Learning from Rome

Published on culturekitchen (http://culturekitchen.com)

Learning from Rome

By Michael Bouldin

Created 17 Jan 2007 - 1:13am

The country is undergoing a Rome moment. HBO has a series, titled simply Rome [1], and set during the transition from Republic to Empire; the show has the back page ad in this week's New Yorker. The buzzed-about biography of the moment is by one Adrian Coldsworthy and titled simply 'Caesar'. Over in the wingnutsphere, people are dreaming some feverish dreams of Empire [2], not all of them pleasant.

And of course, our legions are currently much engaged in the precise deserts where Rome once faught; and on our Capitol Hill, some are muttering darkly of war against Persia.

There is, however, something that we can learn from Rome; they knew, at least, what should be done with troublesome emperors.

Roman law knew a concept known as damnatio memoriae [3], the damnation of memory. This encompassed the destruction of all statues, inscriptions, all public records that kept the memory of someone alive. It happened to Nero, for example, and the emperors Domitian and Commodus. Damnatio memoriae was a conscious decision by the state to purge all reminders of the loathsome, the cruel and the evil from the public face of society. It was based, perhaps, on the realization that all truly evil men have vanity at least in common; Caligula, Elagabalus, Mao, Idi Amin. They hope to be remembered fondly [4] one day. That hope can be dashed.

Food for thought, I say.

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Source URL:
http://culturekitchen.com/michael_bouldin/blog/learning_from_rome

Links:
[1] http://www.hbo.com/rome
[2] http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/latulippe4.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae
[4] http://hnn.us/articles/33283.html
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