United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sound in body and mind, a capable athlete, who even when a superior officer vied with his soldiers in leaping, running, and lifting, a vigorous and skilled rider and fencer, a bold leader of volunteer bands, the youth had become Imperator and triumphator at an age which excluded him from every magistracy and from the senate, and had acquired the first place next to Sulla in public opinion; nay, had obtained from the indulgent regent himself half in recognition, half in irony the surname of the Great.
When a death occurred in the family, suitable persons, chiefly actors, were dressed up with these face-masks and the corresponding official costume to take part in the funeral ceremony, so that the ancestors each in the principal dress worn by him in his lifetime, the triumphator in his gold-embroidered, the censor in his purple, and the consul in his purple-bordered, robe, with their lictors and the other insignia of office all in chariots gave the final escort to the dead.
When a death occurred in the family, suitable persons, chiefly actors, were dressed up with these face-masks and the corresponding official costume to take part in the funeral ceremony, so that the ancestors each in the principal dress worn by him in his lifetime, the triumphator in his gold-embroidered, the censor in his purple, and the consul in his purple-bordered, robe, with their lictors and the other insignia of office all in chariots gave the final escort to the dead.
In this sense the Roman aristocracy had been at all times hereditary; in fact, it had displayed its hereditary character with great naivete in the old custom of the senator taking his sons with him to the senate, and of the public magistrate decorating his sons, as it were by anticipation, with the insignia of the highest official honour the purple border of the consular, and the golden amulet-case of the triumphator.
More than once this had been mentioned even among the Augustians, but never before had Petronius had a clearer view of this truth that the laurelled chariot on which Rome stood in the form of a triumphator, and which dragged behind a chained herd of nations, was going to the precipice. The life of that world-ruling city seemed to him a kind of mad dance, an orgy, which must end.
Imperator Caesar Flavius Justinianus Africanus, Gothicus, Germanicus, Vandalicus, and I know not what else Pius, Felix, Inclytus, Victor ac Triumphator, Semper Augustus The other laid a hand upon his shoulder. 'Marcian, no word of this to Aurelia, I charge you! 'I have no desire to talk about it, be assured. But it is time that we understood each other. Be plain with me.
Much of the spoils was likewise assigned to the sharers in the campaign. Some have been known to extend their distributions even to the entire populace and have gone to expense for the festival and obtained public appropriations: if anything was left over, they would spend it for temples, porticos or for some public work. After these ceremonies the triumphator ascended his chariot.
Word Of The Day