for example (RG 22). The so-called Fasti Triumphales, though fragmentary for the years 34–28 BCE, nonetheless would have included approximately seventeen lines of text for this period, implying that the years immediately before and after Actium were not without triumphs.37 Indeed, the erection of these Fasti in 12 BCE next to the consular lists in the Forum would actually confirm Vergil's reading of Augustus' triumph in 29 BCE: Rome's first emperor was, at least during Vergil's lifetime, one in an exceedingly long line of Republican triumphatores.38It is tantalizing to note that a mere six months before Vergil's death in 19 BCE, L. Cornelius Balbus, a naturalized Spaniard from Gades—home to the Temple of Hercules Gaditanus, one of the most important cult sites to Hercules in the western Mediterranean—celebrated what would be the last triumph awarded to a privatus until the triumph of Belisarius in 534 CE.39 Balbus' triumph, more importantly, is the last one listed on the Fasti Triumphales; as Andrew Wallace-Hadrill observes, "there was no room for future triumphs, and the arch [on which were located the Fasti] closed a chapter in Roman triumphal history."40 It is certainly suggestive that, as this chapter in Roman triumphal history came to a close, it was not Augustus who occupied the final line on this stone inscription. Though Augustus does appear among the list of triumphatores etched into the Fasti, it was Balbus, a man with his own connections to Hercules, who signaled the end of an era.41This unexpected conclusion to the Fasti Triumphales echoes Vergil's approach in Aeneid 8: while Vergil appends Augustus to the same triumphal tradition out of which Mummius emerged, he nonetheless maintains the Republican-ness of that tradition, at least insofar as Rome's triumphal monuments are concerned. Augustus may follow in the footsteps of Rome's Republican triumphatores by dedicating a victory temple to Apollo, but his temple on the Palatine is not incorporated into Rome's pre-Augustan triumphal landscape; it occupies its own, newly consecrated space in Rome, separate from the city's established triumphal foci.In articulating his vision of Augustus' Rome, then, Vergil emphasizes the still live and still resonant influences of the city's Republican triumphal tradition, even with the addition of new Augustan monuments. This explains why Vergil inaugurates his introduction to the city of Rome in Book 8 with the victor Hercules arriving in the Forum Boarium: he anchors his narrative in a place that speaks loudly to Rome's pre-Augustan history, a place that is populated with a number of monuments related to Hercules, Rome's first triumphator avant la lettre. After all, locating Hercules in the Forum Boarium enables Vergil to put his reader in mind not only of the Ara Maxima, the one Hercules monument that is named explicitly in Book 8 (8.271–72), but also of the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam and, by extension, any number of other related Republican monuments.Triumphal NetworksWith the remainder of this paper, I want to build on this point and offer a second way of understanding how Vergil's allusion to Mummius' temple can operate in Book 8, proposing that Vergil could be working at a much more suggestive level with this reference. Not only can the allusion summon the memory of Mummius, the temple's dedicator, but it can also serve as an enticement to visualize the temple in its physical environment, to contextualize it among its neighboring structures, and to situate it in its historical moment. According to this logic, Vergil's allusion can spur the reader to recollect three categories of related monuments in Rome: other temples dedicated to Hercules, other monuments in and around the Forum Boarium, and other temples dedicated to commemorate the conquests of 146 BCE, the year in which Mummius vanquished Corinth. Additionally, since each monument carries with it memories of its dedicator or patron, recalling other monuments that are like the Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam entails recalling the famed Republican figur
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