Description:
<jats:p>The damnatio memoriae practice is attested as far back as the republican period where, following a senatorial decision taken further to a trial, dignitaries’ memory is erased : their course in the city’s life is not retained. Tacitus and Suetonius’ historical works indicate that, regarding the damnatio memoriae, the innovation of Augustus and Tiberius founding reigns consists in the creation of a fixed procedure, by which the Senate is the only political instance capable of voting a damnatio memoriae decision, and in the fact that the materializations of such decision are henceforth applicable to the public life. This procedure, initially dedicated to bad emperors, finally also reach private persons. In addition to this official form of damnatio memoriae, more spontaneous forms are attested, that implicate the People to a greater extent. They take the form of outbursts of support or, on the contrary, of rejection of these sentences. Finally, the officialization and the multiplication of the damnatio memoriae causes the anticipation of such decisions or the rehabilitation of those having undergone it.</jats:p>