| Damnatio Memoriae |
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| ancient rome | |
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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. PRACTICE Its most visible practice was in the condemnation of unpopular Emperor s 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. SIMILAR PRACTICES IN OTHER SOCIETIES The Cartouche s 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 " Unperson s" in George Orwell 's Dystopia n 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 . SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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