Philopappos Monument
About
Raised on the hill facing the Acropolis between 114 and 116 CE, this marble tomb honors Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos, an exiled prince of Commagene who became a Roman senator and Athenian benefactor. Its facade carried a seated statue of Philopappos flanked by reliefs of his royal ancestors, with his full Roman and royal titles carved beneath. The monument was barely finished by this map's snapshot, going up in the very last years of Trajan's reign.
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
Nearby
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 →