Damnatio memoriae

From Free net encyclopedia

Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "damnation of memory", in the sense of removed from the remembrance. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman Empire.

1 Explanation
2 Practice
3 Similar practices in other societies
4 See also
5 External links

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Explanation

The sense of the expression Damnatio memoriae and of the sanction is to cancel every trace of the person from the life of Rome, as if he had never existed, in order to preserve the honour of the Urbs; in a town that stressed the social appearance, respectability and the pride of being a civis romanus as a fundamental requirement of the citizen, it was perhaps the severest punishment.

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Practice

Its most visible practice was in the condemnation of unpopular Emperors upon their deaths. The first emperor to be so condemned was Caligula who reigned 37-41, followed by Nero. Similarly, the Roman senate condemned the reviled emperor Commodus who reigned from 180–192, shortly after his death, and restoring the proper name of the city of Rome and its institutions which had been renamed in Commodus' honour during his lifetime. Another notable example is the damnatio memoriae of Geta by his brother Caracalla.

Upon passage of the damnatio memoriae, the person's name was stricken from any rolls of honor on which he may have appeared - some of them were called memoriae. In the case of the Roman Emperors so condemned, their statues were destroyed and their name removed from public buildings.

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Similar practices in other societies

The cartouches of the heretical pharaoh Akhnaton were mutilated by his successors. Pharaoh Thutmosis III did similarly on those of his sister and predecessor Queen Hatshepsut when he assumed sole power

Herostratus set fire to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus to become famous. The Ephesus leaders decided that his name should never be repeated again.

Marino Faliero, fifty-fifth Doge of Venice, was condemned to damnatio memoriae after a failed coup d'état.

A famous example of the concept of damnatio memoriae in modern usage is the "vaporization" of "unpersons" in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four in the quote "He did not exist; he never existed". Rumor among students at Harvard College holds that a special punishment is reserved for persons who falsified application materials; the College "expunges" the falsifier's record, damning his memory from any record of having associated with the institution.

More modern examples of damnatio memoriae in actual practice was the removal of portraits, books, doctoring people out of pictures, and any other traces of Josef Stalin's opponents during the Great Purge.

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