A Damnatio Memoriae for the Digital Age

In a courtyard of the Capitoline Museum in Rome are remnants of a monumental sculpture of  Emperor Constantine.  Clumped together in no particular order are bits of a colossal marble arm, a leg, a knee, feet that dwarf us mere mortals, a hand pointing heavenward and a head with its massive eyeballs focused far above and beyond you.  The fragments, disconcerting as they are, start to reveal a deeper secret as you wander around them.  The extremities are very naturalistic - the feeling of veins muscle and tissue are coaxed from the marble.  But that iconic head is, well, iconic.  It is stiff and stylised.  The hair is suggested with the most rudimentary carving.  And the proportions seem a little out of whack. It doesn't look like it belongs with the other body parts.  Something happened way back when.   

Back when in the 3rd century AD, the unending political chaos of the Roman Empire ultimately lead to the formation of a new power sharing structure between Diocletian (ruled 284-305) and Maximian (ruled 286-305) called the Tetrarchy which for awhile brought stability.  But the planned orderly succession of power upon their joint abdication did not go so orderly and rapidly devolved back into chaos and ultimately a civil war between Maxentius, who controlled Italy and the African provinces and Constantine who controlled Britain, Gaul, Spain and the Rhineland.  While Constantine was busy trying to consolidate support up north, Maxentius began and extensive building program in Rome to win the "hearts and minds" of the population and restore the status of the ancient capitol.  He built large and luxuriously.  He restored the Hadrianic era Temple of Venus and Roma which had been destroyed by fire, built an enormous new basilica in the Roman Forum and began a new bath complex on the Quirinal hill.  On October 28 in the year 312, Maxentius exited his newly fortified walls of Rome to confront Constantine in the final battle for power at Milvian Bridge, just north of the city.  The outcome irrevocably changed history.  (Maxentius lost).  Following his victory, Constantine did all he could to wipe the defeated adversary's name from the memory of the city's inhabitants.  A Damnatio Memoriae was enacted.

Damnatio Memoriae is the dishonor of memory where traces of the offending individual were rubbed out - literally and figuratively.  It was the cancel culture of the ancient world.  Maxentius was not the first to be hit with this decree, nor was he the last; just another in a long line.  Septimius Severus was to co-rule with his brother, Geta, but that didn't work out.  Septimius had Geta murdered within a year of acquiring power and all images of his sibling were chiseled out of existence, leaving some unusual "gaps" in the physical record.  Marcus Aurelius did the same to his adoptive brother and co-emperor, Lucius Verus. The bronze colossus that once stood next to the Flavian Amphitheater (now known by the generic name of colosseum) was originally a statue of Nero residing within the confines of his Domus Aurea.  After the "unexpected" death of that emperor, and the subsequent official decree of damnatio memoriae, the bronze colossus was moved a few hundred yards, underwent some changes to the head, and was thus transformed into a statue of Apollo that served as an ornament to the newly built arena.  

Severan family portrait (with face of Geta removed)

The discordant head of Constantine at the Capitoline Museum has a similar story.  The enormous statue was actually of Maxentius housed in the enormous basilica he built.  A quick recarving of the head after Maxentius' defeat and it was now Constantine who presided over the basilica.

The events of the last months of the Trump administration made me think of the machinations and jockeying for power of imperial wannabes in late antiquity.  I began to wonder if the decree of Damnatio Memoriae had any resonance today.  Then Corporate America stepped in:

As a post script, Representative Joaquin Castro has introduced legislation to ban Trump's name from being used on federal property.

Sancta Prepuce

Two words:  Conspiracy Theories.  No matter how outrageous, how convoluted or how devoid of analytical thought, our country is gripped by them them.  They are the currency of today.  Internet fame is conferred upon those that peddle them.  Media empires are built upon amplifying them, and then they re-enforce them through endless repetition for fear of loosing market share.  Well, I have my own conspiracy theory and it centers around today's Feast of the Holy Circumcision (January 1st) and one questionable relic.  

Relics were the conspiracy theories of the middle ages.  They were actively traded and monetised; they brought wealth and prestige to the churches and abbeys that housed them. They were engines of economic growth.  Beyond the mundane bits of bone and fragments of the true cross, there were many more outlandish ones including milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary, along with her belt that she inadvertently left behind when she ascended into heaven.  There was also the manger that the baby Jesus was placed in and the lance that pierced his side.  Possibly the most peculiar relic, and the one that my conspiracy theory revolves around, is the Sancta Prepuce, or the foreskin of Jesus.  Jesus, born a Jew, would have been circumcised 8 days after birth.

December 25, in the year 800, Charlemagne, King of the Frankish kingdoms, was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in St Peter's in Rome.  Among the gifts Charlemagne gave to Pope Leo was a small alabaster box that contained, preserved in oil, the foreskin of Jesus.  Where Charlemagne acquired this peculiar item is not known, but once in his possession, Leo III placed it in his private chapel in the medieval Lateran Palace, the Sancta Sanctorum, with other priceless relics and there it stayed for the following 700 years.  During the Sack of Rome in 1527 it was looted.  Later that year, a German mercenary was captured in Calcata with the precious relic which was then transferred to the village church.

Calcata is an ancient medieval town perched precariously atop volcanic cliffs 47 km north of Rome.  With the foreskin now housed in its church, it became a popular pilgrimage destination complete with a 10 year indulgence offered to pilgrims who made the trek there.  Each year on January 1st, the Feast of the Holy Circumcision, the relic was paraded around town.  Until 1983.  That is when he parish priest Dario Magnoni announced to the village that the Sancta Prepuce had vanished. Stolen. Gone.  But no police report was ever filed.

For most of the preceding century, the Papal authority had questioned and sought to suppress the veracity of the Holy Foreskin.  By 1900 citing "irreverent curiosity", the importance of the relic was downplayed,.  Soon after, even mentioning the Sancta Prepuce could lead to excommunication.  In 1960 as part of Pope John XXIII's liturgical calendar revisions, January 1st was renamed the Octave of the Nativity, no longer explicitly mentioning the circumcision.  In 1969 the name was changed  again to the Feast of the Solemnity of Mary, effectively erasing the connection to the foreskin.  But still, Calcata persisted.

So why did this tradition which spanned hundreds of years come to an abrupt end in 1983?  

Here is my Q-anon worthy theory.  In the 1970's a rapid sequencing technique for DNA was developed.  By the early 1980's this technology was established and reputable enough to be used in court cases to secure a conviction.  In 1982 Delacorte Press published a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, which became a New York Times best seller.  The book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, put forth the idea of a bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.  It is an idea that Dan Brown would later employ as the storyline for his explosive and phenomenally popular book, The DaVinci Code. 

Now there was the real possibility that Christianity could be brought to its knees - if the DNA of the Sancta Prepuce could be sequenced and a bloodline of Jesus could be identified, that would throw into doubt the divinity and divine origins of Christ.  All would collapse like a house of cards.  The Vatican had to act, and act fast.  The wealth, power and prestige of the Church was threatened.  The ancient relic was made to disappear.

Today Calcata is a quirky quiet little village, still clinging to the rocky outcropping.  In 2015, I decided to post drawings of prepuce around the town in homage to its past.