Sepulcrum Poblicii
About
A stepped tower tomb built for Lucius Poblicius, a discharged legionary who settled in the young colony of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. Rising close to 15 meters along the road south out of the city, it carried life-sized statues of the family in togas and ranked among the largest funerary monuments raised north of the Alps. By 117 CE it had watched over that approach road for decades, a landmark of Rome's veteran-settled Rhine frontier.
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
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 →