Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor

Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas

Columbarium Pomponii Hylae

TombItalia · Parco degli Scipioni, near Porta Latina, Rome, ItalyBuilt 14 CE

About

This underground family tomb near Porta Latina was built between 14 and 54 CE for freedmen of the imperial household, its walls lined with niches for cremation urns. A mosaic panel over the entrance steps names Pomponius Hylas, who later bought the chamber for himself and his wife Pomponia Vitalinis. Excavators uncovering it in 1831 found the stucco and mosaic decoration almost perfectly preserved. It remains one of the best-preserved columbaria in Rome.

What happened here

Roman burial is a family matter conducted in public. The dead are carried out of town, cremated or laid in the ground, and mourned with formal noise; the funeral of anyone important is a procession with masks of the ancestors carried by hired men. The tomb that follows is designed to be read by strangers on the road: name, age, offices, sometimes a trade shown in relief, often a line addressed directly to the passer-by. Ordinary people appear here as they nowhere else — a baker with his ovens carved on the front, a freedman naming the woman he could finally marry, a child's age given in days. Anniversaries bring the family back with food and wine.

In ancient writing

Mosaic dedicatory inscription, Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas, Rome, CIL VI, 5552 5552
A colored mosaic inscription set into the entrance stairway names Gnaeus Pomponius Hylas and Pomponia Vitalinis, freedwoman of Gnaeus. A V for vivit over Pomponia's name shows she was still alive when it was added; Hylas had purchased the pre-existing early-1st-century CE chamber and installed this panel.