Tomb of Tiberius Claudius Secundus Philippianus
About
A round drum tomb held the ashes of Tiberius Claudius Secundus Philippianus, his wife Flavia Irene, and their two children in a travertine-clad underground chamber lined with niches for cinerary urns. Built in the late Republican or early Augustan years, its subterranean vault survived largely intact beneath the ruined superstructure above. The family name marks it as belonging to a household of imperial freedmen, common among the Appian Way's more modest funerary monuments. It still stood, half-buried, in 117 CE.
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 →