It was the Romans who laid the foundation for modern law.
The rights that are basically taken for granted in modern times, such as freedom of expression, private property system, freedom of economic activity, and freedom of belief, are the legal culture of the Romans, and based on that, Britain and France, Laws such as the United States and Germany have been created, and the Japanese created the laws of the Meiji era based on them.
Waseda University, Chuo University, and major universities in the Kanto region such as Meiji and Hosei were originally opened as law schools, and many university professors can understand Latin.
Among the Roman laws that have influenced the present age so much, the record erasure sentence called "Damnatio memoriae" is probably the most striking.
This is, in a sense, a heavier crime than death, a punishment that, when applied, would erase all of it from official Roman records.
There are few people who were actually applied, and many people were withdrawn
Damnatio memoriae is triggered by the Senate, the highest decision-making body and legislative body in Rome.
No other institution in Roman history is as specific as the Senate.
Originally, the Senate had been around since the time of the royal system, and at that time it was the role of giving advice to the king. After that, it became the highest decision-making body in the transition from the royal system to the republic, and its influence was very strong even in the imperial government.
After all, only those who were recognized by the Senate were recognized as official emperors.
To become a member of the Senate, you need to be Praetor (legal officer), Consul (consul), Kwaestr (accounting auditor), etc., and since they are elected, it can be said that they were in a position close to the current members of parliament. Let's go.
In fact, many countries still call the Senate the "Senate", and the name is used as it is in the United States and France.
Such a senior sect often tries to apply Damnatio memoriae to the politicians.
It has been applied not only to tyrants such as Nero and Caligula, but also to Hadrian, who is said to be the Five Good Emperors, and although the number is actually quite large, it is actually applied and the record is completely erased. In fact, there were only three people, Emperor Domitian, Geta, and Stilicho.
As for Hadrian, the deification was denied after his death and his record was about to be erased, but it was canceled because his successor, Antonius, weptly appealed to the Senate. There is.
Antoninus was nicknamed "Benevolent" by this incident, which later became the official name and left a name in history as "Antoninus Pius".
It is not uncommon for Caesar to become the official name in Roman history, and there is an anecdote that Caesar used the word for elephant in Carthage as it was during the Punic Wars.
Nero, known as the evil emperor, was later revoked by Viterius, and even during Caligula, he escaped execution by the intercession of the next emperor, Claudius.
As for Domitian, there was no defense to revoke it, and it is likely that his successor, Nerva, was involved in the assassination.
Perhaps because of this, Domitian has a lot of bad publicity that seems to be a fake, and I even feel that he dares not touch on his achievements.
Geta is the younger brother of Caracalla, famous as the worst-class tyrant, and his predecessor and his father, Septimius Severus, gave out all the portraits of his family in the Roman territory. there were.
This is terrible ...
However, Damnatio memoriae is not only applied to tyrants.
It has also been adapted to one of the most talented generals in Roman history, Stilicho, because Emperor Honorius, known as the Dark Prince, adopted the praise of a man named Olympius, who is a eunuch official. The power diminished and the countdown to extinction began.
In this case, the emperor executed the sentence directly, so it was never withdrawn.
Record erasure outside Rome
Damnatio memoriae has been applied not only to Rome.
The democratic part of Rome was passed on to the Western nations, but such laws were passed on to the East.
The prime example of this was Stalin of the Soviet Union.
Compare the two pictures below.
Originally it is exactly the same picture, but you can see that the person named Yezhov has disappeared.
In other cases, the Communist Party Lin Biao has been similarly erased, and the defeat of a stone statue in addition to photographs and portraits is a kind of record-erasing sentence, at the end of the Cold War and in the secondary. It can be said that the stone statue of the leader is defeated at the end of the war.
Regarding Damnatio memoriae, it may be said that it is a negative aspect of Roman law.
The world's largest Damnatio memoriae
Although Damnatio memoriae was not officially applied, it can be said that Theodosius was the one who erased the largest record ever.
Emperor Theodosius is described in the textbook as an emperor who made Christianity the state religion of Rome, but at that time he convicted Jupiter, the main god of Rome, and destroyed a stone statue called a stone statue in Rome. Not listed in the textbook.
Since the Roman emperors were deified after their death, the statues of the Roman emperors and Roman culture were completely destroyed during this period.
It is said that the Pope gave Theodosius the status of "Magnus" because these actions are wonderful acts of respect for God.
Thanks to this, many records have been dissipated, and ironically, it is the ruins of Pompeii buried in the volcano that most passed down the history of Rome to posterity. Therefore, the history of Rome remains more detailed before Pompeii than after.
Even so, the Roman law has been passed down to the present, probably because Justinian left behind the "Corpus Juris Civilis" that summarized it.
Thinking about Damnatio Memoriae
It can be said that the Romans have similar values to Japanese Bushido in that they are a race that finds pride in their lives.
It was the highest honor to have a stone statue standing after death, and it was the greatest shame to erase the record, because it was a people who hated to expose themselves to life.
There is a line in the manga called One Piece that says, "When do you think people will die? ... When they are forgotten", but when you think about it, it can be said that it is a terrible punishment.
Humans are the only creatures that recognize death, and therefore have the greatest desire for approval to leave something behind after death. There would be no more punishment because he wouldn't forgive it.