In a society that valued the memory of the past, social appearance and oral communication, as the ancient Roman society was, the damnatio memoriae – exclusion of a person from all official accounts – was seen perhaps as the severest punishment. This article is aimed to open a debate about the idea that this practice was in fact more of a method employed by the state to distance itself from the negative actions of some of its citizens, in order to preserve the continuity and legality of the institution itself, with little consequences on the way the public image of that person was actually preserved in the collective imaginary of its citizens. One example is the case of Iulius Caesar and Pompeius Magnus after the battle of Pharsallus.
