Roman historian Suetonius, writing in the first century A.D., recorded that people from all over Italy attended.
There, two fleets of biremes, triremes, and quadriremes with 4,000 galley slaves and 2,000 crew members on board clashed in a full-scale reconstruction of a naval battle. In addition to the excitement caused by the exhibition of a giraffe-dubbed a “camleopard” because it resembled a cross between a camel and leopard-Romans witnessed the preparations for another astonishing spectacle that would be the culmination of the festivities: a naval battle on a man-made lake built in the Campus Martius filled with water from the nearby Tiber River. Writing nearly two centuries later, the Roman historian Dio Cassius describes how in the first few days of his triumph the recently proclaimed dictator “proceeded homeward with practically the entire populace escorting him, while many elephants carried torches.” Julius Caesar had just returned, having crushed the followers of his great rival, Pompey the Great. that would be remembered for many years to come. The people of Rome threw a party in 46 B.C.
