Tomb of Seneca
About
A single brick pillar, stripped of every marble fragment once set into it, marks the traditional site where the Stoic philosopher Seneca kept a villa at the fourth milestone of the Appian Way. Nero ordered his old tutor to take his own life here in 65 CE after implicating him in a conspiracy. Local tradition fixed his tomb to this spot, though the modest brick core reflects the plain style Seneca preached rather than senatorial grandeur. Half a century later the pillar still stood beside the road.
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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