Roman funerary art

[4] Altars erected by the middle class were also set up in or outside of monumental tombs, but also in funerary precincts that lined the roads leading out of the city of Rome.

[15] A typical epitaph on a Roman funerary altar opens with a dedication to the manes, or the spirit of the dead, and closes with a word of praise for the honoree.

[15] These epitaphs, along with the pictorial attributes of the altars, allow historians to discern much important information about ancient Roman funerary practices and monuments.

[31] Sarcophagi were commissioned not only for the elite of Roman society (mature male citizens),[32] but also for children, entire families, and beloved wives and mothers.

Despite being the main funerary custom during the Roman Republic, ash chests and grave altars virtually disappeared from the market only a century after the advent of the sarcophagus.

[32] However, in the past, the most expensive and ostentatious grave altars and ash chests were commissioned more frequently by wealthy freedmen and other members of the emerging middle class than by the Roman elite.

[32] Although grave altars and ash chests virtually disappeared from the market in the second century, aspects of their decoration endured in some stylistic elements of sarcophagi.

The opposite was true for the workshops of Metropolitan Rome, which tended to import large, roughed out sarcophagi from distant quarries in order to complete their commissions.

They were rectangular in shape and were often decorated on all four sides, unlike the Metropolitan Roman style, with ornamental carvings along the bottom and upper edge of the monument.

The lids were often made in the gabled-roof design in order to complete the architectural-style sarcophagi so the coffin formed a sort of house or temple for the deceased.

In both cases, the mythological scenes were akin to mourning practices of ordinary Roman citizens in an effort to reflect their grief and comfort them when they visited the tomb.

[46] The breakup of the classical style led to a period in which full mythological reliefs with an increase in the number of figures and an elongation of forms became more popular, as discussed above.

[51] The catacombs were often named for saints who were buried in them, according to tradition, though at the time of their burial, martyr cults had not yet achieved the popularity to grant them lavish tombs.

The layout and architecture was designed to make very efficient use of the space[57] and consisted of several levels with skylights that were positioned both to maximize lighting and to highlight certain elements of the decor.

With the issuance of the Edict of Milan, as Christians were less persecuted and gained more members of the upper class, the catacombs were greatly expanded and grew more monumental.

[65] The majority of them are religiously neutral, while some are only graphic imitations of epitaphs (dashes and letters) that serve no meaning but to continue the funerary theme in an anonymous and efficient mass-production.

Objects such as the bases of gold glass beakers, shells, dolls, buttons, jewelry, bells, and coins were added to the mortar of the loculi or left on shelves near the tomb.

Floral motif[73] and the Herculean labors (often used in pagan funerary monuments) along with other Hellenistic imagery are common and merge in their depictions of nature with Christian ideas of Eden.

[74] Similarly, seasons are a common theme and represent the journey through life from birth (spring) to death (winter), which goes with the occasional depictions of the Goddesses Ceres and Proserpina.

Whereas freedmen were often compelled to display their success and social mobility through the erection of public monuments, the elite felt little need for an open demonstration of this kind.

[104] Nonetheless governed by a strong sense of duty and religious piety, however, ancient Romans chose to celebrate the dead privately.

[102] In a military context, burial sites served to honor fallen soldiers as well as to mark newly sequestered Roman territory, such as Mainz.

[110] In some cases, heirs or other family members commissioned the construction of cenotaphs for lost soldiers – funerary monuments that commemorated the dead as if the body had been found and returned home.

Mausolea generally had multiple occupants because their space was so vast, although this practise took time to become common in the Early Republic, as did the idea of "burying" the dead above ground.

[118] Clearly in accordance with their embrace of tradition and virtues of the mos maiorum, Romans began to set aside money to build vast new mausolea for the preservation of their legacies.

[126] Howard Colvin cites the mausolea of the consul Minicius Fundanus on Monte Mario and the Licinii-Calpurnii on Via Salaria as examples of more compact structures that came to scatter burial sites.

Many in the Empire who commissioned mausolea in their name also requested room for extended family, slaves, freedmen, concubines, clients, animals, and other intimate acquaintances.

Most of the great Christian basilicas in Rome passed through a stage as funerary halls, full of sarcophagi and slab memorials, before being turned into more conventional churches in the Early Middle Ages.

[132] The original statue, that of a golden quadriga, among other treasures, fell victim to various attacks when the mausoleum served as a castle and a papal fortress during the Middle Ages.

[130] Viewers can observe the tower in the former's building, built inside Diocletian's Palace in Split, Croatia and the dark oil murals on the interior of the latter's, in Thessalonica.