Housing the Dead: the tomb as house in Roman Italy - Divinity School

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image of the atrium was the inwards sloping roof and impluvium, were the tombs with their outwards-sloping roofs really evoking atria? 10 To be honest, short of substantial new evidence about early housing in both Rome and Etruria, this debate is liable to loop in circles. But for present purposes, it is enough to observe that Etruscan tombs persistently had features that evoke a domestic context, like chairs, couches and pillows, taken to a height in the fourth-century Tomba dei Rilievi at Cerveteri, in which the plastered walls are decorated by a splendid range of furnishings which are at least partly domestic (though also partly ritual, pointing to sacrifice). But where the domestic imagery gains its relevance is in the function of such tombs in reconstituting and representing the family. The architecture in itself, by creating a series of beds, arranged with a strong sense of hierarchy, the preferred position being the central niche of the ‘tablinum’, and possibilities of subgroupings in the lateral chambers, points to the desire to represent the occupants as a structured group. The abundant epigraphic material confirms that the typical group was the multigenerational family. A classic example, from a period of close interaction with the middle Republican Roman aristocracy, is the tomb of the Volumnii at Perugia (e.g. Haynes 2000, 379ff). Dating from the late third century, the tomb is located outside the town at the bottom of the hill. Externally it is unremarkable: steps lead down to an underground chamber hewn from the soft sandstone. At the bottom is a large rectangular hall (‘atrium’) with a pitched roof and rafters, with a main chamber (‘tablinum’) on the central axis, and two lateral chambers (Fig. 8). The main chamber contains the remains of seven named members of the Volumnius/Velimna family. Arnth Velimnas, the founder of the tomb, dominates from his high couch with pillows and drapes, held aloft by two winged daemons(Fig. 9). To the left, his daughter Veilia Velimnei is the one female of the group, the unmarried daughter of Arnth. Male descendants (Thefri, Avle, Larth and Vel) stretch down to the last, early imperial, member of the group, Publius Volumnius Violens, Roman enough to Latinise his script and name, but still Etruscan enough to give his matronym. His elegantly carved ash urn is in the form of a rectangular building with a pitched and tiled roof, double doors and Corinthian pilasters; a house, it is normally said, though the form is a great deal closer to a temple than a house (Fig.10). I linger over this Etruscan background in order to bring out a point relevant to the issue of the internal/external functions of the tomb. Despite the appearance of ‘streets of tombs’ from the sixth century, the tombs of the classical Etruscan tradition have a relatively minor engagement with the
11 external display of status. Indeed, the great tumuli of the seventh century make notable statements in the landscape, as indeed do some of the rock-cut tombs as at Sovana. But the streets of Cerveteri- Banditaccia, or Tarquinia-Monterozzi, or Orvieto-Crocefisso are not streets in the sense of Roman Gräberstrassen, major thoroughfares where the public pass, but internal paths within a cemetery. Again, the Volumnii tomb at Perugia may be on a main road; but externally nothing survives to mark it as conspicuous; only once you have descended the stairs does it make its impression, as is true of the famous frescoed tombs of Tarquinia. The internal function of all these tombs, on the other hand, is very strong. These structures go to considerable lengths to construct the family group as a living continuity. Architectural evocations of domestic structures, hierarchical disposition of multiple burial couches, decorative details, frequently evoking the theme of banqueting, figured representations of the dead, and extensive inscriptions underlining their relationships, all work together to ensure that the living visitor to the chamber will be impressed, and presumably identify strongly with the family group to which they by definition belong. These tombs, unlike those of the via Appia, were not designed for tourists. The tomb of the Scipios off the via Appia finds itself in an ambivalent role (Figs 11-14). As the only surviving example of a burial place of a noble family from the middle republic, it has to serve as the illustration of everything Polybius has to say about the vital importance of display of family continuity in the ritual of a noble Roman funeral. Yet we know, and Cicero remarks on it, that the Scipios were in some sense exceptions in their funerary practice: they continued to inhume when cremation had become the standard Roman practice, the mos Romanus as Tacitus calls it. Their sepulcrum must have been in some ways a deliberate display of a consciously maintained difference. As analysed by Coarelli (1972), the tomb goes back in its earliest form to the early third century (fairly close in time to that of the Volumnii). Cn. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, consul of 298, is taken to be the founder, and like Arnth Velimnas, he dominates his family from the axial position at the centre at the back of the tomb (Fig. 11). Unlike the tomb of the Volumnii, this is rather crudely hewn from the tufo. The main chamber is broadly square in plan, with four tufo pillars left more of less symmetrically disposed (Fig.12). The eventual capacity of the tomb was of 30 couches, which Coarelli points out corresponds with the likely total of members of the family between the early third and mid second. Which is to say that the interior of the tomb had already reached capacity in the mid-second century when its façade was rebuilt, as Coarelli hypothesises, by Scipio Aemilianus
Page 1 and 2: Housing the Dead: the tomb as house
Page 3 and 4: haec domus aeterna est, hic sum sit
Page 5 and 6: 5 internal architectural arrangemen
Page 7 and 8: 7 his wife in on the display (Sat.
Page 9: 9 Piano’s new Auditorium, now mea
Page 13 and 14: The visit to the tomb, like the vie
Page 15 and 16: 15 (Fig.17), with its symmetrically
Page 17 and 18: 17 By my argument, then, these tomb
Page 19 and 20: 19 The early loss of his four year
Page 21 and 22: 21 After this extraordinary catalog
Page 23 and 24: 23 though I have tried to underline
Page 25 and 26: Housing the Dead: the tomb as house
Page 27 and 28: Fig. 3 Tombs at gate of Ostia with
Page 29 and 30: Fig. 8 Tomb of Volumnii, Perugia, v
Page 31 and 32: Fig. 14 Tomb of the Scipios, Rome,
Page 33 and 34: Fig. 19. Tomb of Flavius Philoxenus
Page 35 and 36: Fig. 24 Tomb of C Veranius Rufus Q.
Page 37 and 38: Fig. 28 Tomb of Valerius Herma, nec

Housing the Dead: the tomb as house in Roman Italy - Divinity School

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