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Exhibits from the exhibition ‘Cursus Honorum: The Government of Rome before Caesar’  (2022-3, MuseiiCapitolini)

Left: Sketch (1574) of Duilius’ rostrated column published by Antonio Lafreri

Right: Components of the [original? restored?] column

The fasti Triumphales record that Duilus, as consul of 260 BC, celebrated:

1. “... the first naval triumph [in Roman history], over the Sicilians and the Carthaginian fleet.”
   

As Mathew Roller (referenced below, at p. 120and note 4) observed that, this is one of eleven known ‘naval’ triumphs, but the differences between ‘regular’ and ‘naval’ triumphs are not discernible from our surviving sources.  Roller also observed (at pp. 120-1) that:

1. “The story goes that ... [the naval battle of 260 BC was the Romans’] first set naval battle, ... [and that they] employed their first purpose-built fleet of warships [at this time. ... [Two] contemporary or near-contemporary ‘monuments’ also commemorated this victory:
   

2. ✴... like many other mid-Republican commanders, [Duilius] erected a temple (in this case, to Janus in the Forum Holitorium), [which was] presumably paid for from the spoils of victory);  ... and
   

3. ✴[he] devised a victory monument [see the illustrations above], [the] form [of which] was novel at the time:
   

4. •atop a podium stood a column, to which were affixed the bronze rams (rostra ) of captured enemy ships; and
   

5. •atop this column stood a statue of the victor.
   

6. The podium bore an inscription, a version of which survives [see below]. ...  This monument was erected near the Comitium, in the northwest corner of the Forum Romanum.
   

An inscription (CIL VI 1300) in the Musei Capitolini (relating to Duilius’ exploits in 260 BC (from the website Livius)

An inscription (CIL VI 1300), which probably belonged to a slightly longer description of Duilius’ achievements as consul in 260 BC, was found in the Forum, near the Arch of Septimius Severus.  Given the combination of content and find-spot, it is usually assumed to have come from Duilius’ victory monument.  How, it is not original: as Andrew Riggsby (referenced below, at p. 198, note 23) pointed out:

1. “The surviving text shows deliberate and often misleading archaisms, making its dating uncertain.  [However, it might well  follow] a Republican original, at least in outline, if not in phrasal detail.”
   

Alyson  Roy pointed out that:

1. “The inscription emphasises two critical components that contributed to a general’s prestige in Rome:
   

2. ✴the magnitude of his victory; and
   

3. ✴the ‘stuff’, including people, that he seized as plunder. 
   

4. ... The importance of [Duilius’] exploits in Roman memory is evident in the fact that [his original] inscription was [probably] restored multiple times, with the last restoration [probably] taking place under Emperor Claudius.” 
   

Eric Kondrieff (referenced below, at p. 14) translated the text of the inscription above as follows:

1. “ As consul, [Duilius] freed the Segestans - allies of the Roman People -/ from the Carthaginian siege, and all the Carthaginian legions/ [after which], (their) highest official, by daylight, openly, after nine/ days, fled from their camp.  And the [nearby] town of Macella/ he captured in battle.  And, in that same magistracy, he was/ the first consul to successfully wage war in ships at sea [at Mylae - see below]; crews/ and fleets of warships he was the first to equip and train;/ and with these ships, the Punic fleets and likewise all/ the mighty hosts of the Carthaginians, with Hannibal - their/ dictator - present, he defeated in battle on the high seas./  And, by force, he captured, with their crews: one septireme;/ and 30 quinquiremes and triremes, and he sank 13 ships.
   

2. ✴[Avro]m captom numei (gold coins captured: 3,700 (?);
   

3. ✴[Arcen]tom captom praeda numei (silver coins captured [and] from the sale of booty: 100,000 (++?);
   

4. ✴[Omne] captum aes ([value of] all bronze captured): [equivalent to 3.5 to 4.1 million asses  in actual coinage - see p. 20].
   

5. And, at his triumph, he presented the people with naval booty/ and many free-born Carthaginians he led before his chariot ...”
   

We know from Polybius (‘Histories’, 1: 23: 2) that Duilius’ famous naval battle took place off Mylae (in northeastern Sicily).  

Naval’ aes signatum (ca. 260 BC ?), adapted from Eric Kondrieff (referenced below, at pp. 36-7, figs 4, 5 and 6a)

               (RRC 10) anchor/ tripod                           (RRC 11) trident/caduceus                 (RRC 12) feeding cocks and stars/

                                                                          (symbolising Neptune and Mercury)                      rostra and dolphins

Eric Kondrieff (referenced below, at p. 20) argued that, the inscription above suggests that, during his campaigns at Segesta, Marcella and Mylae:

1. “Duilius captured 1,069 - 1,247 tons of bronze, equivalent to 3.5 to 4.1 million asses in actual coinage (at the weight of ca. 270 gm per as).  That he would claim to have acquired such a huge quantity of bronze seems at first sight incredible.  ... [However], there is a near-contemporary, near-equivalent precedent cited by Livy [at ‘History of Rome’, 10: 46: 2-6], for the year 293 BC, a generation before Duilius’ consulship.”
   

He also argued (at pp. 25-7) that:

1. “... the inscription’s claim that Duilius gave naval booty to the people ‘at his triumph’ ... [indicates] that Duilius actually shared some of [this] wealth with the citizens after the customary distributions to his own soldiers.  [If so, then the]  next question is: how, and in what form, was so much money distributed? ... [He] would have needed a very large amount of bronze coinage and a convenient format in which to distribute [it], such as the aes signatum, a special, multiple-as bronze coinage which required smaller numbers to distribute larger cash values.”
   

Michael Crawford (referenced below, at pp. 131-3) catalogued all the known examples of the Roman aes signatum as RRC 3-12.  He observed (at pp. 41-2, note 5) that:

1. “The almost uniformly martial types [of these ingots] suggest the hypothesis that aes signatum was created for the distribution of booty after a victory … [and], in any case, it is clear that aes signatum, once issued, was treated as bullion ...”.
   

He also observed (at p. 718) that the iconography of what he believed were the last three aes signatum (his RRC 10, RRC 11 and RRC 12 illustrated above) in the series:

1. “... apparently allude to success in the First Punic War.”
   

Eric Kondrieff (referenced below, at p 28) set out to prove that:

1. “... Duilius himself had issued [RRC 10, RRC 11 and RRC 12] to distribute at his triumph.”
   

He reinforced the points made by Crawford (above), adding (at p. 30) that each of them:

1. “... includes one certainly maritime image [anchor/ trident/ rostra and dolphins] and another, somewhat ambivalent image that could also relate to victories on land.  Of course, none can doubt that Duilius intended to celebrate his achievements in both spheres of activity, since ... the [inscription above] emphasises details of his capture of Segesta and Macella as well as those of his naval victory at Mylae.”
   

According to Tacitus, in 17 AD, the Emperor Tiberius:

1. “... dedicated the temples that had been ruined by age or fire and restored by [the recently-deceased] Augustus.  These included ... Iano templum (the shrine of Janus), which had been built in the Forum Holitorium by C. Duilius, who primus rem Romanam prospere (was the first Roman to mount a successful naval campaign) and [thereby] earned a naval triumph over the Carthaginians.  [At about the same time], Germanicus [Julius Caesar, Tiberius’ nephew], dedicated the [nearby] temple of Spes, which had been vowed by A. Atilius in the same war”, (‘Annals’, 2: 49). 
   

Indeed, these coins — and the associated rostral

column — should be seen as harbingers of a new Roman ideology, one in which Rome

is envisaged as mistress of what would become mare nostrum.

set out to establish that:

“ ... Duilius himself had the ‘naval’ aes signatum issued to distribute at his triumph.”

Lines 13-16

of the inscription seem to imply that Duilius had an enormous supply of bronze on hand

for distribution at his triumph. Much of it would likely have been converted to bronze

coinage — since Romans used their unwieldy bronze currency almost exclusively in

local transactions — perhaps from pre-existing stocks acquired in the sale of booty in

Italy or around Rome, just as the silver coinage displayed in his triumph is explicitly

stated to have come from the sale of praeda .111  It is also possible that some of the requisite

bronze coinage was obtained, at least in part, by melting down captured bronze

rams, naval implements and the like seized from the Carthaginians,