Tomb of Quintus Apuleius
About
A rectangular chamber under a semicircular vaulted roof held the remains of Quintus Apuleius, one of the comparatively few tomb owners on the Appian Way whose name survives on the stone itself. Built in the early first century CE, the tomb ranked among the more modest brick monuments crowding this stretch of road outside Rome. Its inscription gave later travelers a name to attach to an otherwise anonymous ruin. It was already a century old by Trajan's death in 117.
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
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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 →