Sepulcrum Naevoleiae Tyches
About
A freedwoman named Naevoleia Tyche commissioned this monument for herself, her husband Gaius Munatius Faustus, and their own freed slaves while she was still living. One relief carved into the altar shows a full-sailed merchant ship with a woman at the helm, likely Tyche herself advertising the seaborne trade that made her fortune. The inscription spells out exactly who earned the right to be buried there. Vesuvius's ash sealed the tomb in 79 CE, before this map's snapshot date.
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 →