monarchy and with the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus: the purple and gold "toga picta", laurel crown, red boots and, again possibly, the red-painted face of Rome's supreme deity. He was drawn in procession through the city in a four-horse chariot, under the gaze of his peers and an applauding crowd, to the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. His spoils and captives led the way; his armies followed behind. Once at the Capitoline temple, he sacrificed two white oxen to Jupiter, and laid tokens of victory at the feet of Jupiter's statue, thus dedicating the triumph to the Roman Senate, people, and gods. Triumphs were tied to no particular day, season, or religious festival of the Roman calendar. Most seem to have been celebrated at the earliest practicable opportunity, probably on days that were deemed auspicious for the occasion. Tradition required that, for the duration of a triumph, every temple was open. The ceremony was thus, in some sense, shared by the whole community of Roman gods, but overlaps were inevitable with specific festivals and anniversaries. Some may have been coincidental; others were designed. For example, March 1, the festival and dies natalis of the war god Mars, was the traditional anniversary of the first triumph by Publicola (504 BCE), of six other Republican triumphs, and of the very first Roman triumph by Romulus. Pompey postponed his third and most magnificent triumph for several months to make it coincide with his own dies natalis (birthday). Religious dimensions aside, the focus of the triumph was the general himself. The ceremony promoted him – however temporarily – above every mortal Roman. This was an opportunity granted to very few. From the time of Scipio Africanus, the triumphal general was linked (at least for historians during the Principate) to Alexander and the demi-god Hercules, who had laboured selflessly for the benefit of all mankind. His sumptuous triumphal chariot was bedecked with charms against the possible envy (invidia) and malice of onlookers. In some accounts, a companion or public slave would remind him from time to time of his own mortality (a memento mori). The procession Rome's earliest "triumphs" were probably simple victory parades, celebrating the return of a victorious general and his army to the city, along with the fruits of his victory, and ending with some form of dedication to the gods. This is probably so for the earliest legendary and later semi-legendary triumphs