Triple Tomb of Julia, Valerius and Severianus
About
Three tombs stand joined together at Trion, built side by side for a woman named Julia, a man named Quintus Valerius, and Julius Severianus, likely members of a single Gallo-Roman family. Discovered in 1885 during railway excavation at the old crossroads necropolis outside Lugdunum, the triple monument was dismantled and rebuilt at Place Eugene-Wernert. French authorities classified the group as a historic monument in 1905. Raised in the first century CE, it reflected a funerary custom reserved for the city's most prominent families.
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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