The ruling elite in ancient Rome sought to eradicate even the memory of their deceased opponents through a process now known as damnatio memoriae. These formal and traditional practices included removing the person's name and image from public monuments and inscriptions, making it illegal to speak of him, and forbidding funeral observances and mourning. Paradoxically, however, while these practices dishonored the person's memory, they did not destroy it. Indeed, a later turn of events could restore the offender not only to public favor but also to re-inclusion in the public record.
This book examines the process of purge and rehabilitation of memory in the person of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus(?-394). Charles Hedrick describes how Flavian was condemned for participating in the rebellion against the Christian emperor Theodosius the Great—and then restored to the public record a generation later as members of the newly Christianized senatorial class sought to reconcile their pagan past and Christian present. By selectively remembering and forgetting the actions of Flavian, Hedrick asserts, the Roman elite honored their ancestors while participating in profound social, cultural, and religious change.
Ancient Sardis, the capital of Lydia, was of outstanding importance: in the Lydian period it held the residence of the kings and subsequently, under Persian rule, the satraps. Throughout antiquity it remained an administrative center. Travelers of modern times and archaeological excavations have revealed, from the city site and its surroundings, inscriptions written mostly in Greek, some in Latin. Their texts deal with all kinds of subjects: decrees, public honors, civil and sacred laws, letters, epitaphs, and more.
In the corpus “Sardis VII 1” (1932) W. H. Buckler and D. M. Robinson published all inscriptions (228 items) known up to 1922, after which year excavation at Sardis came to a halt because of the Greek-Turkish war. Since excavation resumed in 1958, a portion of the Greek and Latin inscriptions has been published in various, widely scattered places; another portion, containing important texts discovered during the last ten years, was until now unpublished. The aim of this monograph is to present in a comprehensive corpus the entire epigraphic harvest (485 items) made in Sardis and its territory since 1958. Each inscription is accompanied by a description of the monument, bibliography, translation, and commentary; indices, concordances, photographs, and maps complement the collection.
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