Mausoleum Hadriani
About
NOT standing in 117 CE - included on the map anyway (per project guardrails for a site of major later significance under construction near the snapshot date) because Hadrian's accession is literally the event that closes this snapshot (Trajan died 8 August 117; Hadrian, acclaimed emperor days later, is traditionally credited as planner of this tomb). Brick-stamp evidence gives a terminus post quem of 123 CE for construction, with most scholarship favoring an actual building start c. 125-130 CE; it was completed and dedicated only in 139 CE under Antoninus Pius, after Hadrian's own death. In August 117 CE this was simply open ground on the right bank of the Tiber -- no construction had yet begun.
What happened here
The tomb is built where the traffic is: on the road out of town, facing the carriageway, close enough to read at walking pace. That is the design brief. Inside there may be a single chamber for one family or niches for dozens, with cremation urns or, increasingly, bodies laid out. Outside there is a portrait, an inscription giving the dead their offices and their years, and often a bench, because visitors come back. The family returns on the anniversary and at the February festival of the dead, brings wine and food, and eats a meal at the graveside. Endowments are left to keep it up and lawsuits follow when they are not honoured. A grand tomb is the last public building a family gets to commission.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →