Sepulcrum Auli Umbricii Scauri
About
Pompeii's leading fish-sauce manufacturer got a public monument here, his father having spent it building on land the town councilors voted him. Scaurus's name appeared on roughly 29 percent of garum jars found across Pompeii and Herculaneum, making him the city's dominant exporter of the pungent condiment. The councilors also authorized 2,000 sesterces toward his funeral and a bronze equestrian statue in the forum. The 79 CE eruption sealed the tomb decades before this map's date.
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
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 →