Anonymity, Violation, and Memory Loss

The inscribed texts on funerary monuments play an important role in naming the deceased and his or her position in society. As Connerton highlights, the fact that something is inscribed demonstrates a will to be remembered. If there is one thing that the majority of epitaphs have in common it is the naming of the deceased. How important was the survival of one’s name? For Pliny the Younger, at least, nothing affected him so strongly ‘as the desire of a lasting name’.2 This sentiment is echoed in the epitaph of Marcus Antonius Antius Lupus, a military tribune put to death by the emperor Commodus. The inscription expressed the conviction that despite his treatment by Commodus his name would be a cause for perpetual celebration.

Ancient history · Anonymity · Art · Conviction · Emperor · Epistemology · Epitaph · Genealogy · Inscribed figure · Literature · Nothing · Political science · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law · Philosophy