Triumphant Afterlife

It’s hard to stop once you get a good ceremony going, Mary Beard shows in her 2007 The Roman Triumph . She notes that the last actual Roman triumph took place sometime between the fourth and sixth century but that didn’t stop imitators:

“Renaissance princelings launched hundreds of triumphal celebrations. Napoleon carted through the streets of Paris the sculpture and painting he had seized in Italy, in pointed imitation of a Roman triumph. As late as 1899 the victories of Admiral George Dewey in the Spanish-American War were celebrated with a triumphal parade in New York. True, no live captives or spoils were on show; but a special triumphal arch was built, in plaster and wood, at Madison Square.”