An Encounter in Mainz: A Promise to a Spirit, Part V

 




Images: First: All of these Roman gravestones are form the Historical Museum of Mainz, all taken by myself. First image is the grave stone of a freed slave or freedman, Lucius Callidius Primigenius. Second image is of a gravestone for the apparantly infant daughter of Telesphoris. The third image is the gravestone of the boatman Blussus and his wife Menimane.


When I got back to my hotel, I could still feel him. He told me stories about the Roman ships, as they had been unearthed right below where I was staying. As I prepared to say goodbye, I felt his anxiety return. He was pleading with me, his emotions more intense than ever before.

“Don’t forget me. Please don’t forget me. My name is Ignatius.” He repeated it over and over.

I promised him I would not forget.

A sense of peace came from him then, and his presence began to fade. After he left, it felt as if I was coming down from a high, the spiritual energy had been that strong.

Even now, as I write this, I can feel a light sense of his presence. I feel his excitement that his story is finally being told. This experience was moving, and I have theories now about the connection between the strength of a spirit and its physical remains. But that is a story for another time.

Many months after the fact, as I visited Italy in person, I learned that many Romans had a societal obsession with not being forgotten after death. It was a culturally and incredibly important thing to them. This fact I was not aware of at all during my conversations with Ignatius, but in light of this fact it now makes complete sense.

This cultural anxiety was known as the preservation of memoria (memory). To a Roman, one's identity, social standing (dignitas), and family legacy were all tied to being remembered after death. To be forgotten was to suffer a second, more permanent death. This is why Roman burial practices were so public. Wealthy Romans built elaborate tombs and monuments along busy roads—like the "Grave Road" in Mainz—not to hide their dead, but to display them. The inscriptions on these tombs often directly addressed passersby, pleading with them to stop, read the name, and remember the person buried there. They funded public buildings and had their names carved into the stone for the same reason: to achieve a form of immortality through public memory.

The ultimate punishment for a disgraced Roman emperor or public enemy was damnatio memoriae—the "damnation of memory." The state would officially attempt to erase the person from history by destroying their statues, chiseling their name from monuments, and removing their face from coins. The existence of such a severe punishment underscores how deeply the desire for remembrance was ingrained in their society.

Ignatius’s plea was not just the lonely wish of a single spirit. It was the 2,000-year-old echo of his entire culture's greatest hope and deepest fear. He was a carpenter, not a famous general or wealthy senator, but his desire for memoria was just as profound. His plea, "Please do not forget me," was perhaps the most Roman thing he could have said.

This concludes my encounter with Ignatius of Mainz. Thank you for being a witness to his story and for helping me fulfill my promise to him. I invite you to share your thoughts on this experience in the comments below. Follow the blog for more stories from the other side.

Location: 55 Mainz, Germany

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