‘In eius facie scribatur’: il volto e la pena nell’antichità greco-romana

This article examines tattooing and branding – specially the penal mutilation of the forehead – as a form of body inscription and modification in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. The Greeks of Athens were originally exposed to the tattoo from the Thracians but rejected it as a barbarian act until the Persians used the tattoo for Greek prisoners during the Persian War in the 4th century BCE. The Greek tattoo evolved from a marker of prisoners to an identifier of any criminal or slave. From the Greeks, the Romans inherited the punitive tattoo and continued to implement it for criminals, prisoners, and slaves. The Romans standardized the process and shifted to a lexical design with tattoos that contained phrases or acronyms. The Roman tattoo continued until Constantine, when the Christian emperor outlawed the punitive tattoos that had originally been placed on the forehead because they insulted the likeness of God that humans were created in. The research focus is on the function of the forehead’s stigma: a forced mark that replaces the servus/captivus’ individual identity with a permanent symbol of shame.