Ancient & Modern | 14 February 2009

‘On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.’ So said President Obama on his inauguration.

‘On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.’ So said President Obama on his inauguration. It is not often that an American President so immediately, so publicly and so thoroughly trashes his predecessor. The Romans had a phrase for it: damnatio memoriae. It applied after the death of anyone considered a state enemy.

There was no standard package of retribution. It could involve anything from removal of images and fines to confiscation of property and exile of family members. When the emperor Domitian was assassinated in ad 96, the senate (Suetonius tells us) ‘attacked him in the most violent and abusive way. They ordered ladders to be brought so that his shields and images could be torn down and thrown to the ground while they looked on, and finally decreed that his name was to be erased everywhere and all reminders of him destroyed.’ And so it happened, down to the very last detail: go to the museum at Chesters (Hadrian’s Wall) and you will find a bronze corn measure with Domitian’s name on it, scrupulously removed.

The emperor Vitellius actually witnessed his damnatio. When Vespasian’s army swept into Rome to claim the imperial crown for their man, Tacitus tells us that Vitellius was dragged out of his hiding place, hands tied behind his back, clothes ripped, and led through the streets to the jeers and curses of the mob, while soldiers forced him to keep his head up and watch statues of himself being thrown to the ground.