This present study grows out of my own revisionist work on Rome’s “bad” emperors. While that work relied heavily on historical texts to provide context for the mutilation and reconfiguration of their portrait images, it foregrounded the visual and material evidence and exposed counter narratives for these condemned emperors. Identification of recarved portraits increased the available evidence for image making by the “bad” emperors. I am eternally grateful to Pat Erhart Mottahedeh for suggesting the topic of “damnatio memoriae” and reconfigured portraits to me in 1984 and to Diana Kleiner who strongly encouraged me to continue these investigations in my dissertation as well as to embark on the present work which really came to light in the fall of 1991 as a proposal for an Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship in Classical Archaeology at Emory University. I had initially conceived of this as a Neronian response to Paul Zanker’s Power of Images in the Age of Augustus under the title Art and Decadence in the Age of Nero. Fortunately, we have moved a long way from decadence and somehow ultimately arrived at the incredible and excessive. Along the way ideas were tested out at various conferences, invited talks and in four book chapters.
As this has been a shared labor of incredibly long duration I owe heartfelt thanks to the following multitude of friends and colleagues for incredibly generous support and stimulating conversation over the years (sadly several are no longer with us); Fred Ahl, Ruth Allen, Larry Ball, Liz Bartman, Stephane Benoist, Greg Bucher, Shadi Bartsch, Bettina Bergmann, Sandy Blakely, Rajiv Bohla, Jean Campbell, Francois Chausson, John Clarke, Kathleen Coleman, Billie Jean Collins, Sarah Cormack, Jane Crawford, Penelope Davies, Martine De Marre, Jas Elsner, Mario Erasmo, Kirk Freudenburg, Bernie Frischer, Jasper Gaunt, Elaine Gazda, Kathy Geffken, Lauren Ginzburg, Niels Hannestad George M.A. Harrison, John Herrmann, Elizabeth Hornor, Troels Myrup Kristiansen, Ann Kuttner, Letitia La Follette, Michael Larvey, Paolo Liverani, Stacey Mannari, Eric Moormann, Sheldon Nodelman, Fabrizio Paolucci, John Pollini, Louise Pratt, Gay Robins, Peter Rockwell, Siri Sande, Michele Salzmann, Peter Schertz, Alan Shapiro, Niall Slater, Bert Smith, Joanne Spurza, Michael Squire, Renée Stein, Peter Stewart, John Sullivan, Sanjaya Thakur, Annewies Van Den Hoek, Francoise Villedieu, Carrie Vout, Bonna Wescoat, Susan Wood, Pierce Yeary, Warmest thanks also are due to Sarah McPhee and Walter Melion who were both profoundly instrumental in seeing this project to fruition. Special thanks, as always, are due to Sebastian Hierl and Denise Gavio and the staff of the Library of the American Academy in Rome for being so accommodating and to Kim Collins of Emory’s Woodruff Library for ensuring numerous purchases on Nero. Special thanks, too, to Daniel Simon for invaluable copy-editing and to Ivo Romein at Brill and the anonymous readers whose reports were incredibly helpful and have improved the book immeasurably. All errors, omissions and translations remain my own. Finally, my deepest thanks belong to my dearest husband Brad Lapin for putting up with this long Neronian adventure for so many years.