The damnatio memoriæ is a defamatory judgment with the lapse of memory voted by the Roman Sénat against a political character. It is accompanied by the obliteration of its name on the public inscriptions, and by the inversion of its statues.

Were struck damnatio memoriæ the following characters:

• Marc Antoine
• Convenient Néron
• Domitien
• Héliogabale
• Maximin Thrace
• Maximien

By modern extension to nonRoman contexts, one uses the expression to indicate comparable measurements:

• the obliteration of the cartridge S of the Pharaon heretic Akhénaton by his successors;

• prohibition with Éphèse to quote the name of Érostrate, flamer of the Artémision;
• the covering of the portrait of the Doge de Venise Marino Faliero, after its Coup d'etat missed.
• the lapse of memory into which were rejected, by order of Napoleon Bonaparte, heroes of the French revolution like the Général Dumas and the Chevalier of Saint-Georges. This lapse of memory was justified by the fact that these senior officers of servile origin opposed one moment or another with the re-establishment of slavery in the French colonies of Americas (Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe).