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Background image: A coin depicting the consul Sejanus, whose name has been counter-marked. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

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  • Writer's pictureCheryl Mackinnon

Issues of Damnatio Memoriae

Updated: Apr 24, 2018

Naturally, the attempted erasure of an individual bears consequences for those who attempt to study the period and its artifacts.

Above: A bust of the emperor Macrinus (217-218 AD), recipient of damnatio memoriae, housed in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Wikimedia Commons.

The results of damnatio memoriae naturally create problems for archaeologists and modern scholars who wish to study and gain information from these ancient monuments and art. As has already been noted, these difficulties often arise when Imperial portraits of those who had received the damnatio are recarved into later Imperial figures, like the example of Nero and Vespasian. In such cases, when the original figure is damaged and then later altered, it can be difficult to surmise who was the original recipient of the damnatio, or even whether the act had ever occurred. However, in some cases, the damnatio worked to preserve the memory of the damned more so than to erase it, and remnants of the damned personage was even sometimes left behind. As a result, a “dynamic dialogue” is formed that archaeologists must unravel.[1]


Many of the affected portraits, as a result,

“defy both identification and chronological classification, despite the fact that they seem to have represented prominent public figures.”[2]

Examples of the difficulties that damnatio memoriae creates are three portraits surviving from the third century, two of which are replicas, believed to be Macrinus. This identification is aided by the fact that Macrinus is believed to have suffered the process after the suppression of his coup, and that two of the portraits (the Conservatori and Capitoline) have suffered deliberate mutilation. However there has been debate concerning the portraits, and arguments have been made that they are, in fact, posthumous portraits of Caracalla and other emperors.[3] The presence of damnatio memoriae in this instance only conflates the issue of the portraits’ identification, in what has already been a difficult case of identification.


However, another example can be taken from the Cancelleria relief, dating to the rule of Domitian. The relief originally showed Domitian - fourth figure from the left - leading a military expedition, with a retinue of figures surrounding him, such as personifications of Rome, the Senate, and the Roman people. However, the face of Domitian has been recarved in order to resemble his successor Nerva (below, courtesy of Helen Simonsson via Flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/). In situations like these, especially, it is easy to mistakenly identify a figure, and thus confuse the intent and subject of the object.



[1] Karl Galinsky, “Recarved Imperial Portraits: Nuance and Wider Context,” Members of the American Academy in Rome 53 (2008), 1, JSTOR.


[2] Susan Wood, “A Too-Successful Damnatio Memoriae: Problems in Third Century Roman Portraiture,” American Journal of Archaeology 87, no. 4 (1983), 489, JSTOR.


[3] Ibid., 492.

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