Theodor Mommsen was of the opinion that the patricii of ancient Rome had a long-standing right proper to gentes,of letting ancestors who had been dictatores,consules,censores,praetores,magistri equitum or asdiles curules follow in the funeral procession,and of keeping for this purpose their masks (imagines)in the atrium of the house.Afterwords,Mommsen argued,the right was claimed also by the plebs who organized themselves into gentes.It is well-known that Mommsen called this right "ius imaginum".After Mommsen,it was pointed out that the wxpression ius imaginum was a modern creation and does not appear in the classics,but some scholars still believe that there was really a right which can be understood best using this expression and claim to use it as a terminus technicus in the research.However the author's examination of the source materials has led to following conclusions:it was indeed an old practice to show at funerals the imagines of the ancestors who by virtue of holding higher offices had performed great services for the state,and to call their achievments to the minds of fellow-citizens.But with regard to keeping and showing imagines in public,there were no precisely defined right and so far we cannot speak of any "right"per se.The words of Cicero (Verr.II,V,36 und Rab.Post.16),from which ius imaginum was derived,should not be understood as pointing to keeping the imago as such,but as mentioning the chance that magistratus curules can offer for living on in the memory of the future generations by having accomplished achivements.The same Cicero advises a certain Papirii who had flourished until the 3rd century B.C.To be sure,there are indications that ai first it was customary to keep only imagines of agnatic ancestors.Even if that should have been the case,the new nobility which was formed in connection with high offices at the end of the 4th century might have contributed to propagation of the imagines,since they had to win elections in order to acquire offices and tried to capture fellow-citizens' attention by all means possible.In this way by the end of the republic imagines might have become only ornaments which satisfie d the vanity of rich citizens.
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