TRŎPAEUM (τρόπαιον, _Att._ τροπαῖον), a trophy, a sign and memorial
of victory, which was erected on the field of battle where the enemy
had turned (τρέπω, τρόπη) to flight; and in case of a victory gained
at sea, on the nearest land. The expression for raising or erecting
a trophy is τροπαῖον στῆσαι or στήσασθαι, to which may be added ἀπὸ
or κατὰ τῶν πολεμίων. When the battle was not decisive, or each party
considered it had some claims to the victory, both erected trophies.
Trophies usually consisted of the arms, shields, helmets, &c. of the
enemy that were defeated; and these were placed on the trunk of a
tree, which was fixed on some elevation. The trophy was consecrated
to some divinity, with an inscription (ἐπίγραμμα), recording the
names of the victors and of the defeated party; whence trophies were
regarded as inviolable, which even the enemy were not permitted to
remove. Sometimes, however, a people destroyed a trophy, if they
considered that the enemy had erected it without sufficient cause.
That rankling and hostile feelings might not be perpetuated by the
continuance of a trophy, it seems to have been originally part of
Greek international law that trophies should be made only of wood,
and not of stone or metal, and that they should not be repaired when
decayed. It was not, however, uncommon to erect trophies of metal.
Pausanias speaks of several which he saw in Greece. The trophies
erected to commemorate naval victories were usually ornamented with
the beaks or acroteria of ships [ACROTERIUM; ROSTRA]; and were
generally consecrated to Poseidon or Neptune. Sometimes a whole ship
was placed as a trophy. The Romans, in early times, never erected any
trophies on the field of battle, but carried home the spoils taken in
battle, with which they decorated the public buildings, and also the
private houses of individuals. [SPOLIA.] Subsequently, however, the
Romans adopted the Greek practice of raising trophies on the field
of battle. The first trophies of this kind were erected by Domitius
Ahenobarbus and Fabius Maximus in B.C. 121, after their conquest of
the Allobroges, when they built at the junction of the Rhone and the
Isara towers of white stone, upon which trophies were placed adorned
with the spoils of the enemy. Pompey also raised trophies on the
Pyrenees after his victories in Spain; Julius Caesar did the same
near Ziela, after his victory over Pharnaces; and Drusus, near the
Elbe, to commemorate his victory over the Germans. Still, however, it
was more common to erect some memorial of the victory at Rome than on
the field of battle. The trophies raised by Marius to commemorate his
victories over Jugurtha and the Cimbri and Teutoni, which were cast
down by Sulla, and restored by Julius Caesar, must have been in the
city. In the later times of the republic, and under the empire, the
erection of triumphal arches was the most common way of commemorating
a victory, many of which remain to the present day. [ARCUS.]
[Illustration: Trophy of Augustus. (Museo Capitolino, vol i. tav. 5.)]