Mausoleum of Satrius
About
A frieze of decorated discs and carved bull's heads crowns this limestone mausoleum, one of five Roman tombs moved stone by stone from the Trion crossroads necropolis to their present spot in 1885. It commemorated a Lugdunum notable named Satrius, whose descendants would have paid for such a monument to keep his memory before the traveling public. Trion lay just outside the walls of Roman Lyon, along the road toward Aquitaine, where custom forbade burying the dead within city limits. Built in the first century CE, it stood as one of the necropolis's grandest markers.
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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