Monumentum Nereidum
About
Lycian ruler Arbinas built himself a Greek temple in miniature atop an 8-meter podium at Xanthos around 390-380 BCE, its columns framing statues of sea nymphs that gave the monument its modern name. Two carved friezes wrapped the podium with scenes of sieges and battles, part biography and part legend. The design later influenced the far larger Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Only stone blocks of the podium remain in place today, the sculpted superstructure having been removed to the British Museum in the 19th century.
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
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 →