Tomb of Battus
About
Cyrene's founder-king Battus received the rare honor of a grave inside the city's own agora, the ceremonial heart normally reserved for gods and civic monuments. Ancient tradition held that a colony's founder's tomb anchored its identity, and Battus's resting place served that role through more than seven centuries of Cyrenaican history, including its absorption into Roman Crete and Cyrenaica.
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
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 →