Members of the Imperial family were often the target of damnatio memoriae.
Above: An inscription to Julia Domna, the mother of Geta, from Kainepolis in Greece which has the name of Geta chiselled off. Source: Chelsea Gardner.
Scholars know most about damnatio memoriae and the Imperial family, where members could be ascribed with the term and their artistic and epigraphical representations affected as a result. Male members of the Imperial family were often labelled as enemies of the state, like Nero, Commodus and Geta, whereas the political transgressions of women were often veiled by contemporary’s accusations of sexual misconduct. There are many known cases of damnatio memoriae perpetuated against male members of the Imperial family, many of them from the century following Augustus. Many of them were not officially branded with the condemnation, but instead received it de facto. Nevertheless, the process enacted upon their art in the Roman world was much the same as those who received the official condemnation. An examination of the process and its results pertaining to Imperial men will now be explored.
Perhaps best known for receiving damnatio memoriae are the emperors of Rome themselves. Among them Domitian, Geta, Maxentius, and Licinius; Caligula and Nero are both associated with the process in spite of not formally receiving the condemnation. And, though the Senate did ascribe damnatio memoriae to Commodus, it was later removed by his successor Septimius Severus. Sculptures that serve to display the damnatio of Domitian are the Puteoli Marble Blocks, dated to the turn of the second century CE. Currently located in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the first block bears on one side a relief of three Roman soldiers, while the back also bears an erased inscription of Domitian. The second block was later identified as belonging to this set, however features the emperor Trajan.[1] The inscription with which we are concerned was an honorific inscription to the emperor Domitian, who was given damnatio memoriae by the senate after his murder in 96 CE. As opposed to solely removing the name of Domitian, the entire text concerning his person was removed. It is believed that after the text was removed, possibly as a public act, that the block was reused for an arch dedicated to Trajan.[2] The case of the Puteoli blocks demonstrate the manner in which the damnationes of emperors were framed, often a result of a badly received reign, and in order to remove the memory of its existence and effects, as well as to enable the following emperor to come into his own position. Of Domitian’s damnatio memoriae, Pliny the Younger, a prominent Roman senator writes:
“How delightful it was, to smash to pieces those arrogant faces, to raise our swords against them, to cut them ferociously with our axes, as if blood and pain would follow our blows.”[3]
The emperor Nero represents a unique situation, as though he was not officially labelled with damnatio, his memory and objects in the Roman world were subject to erasure and destruction. Nero’s de-facto damnatio arose primarily from his successor, Vespasian, who subjected Nero’s legacy to erasure in order to highlight his predecessor Claudius and align himself with his personage.[4] The results of this can be noted in the re-cutting of Nero’s portraits into those of Vespasian, of which there were many. One example of such a re-cutting can be found in the Cleveland Museum, which is believed to have been re-cut from one of Nero’s final portrait types, dated to circa 64-68 CE.[5] This, then, is another way in which the images and presence of the emperors labelled with damnatio were removed from public view. Featured below is the bust of Vespasian from the Cleveland Museum, courtesy of Jeff Hart via Flickr (Public Domain License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
However, perhaps the most widely known and politically-embroiled case of damnatio is that of Geta, who served as co-emperor with his brother Caracalla until he was murdered by Caracalla in 211 CE. The brothers formed part of the Severan dynasty, being the sons of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna. There are several known monuments and pieces of art within the Roman world that scholars are aware of that had been purposefully altered to remove the image of Geta, one of which was the Arch of the Argentarii located in the Forum Boarium, dated to 204 CE.
Geta was removed from the arch in two ways: first, his name was erased from the text, and second, his figure being removed from the scenes.[6] For example, on one relief which shows Caracalla, the figure of Geta (who would have been standing next to him) as been erased (left, courtesy of F. Tronchin via Flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/). The Arch of the Argentarii is unique in the fact that it was a private commission, by the Argentarii brothers, who were bankers or silversmiths.[7] Another brilliant example of Geta's damnatio is pictured below, on a painted tondo located in the Altes Museum in Berlin. It shows the family of Septimius Severus, but Geta's face has been erased (Wikimedia Commons). That the erasure of Geta was able to reach both public and private monuments demonstrates the possible pervasiveness of damnatio memoriae.
[1] Harriet Flower, “A Tale of Two Monuments: Domitian, Trajan, and Some Praetorians at Puteoli (AD 1973, 137),” American Journal of Archaeology 105, no. 4 (2001): 625, JSTOR.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Pliny the Younger, Panegyric, 52.4-5.
[4] Harriet Flower, “Damnatio Memoriae and Epigraphy,” in From Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny & Transformation in Roman Portraiture, ed. Eric Varner (Georgia: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2000): 62.
[5] John Pollini, “Damnatio Memoriae in Stone: Two Portraits of Nero Recut to Vespasian in American Museums,” American Journal of Archaeology 88, no. 4 (1984): 550-551, JSTOR.
[6] Harriet Flower, "Damnatio Memoriae and Epigraphy", 65.
[7] Steven Tuck, A History of Roman Art (United Kingdom: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 287.