Monument of Dexileos
About
This carved marble relief tomb stood along the Street of Tombs in Athens's Kerameikos cemetery, showing the young cavalryman Dexileos striking down a fallen enemy from horseback. Its inscription recorded his birth and death with unusual precision, noting he died at Corinth in 394 BCE at the age of twenty. The Kerameikos remained Athens's principal burial ground and a visited landmark straight through the Roman period.
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.
Sources
Nearby
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