Prof. Maria Aparecida: Good morning, Professor Fábio Vergara. It is a pleasure and a great honor to have you with us in this interview, which is part of the dossier organized by me and PhD Professors Juliana Figueira da Hora, Maria Cristina Kormikiari, and Vagner Carvalheiro Porto from MAE-USP. The title of our dossier is Memory and Forgetting in the Ancient World.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with Professor Fábio Vergara Cerqueira, he is a full professor at the Department of History, Federal University of Pelotas (UFPEL), a CNPq PQ1D productivity fellow in Archaeology, and a visiting researcher at the University of Heidelberg and the Humboldt Foundation, both in Germany. Professor Vergara also has extensive experience participating in both national and international events, in addition to a significant academic production, with numerous publications in Brazil and abroad. He is undoubtedly a source of pride and an important reference for those of us dedicated to Classical Studies.

As mentioned earlier, our dossier addresses the issue of memory and forgetting. In this context, I would like to begin our conversation by asking: Professor Fábio Vergara, how is the concept of memory understood in the fields of History and Archaeology, especially regarding Antiquity, from your perspective?

Prof. Fábio Vergara: Well, initially, I would like to greet Professor Maria Aparecida, as well as the other colleagues who are organizing this dossier, Professors Vagner Porto, Cristina Kormikiari, and Juliana Hora, and congratulate you on the choice of topic. Memory, forgetting, heritage, and tradition are themes that have gained centrality within humanities debates. Some authors claim that, since the end of the 20th century, we have been living in an era of mnemotropism, a concept that describes a situation in which memory plays a leading role in social issues. The disputes over memory, the political clashes around it, are closely followed by a debate on forgetting, often presenting antagonistic views on these two issues. On one hand, there is the natural forgetting produced by a process of erasure due to the wear and tear of material supports. For example, things made from organic materials tend to disappear over the centuries. Another example would be the process of a city rebuilding itself on top of its past, which also generates forgetting. On the other hand, there is produced forgetting, political forgetting, which constructs the phenomenon of damnatio memoriae in which there is deliberate erasure and invisibility is created.

Indeed, this is an extremely pertinent topic in contemporary debates. The question that arises is: what is the relevance of this topic in relation to the study of Antiquity? Is it relevant, applicable, and central? My answer is affirmative. A clear example of this is the debate that Thucydides proposes when commenting on the history of the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who, in the view of the general Athenian population, were the heroes responsible for the fall of tyranny. However, Thucydides offers a critical analysis of the facts, arguing that this is not exactly what happened, that they were not the ones responsible for the fall of tyranny. This is a clear example of a debate about memory.

Moreover, it is possible to observe how memory can be stronger than history, because memory, in its popular dimension, involves issues of identity and a sense of belonging. An example of this can be seen in the coins minted in Athens from the 4th century BCE, which depict this “homoerotic couple” (I will use this term). On these coins, Harmodius and Aristogeiton are portrayed as symbols of democracy, illustrating the heroic nature of their image in popular memory, despite the historical narrative proposed by Thucydides.

Thus, I believe this example demonstrates the relevance of the topic. So yes, it is relevant for the study of Antiquity to consider memory and forgetting. There is no greater evidence of this than the fact that, in Greek mythology, the counterparts of memory and forgetting are two deities: Lethe and Mnemosyne. These ancient deities are not merely later personifications created to account for more abstract concepts.

And more than deities, Lethe (forgetfulness) and Mnemosyne (memory) are embedded in the social imaginary of death, as we can see very clearly in the topography of the realm of Hades, as described in the myth of Er narrated by Plato in The Republic, Book X. Memory and forgetting (Mnemosyne and Lethe) are associated with two rivers in the underworld of Hades.

These rivers have very different implications for the concept of death. First, there is the river named Lethe, or Lesmosine, also called Amelēs Potamos. Lethe, remember, is the daughter of Eris, just like Ponos (suffering), Limos (hunger) and Algea (pain)—all children of Eris, the goddess of discord, as Hesiod tells us. The river Lethe, this goddess of forgetting, has waters that the souls of the dead will drink from. This act will generate the forgetting that characterizes the Greek conception of death: the loss of individuality. That is why Lethe is also called Amelēs Potamos, or the “river of unmindfulness.”

On the other hand, Mnemosyne is a river whose waters, when drunk by the soul of the deceased, provide the privilege of not losing memories, allowing for a special kind of death. For example, people dedicated to the Muses—such as musicians and poets—were granted a “free pass.” Upon arriving in the underworld, they would show this pass to Hades, allowing them to drink from the waters of Mnemosyne.

This is another conception of death, one we know through the Orphic texts which are part of the Orphic religion and the post-death hope it proposes. This possibility of drinking from the waters of Mnemosyne offers the soul a different fate: instead of following the path to the right, toward the white cypress, it turns left into a different destination, one that is not marked by forgetting.

This distinction between the two rivers and their implications for the concept of death reveals a rich and complex view of remembering and forgetting in Greek culture. It is impossible not to recognize the relevance of reflecting on these concepts for the study of Antiquity.

Prof. Maria Aparecida: Thank you very much, Professor, for your valuable clarifications. Now, how do the concepts of memory and forgetting manifest in ancient Greece?

Prof. Fábio Vergara: May I ask for permission, Maria Aparecida, to step back a little and point out that, already in ancient Egypt and in the ancient Mesopotamian cultures, the issue of memory and forgetting also emerges as relevant themes?

Prof. Maria Aparecida: Certainly.

Prof. Fábio Vergara: An example of this can be found in the dynastic lists of Egypt, which represent a process of generating an official memory of those in power. These lists not only function as a memory mechanism but also as a strategy for legitimizing pharaonic power, aided by a certain intelligence composed of scribes and priests who possessed specialized knowledge and access to memory archives. In this context, the issue of forgetfulness also arises. We know that since the beginning of Ancient Egypt, from the First Dynasty, the institution of the “queen mother” was fundamental because she effectively governed when she became widowed and the heir was still a child. However, and only in this dynasty, revealing how this fact was made invisible for a long period.

You can see how there are different procedures that, in addition to generating invisibility, can also have a forgetting effect. If we analyze some examples, such as the Palermo Stone, the Turin Papyrus, and Manetho’s list, as well as the Sumerian royal lists produced around 2800 to 2100 BCE, we can observe interesting nuances. A remarkable case is that of Queen Kubaba whose memory was not suppressed, contrary to what might be expected in similar contexts. Opposite to most kings, the scribes dedicated considerable space to Kubaba, highlighting the importance of this queen. This treatment emphasizes her historical relevance and the recognition of her role in the Kingdom of Kish. On the other hand, we have the erasure of the great Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, who was a female Pharaoh for approximately 20 years. Through different strategies, she succeeded to consolidate her power. She was erased from official memory by her successor, her nephew Thutmose III. Thutmose’s strategy was effective, and Hatshepsut disappeared from historical representations until she resurfaced in the 19th century. This is, therefore, a manufactured forgetfulness. Another relevant example, which even honors my colleague here from Santa Maria, would be that of Queen Semiramis, also known as the Assyrian queen Samu-ramat. It is interesting to see how the role of this King's Mother stood out in the context of Mesopotamian history, where the figure of the King's Mothers was not as strong a tradition as in Egypt. Even after her son, Adad-nirari III, assumed the throne, it was generated a mythicized memory of herself, even supported by the Greeks and Romans. This fantastic figure of Semiramis, who mythically conveys the memory of a historical queen, stands out. Even in the context of the Ancient East, it is thus relevant to reflect on the management of memory. We see this, for instance, in the reign of Ashurbanipal, particularly concerning the establishment of his library, considered one of the first great royal libraries of the Ancient World. In this context, the role of a priestess, who had duties similar to a modern museum curator, stands out. She was responsible for managing and controlling a collection of ancient documents, tablets with inscriptions dating back over a thousand, or even 1,500 years. These copies were produced and circulated throughout the kingdom, functioning as a kind of traveling exhibition with a focus on preserving the original documents. At first, one might think these practices are modern, but they were already present in ancient Assyria.

Prof. Maria Aparecida: Very good, professor, that was a great digression, which leads us to reflect on other peoples. Professor Fábio Vergara, in your view, how was the production of this memory and forgetfulness materialized? And how did it circulate in the social context, in terms of writing and material culture?

Prof. Fábio Vergara: Professor Maria Aparecida, it is indeed important to observe that there is a circularity of memory in Antiquity, especially the interaction between oral traditions, images, written traditions, and materiality—both of objects and of space. To reflect on this, we can adopt two possible approaches. One is how we see memory processes among the Greeks. The first issue we encounter in our interpretation is how Greek culture, over time, actively and consciously manages its memory, both spontaneously and unconsciously. The second issue refers to the active and conscious treatment the Greeks gave to the production and preservation of memory records, as well as how we can perceive processes of traditionalization and what we now call patrimonialization, a phenomenon strictly associated with the post-French Revolution era. Regarding the first question, I think we can bring examples to illustrate how the Greeks’ memory processes were executed, especially from the reinterpretation of ancient literature, particularly Homeric texts. One important example is the Parry-Lord theory, created by the linguist Milman Parry, a scholar of Greek literature. His work was continued by his student Albert Lord, who carried on the studies after Parry’s untimely death until his own death in the early 1990s. This theory, known as Oral Tradition Theory or Oral Formulation Composition, enabled a consistent understanding of oral tradition. In summary, it suggests that Homeric poems are the result of a long oral memory tradition, sustained by mnemonic techniques and ways of accumulating memory over generations. These stories, which refer to past events and ways of life, do not follow the narrative logic we would later find in figures like Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus, or Thucydides. Instead, oral tradition operates according to the logic of myth, with myth itself being a form of memory.

A second issue raised in studies of Greek colonization is the role of mythical travels—such as the returns of the heroes from Troy—with Homer’s Odyssey being the most famous. However, we also know of other heroes, such as Diomedes, whose narratives about his return are incomplete. We can also mention the Argonauts and the Mediterranean travels of Hercules, who faced the challenges of his labors, even reaching Gibraltar to separate the two continents. Today, we can interpret these stories as a form of memory of pre-colonial explorations, representing prior knowledge the Greeks built up during their travels, many of them associated with the Phoenicians. This process of exploration helped shape the Greek understanding of the Mediterranean before they embarked on colonization.

Additionally, the issue of colonization provides us with another important perspective on this subject: the modern concept of the “invention of traditions,” as coined by Eric Hobsbawm. In what sense do we now consider that many of the narratives about colonial foundations—such as consulting the Oracle of Apollo, which told colonizers where they should go or where they should settle—are largely a process of tradition construction, or invention of tradition? In this sense, the role of Apollo as a colonizer progressively feeds into the memory of these colonial cities and, over time, becomes sedimented as historical narrative.

Finally, I highlight the dispute in Antiquity over Homeric topography. An example of this is the case of the Sirens, where different regions of Southern Italy contested where the mythical encounter between Odysseus and the Sirens had occurred. Some argued it happened in the Strait of Messina, between Italy and Sicily; others proposed it was in Capri, and others suggested it was in Ischia. This discussion even occurred in Antiquity. For example, the first name of the city of Naples was Parthenope, which refers to a Siren believed to have originated from that region. This shows how present the mythical imagination was for people as an element of memory, linking the space they lived in to a mythological space outlined by Homer.

I think these are some examples that illustrate the issue I raised, showing how, with our modern interpretative tools, we understand how memory processes worked in ancient Greece. Another way to think about this is to observe how the Greeks consciously managed their cultural or political memory. I believe an excellent example to reflect on this subject is the case of Cimon, the Athenian politician and rival of Pericles at the beginning of his career, to whom the narrative attributes the responsibility for bringing the bones of Theseus to Athens after they were located. Based on this, the Theseia festival was restructured, a festival for young people that took place in a school context and directly involved memory and identity processes, strengthening a common past represented by Theseus.

One of the great modern theorists of memory, Joël Candau, whose book Memory and Identity was translated into Portuguese by my colleague Maria Letícia Mazzucchi Ferreira and has had a significant impact on memory studies in Brazil, argues that memory plays a crucial role in shaping identity, as it weaves the conviction of belonging to a common past. He argues that it does not really matter whether this common past is historically verifiable; what matters is that people believe in it. This is what Jan Assmann, German memory theorist and great Egyptologist, also refers to as “binding memory” which is the memory that ties identity to a common past.

Moving on, since I mentioned Theseus, it is worth discussing the issue of heroic cults which is one of the aspects that shows the active role of the city in managing this memory, where political and religious concerns overlap. If we look at the locations of the heroic sanctuaries (Heroa) and also the architectural forms associated with them, we observe an important memory component. First, because in many cases the Heroa were located in spaces that archaeology has proven to be important in the long-lasting Mycenaean past, often necropolis sites. Second, in addition to the revival of these Mycenaean locations, the form of the Heroa often adopts the circular shape of the tholos, a characteristic Mycenaean architectural form linked to Mycenaean tomb architecture—whether of tholos tombs or the circles found in excavations at Mycenae, inside of which were royal tombs.

This circular form acquires mystical significance not only in heroic tombs but also in other locations. For example, in Athens where Hestia, the sacred fire that could never be extinguished, concentrated the city’s sacred meaning.

Circular architecture is also seen in Epidaurus, where there was a circular structure near which the “mystical sleep” occurred, associated with astral surgery procedures, which we now associate with spiritualism. These surgical procedures, performed through mystical dreams, were linked to healing practices.

See how the issue of memory and the choices made by the Greeks in relation to it carry deep meaning? To conclude, I would like to talk about pottery, but I’m not sure if we still have time to discuss that a little bit.

Prof. Maria Aparecida: Yes, please, Professor, teach us.

Prof. Fábio Vergara: Something quite interesting that happens in the red-figure vase-painting, including the vases crafted in the colonial context in southern Italy, here I’m referring to late 5th century BCE and 4th century BCE, is the presence of black-figure vases at a time when the black-figure tradition was already becoming quite anachronistic. Around 525 BCE, the red-figure technique began in Athens. Gradually, the production of black-figure vases lost prominence, becoming a subsidiary industry until about 470 BCE or 460 BCE. What does this mean? The presence of these black-figure pots, represented in scenes depicted on red-figure vases, indicates the preservation of these vessels which appeared in funerary contexts, with funeral scenes or cult scenes. This suggests the importance attributed to the preservation of these objects, related to the practices of collecting or preserving ancient pieces within a family for a long time. An interesting example of this is a fragmentary crater found in excavations at the Palace of Larissa in Thessaly. It represents, among other scenes, a hoplitodromia race, an armed race held in competitions in Athens. This pot probably preserves the memory of an athlete from Larissa who had a good performance in these competitions. The important point I want to highlight is the fact that this pot was identified as having been restored in Antiquity and kept in prominence at the palace. This shows that the practice of restoring cultural goods, as we understand it today, was already known in ancient Greece. In other words, it is not something unknown; it was a conscious management of a cultural and memory asset by a royal house, giving it significant symbolism.

One last example to discuss this theme involves the process of traditionalization, as we call it today. In the context of Attic pottery, in general, from 460 BCE onwards the production of black-figure pottery ceased. However, this was not the general rule, as two types of sacred vessels—which involve mysticism, institutionalized religion, and the spectacularizing of religion—continued to be made in the black-figure style. They are the Panathenaic amphoras, a topic studied by our colleague Gilberto Francisco, one of the editors of the Heródoto journal and one of Brazil’s foremost experts on this type of pot, and the black-figure loutrophoroi with scenes of funerals, mourning the dead, deeply studied by US archaeologist and iconographer Alan Shapiro.

In these two cases, these pots continued to be made in the black-figure style, even when this technique was no longer common practice. This shows that the knowledge of how to produce these pieces had not disappeared. However, as Professor Gilberto demonstrated, later in Roman-period Athens there was an attempt to revive black-figure pots in Panathenaic amphoras made at that time. This movement is clearly an attempt at re-traditionalization but without the technical mastery, the artists produced a sort of “pseudo-black-figure” pots. Here, clearly, the issue of memory and tradition becomes highly significant.

To conclude, still regarding pottery, I would like to address the painting of Attic and Apulian vases, with an emphasis on scenes inspired by scenography, i.e., when vase paintings depict theatrical scenes, such as tragedies, comedies, or representations of the phlyax theatre, in the case of southern Italy.

Why is this important? Here we are not dealing with what Jan Assmann calls ’binding memory,” but with the concept of “communicative memory.” A current example would be the Academy Awards ceremony, which happens in March. During the event, we hear the classic “The Winner is…” This phrase, while symbolic, does not create a sense of immobilization in a culture, because the winning films can be watched before or after the ceremony, reflecting a slice of contemporary culture.

Similarly, the major theatrical competitions in Athens in 5th century BCE were significant not only for Athenian culture but for all Greek culture in other regions. These events were major cultural occasions, and the winner was announced with a “The Winner is…” However, just like today with the Oscars, the audience sometimes disagreed with the judges’ decision and believed that the winner should have been someone else. Something similar can be observed with theatrical plays: often, those that were widely promoted and depicted on vases were not the winners.

IIn the case of vase-painting, which represented ephemeral events, these works were mostly unique and would not be seen again after presentation. However, in 4th century BCE, a tradition began to emerge of depicting these scenes again, possibly influenced by the vases themselves. This occurred mainly in southern Italy, with representations of famous tragedies and comedies from earlier periods, especially from the peak of the Classical Period in 5th century BCE. This did not happen in the early phases of Greek pottery.

This vase, which ends up in an Etruscan city, then in a southern Italian city, and eventually in a funerary deposit, serves as a form of communication and memory of an ephemeral but significant event, much like the wall paintings of Polygnotus—though I won’t delve into that now.

For example, and I won’t go into details, I’ll focus here on pottery. I’ll give two examples: the first is a vase found in a tomb at Ruvo, an Apulian urban center in southern Italy, which, although native, was quite Hellenized. In this case, we have the famous “Pronomos Vase,” which in addition to several theatrical elements, shows the famous aulos player whose identity is recorded with his name, even though he was in Athens at the time of the play represented on the vase. This vase was found in a tomb of the Ruvo elite.

Another example comes from a city very close by, also a native city: Canosa, located in the Apulia region. In one of Canosa’s hypogea, we find the famous “Darius Vase,” probably produced a little before Alexander’s victory over Persian Emperor Darius III at the Battle of Issus. Hypogea were subterranean galleries used for funerary rituals.

It is very interesting to observe that, in the early 330s BC, perhaps Alexander had not even started his campaign yet. During this period, there was great admiration for the Persians, something evident in various vases from the time. On many of them, we can see the inscription Persai, representing King Darius, members of the court, and others, in highly complex scenes that reflect not only the Persian figure but also a respect for the organization of the Persian Empire. These vases do not treat the Persians with disdain or prejudice, but with clear admiration. It is important to note that these types of vases, originally funerary, which fix this memory, were placed in the streets of the necropolis as a marker of burial, and the fact that they were pierced at the bottom means that they were exposed to the passage of people.

Perhaps there was a reutilization of that necropolis, with what was placed in the hypogeum being transferred sometime later. In fact, it was no longer so appropriate to speak of the Persians, as the Persian Empire had already fallen. But in any case, I hope that with these examples and the paths I propose, we can show how important, as a research theme, it is to analyze the issue of memory and forgetting among the Greeks and other ancient peoples, with different approaches to be explored.

Prof. Maria Aparecida: Thank you very much, Professor Fábio Vergara, for the excellent lecture and the valuable insights. On behalf of the organizers of this dossier, Professors Juliana da Hora, Cristina Kormikiari, and Vagner Porto, and the editors of RevMae, PhD Professors Maria Cristina Kormikiari and Vagner Carvalheiro Porto, both from MAE-USP, I would like to express our immense gratitude for your interview and the valuable teachings contained within it. Thank you very much, Professor. Would you like to make any final remarks?

Prof. Fábio Vergara: I would like to thank you for this very special invitation, which allows me to converse with a fellow researcher whom I greatly admire, and also for the opportunity to contribute to this academic-scientific journal, RevMae, which has one of the most important editorial proposals for the development of our field here in Brazil.

Prof. Maria Aparecida: Thank you very much, Professor. I also invite everyone to read the articles and this interview, which will be transcribed and also translated into English. Thank you very much.