7.7.2026 – its damnatio

its damnatio
memoriae in latin
rewriting the past

From Wikipedia, “Damnatio memoriae (Classical Latin pronunciation: [damˈnaːti.oː mɛˈmɔri.ae̯]) is a modern Latin phrase meaning “condemnation of memory” or “damnation of memory”, indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts, or remembered after death in a way contrary to what that person may have desired.

In ancient Rome, the practice of damnatio memoriae was the condemnation of emperors after their deaths. If the Senate or a later emperor did not like the acts of an emperor, they could have his property seized, his name erased and his statues reworked (normally defaced).

Compounding this difficulty is the fact that a completely successful damnatio memoriae results—by definition—in the full and total erasure of the subject from the historical record. In the case of figures such as emperors or consuls it is unlikely that complete success was possible, as even comprehensive obliteration of the person’s existence and actions in records and the like would continue to be historically visible without extensive reworking. The impracticality of such a cover-up could be vast—in the case of Emperor Geta, for example, coins bearing his effigy proved difficult to entirely remove from circulation for several years, even though the mere mention of his name was punishable by death.

The impossibility of actually erasing memory of an emperor has led scholars to conclude that this was not actually the goal of damnatio. Instead, they understand damnatio:

not so much as an attempt to obliterate memory entirely as to transform honorific commemoration into a form of visible denigration. That is: the power of an act of damnatio relies, at least in part, on the viewer of a monument being able to supplement the gaps in an inscription with their own knowledge of what those gaps had once contained, and the reasons why the text had been removed — Polly Low, "Remembering, Forgetting, and Rewriting the Past

In the United States you can find an example of the concept of Damnatio memoriae in the Old Chapel at West Point.

Inside this chapel, George Washington and all his Generals havea plaque in their memory.

One plaque looks like this:

It is there in honor of this feller named Benedict Arnold.

This same feller has a monument on the Battlefield at Saratoga where this same feller led an attack on the Redcoats.

Notice again, no name.

The next generation in Washington going have a lot of Damnatio memoriae to do but I will volunteer to help if I can.