What Does "Memento Mori" Mean?

Stand outside Rome’s Church of Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, and you'll notice a sinister stone plaque depicting a winged skeleton. Draped from his hands is a banner bearing the Latin phrase: Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi (“My turn today, your turn tomorrow”).

This is what we call a Memento Mori, a reminder of death, recurrent in art and literature since Classical Antiquity. 

But what is the history behind Memento Mori? Where did it first originate, and what can it teach us today? Let’s delve into its origins and meanings across different eras.

What Does Memento Mori Mean?

Memento Mori is a phrase made up of two Latin verbs, meminī, meaning “to remember” or “to bear in mind”, and morī, meaning “to die”. Since memento is what we call the imperative form of the verb, the best literal translation would be as a command: “you must remember to die”. But since this is clunky in English, a more flowing translation might be “be mindful of death” or "remember you must die."

Memento Mori in Ancient Rome

Much like the meaning of Carpe Diem, Memento Mori was an exhortation to enjoy life to the fullest since there was no guarantee of tomorrow. It was no doubt a popular refrain throughout banquets and dinner parties, something preserved in a minor work by the poet Virgil who conveys the words of a female innnkeeper inviting her guests to come in, drink, and be merry:

Set the wine and dice, and let him perish who
cares about to-morrow. Death your ear
demands and says, 'I come, so live to-day.'"

In the public sphere, Roman generals (imperators) celebrating triumphs over vanquished foes would parade in a chariot, past the Colosseum and through the Roman Forum, to the adulation of the crowd, their faces painted red in imitation of Jupiter. But behind them would stand a lowly slave, who would whisper in their ear “Remember, you are only mortal”, a reminder to stay humble on this, the proudest day of their lives. 

This acceptance of life’s impermanence even made its way into Roman philosophy, especially among the Stoics. Figures like Seneca, the ill-fated tutor of the emperor Nero, and Marcus Aurelius, the “philosopher-emperor” who spent most of his reign at war, would reflect on mortality as a necessary reminder of life’s brevity. By keeping the thought of death close, they believed one could cultivate a life filled with purpose and clarity, a concept deeply rooted in Stoic thought that remains influential even today.

Many material traces survive testifying to Memento Mori in the everyday sphere. This is particularly evident in funerary practices, where elaborate tombs and inscriptions often included Memento Mori symbols, such as skulls, hourglasses, and wilting flowers. Burial monuments, from grandiose mausoleums to modest tombs fronted by portraits of the dead who rest there, line the Appian Way outside Rome, as they did every road outside the walls of the city, within which burial was forbidden.

Burial Monuments Lining the Appian Way

Below ground ran Rome's ancient catacombs – vast subterranean warrens where the city's early Christians and Jews were buried.

But we have evidence to suggest that the Romans viewed their Empire as everlasting. In Virgil’s Aeneid, an epic story about Rome’s foundation and the go-to textbook for anybody learning Latin in antiquity, Jupiter orders the protagonist, Aeneas, to found a city (Rome) from which would emerge an everlasting, never-ending empire (imperium sine fine). 

It would not be farfetched to suggest that the Romans saw their culture and imperial influence as something that would not just survive them but might even last forever. Tour Rome today, and judge for yourself how much of ancient Rome endures in the city and its people.

Memento Mori in the Middle Ages

As Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, Memento Mori continued to echo through art, religion, and daily life, taking on even darker and more intricate forms. The Middle Ages saw the rise of the Danse Macabre, or “Dance of Death,” a theme that illustrated death leading people of every class and social status in a final procession.

Context here is key. Plagues and wars had swept through Europe, laying low everybody, regardless of social class, and mortality became a part of everyday reality, shaping how people understood the fragility of life.

In religious art, Memento Mori became a vivid symbol of the Christian belief in humility and the afterlife. Churches displayed paintings and sculptures of skulls and skeletal figures as reminders of sin, repentance, and salvation. In Rome, these symbols were particularly elaborate, with churches like Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte turning human remains into haunting artworks. These displays of bones were both spiritual reminders and public art, bridging faith with the starkness of death.

See Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte on our Rome Ghost Tour

The Modern Meaning of Memento Mori

Today, in a world where advances in healthcare and education are making us acutely aware of how our changes can affect our longevity, and the elites are investing fortunes in finding breakthroughs for everlasting life and immortality, Memento Mori holds particular relevance. The phrase resurfaced in Danny Boyle's recent release 28 Years Later when Dr Kelsen (Ralph Fiennes) prefaces his ghoulish monument of skulls (Bone Temple) to honour the dead and remind the living of their mortality.

As you stand before the plaque at Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, the phrase becomes a personal invitation to reflect on life’s transient beauty. Though the phrase may have ancient roots, its message is as timely as ever: rather than avoiding the thought of mortality, we might embrace it as a call to live fully, cherishing each moment as fleeting and precious.

In a city as old as Rome, where you're constantly in the shadows of empires and echoes of past lives, Memento Mori is a reminder not to fear death but to respect it: to live with an awareness that makes every laugh, every conversation, and experience shared with loved ones even more meaningful. To remember that we must die is, perhaps, the most profound call to truly live.

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