Mosaic of a skeleton holding a wine jug in each hand. Originally on a dining-room floor in Pompeii - where it reminded diners to enjoy themselves before it was too late. Exact find-spot unknown; now in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples.title-page.

This Roman cemetery at Ostia near Rome is amazingly well preserved and gives an great idea of what tombs lining the roads outside towns felt and looked like.

Complete photographic record of all the tombs in Pompeii. It may be best to first get an overview of the cemeteries with some of the other links below, then explore this site.

Walk up the Street of Tombs just outside the Herculaneum Gate of Pompeii in Google Street-View.
The street provides examples of the many different shapes and sizes of ancient Roman tombs: some only take up small plots, while others are over 7 meters long.

More links:

- interactive plan. On the plan, click Nos.1 and 3 to access the tomb areas.

- photo looking from the gate; photo 2 from half way along the street.

- video 1: a short walk around the street.

- video 2: a look inside and out of the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche.

Description, location and neat little sketch of the how this important cemetery looks today.

More links:

- interactive plan.

- photo.

- video: tour of the the Tomb of Eumachia.

Brief description.

More links:

- interactive plan.

- movie: tour of Tomb of Vestorius Priscus.

- Google Street-view.

Description from the Official Website.

- interactive plan.

- Google Street-view.

Interior of a Roman tomb with niches for urns of ashes.
Reconstructed inside the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

Short video clip in which Professor Mary Beard tours the interior of a mass, Roman tomb - the columbarium of Vigna Codini in Rome.

From family tombs developed immense structures for hundreds of cremation urns. From their resemblance to a dovecote or pigeon house they were called columbaria. They began to be erected in the time of Augustus, when the high price of land made the purchase of private burial grounds impossible for the poorer classes.

Here's a photo of the tomb.

Yes - you could even eat your meals with your dead ancestors! Not so much a "Room with a View" as a "Tomb with a Stew"..!

Here's a description of this open-air dining-room attached to a tomb outside the Herculaneum Gate in Pompeii...in 1851:

"Close to the villa of Diomedes is
a small enclosure, of irregular figure, presenting to
the street a plain front about twenty feet in length,
stuccoed and unomamented, except by a low pediment and cornice. The door is remarkably low;
not more than five feet high. Entering, we find
ourselves within a chamber open to the sky, the walls
cheerfully decorated by paintings of animals in the
centre of compartments bordered with flowers.
Before us is a stone triclinium, with a massive pedestal in the centre to receive the table, and a round
pillar in advance of it. It is a funeral triclinium,
for the celebration of feasts in honor of the dead:
the pillar probably supported the urn of him in whose
honor the entertainments were given, afler which
it was deposited in the tomb".
Unfortunately, this funerary triclinium has fallen into complete ruin... this is its state today.
Drawing from "L'Univers, Histoire et description de tous les peuples", 1851.

Short YouTube clip in which Professor Mary Beard shows us the tomb of Eurysaces, an eccentric Roman baker.

Many cremation urns that held the dead's ashes were sunk into the ground or bench of a niche within a tomb. They were covered with a lid as this photo shows.

One of the most luxurious cremation urns ever found - a hand-carved blue and white glass vase. Found in a tomb near the Villa of the Mosaic Columns, Pompeii; now in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples..

Funerary monument to the married couple M. Gratidius and his wife Chrite, but popularly known as Cato and Portia. Not only are they holding hands but she also has her hand on his shoulder.

Around 25-1 BC; in the Vatican Museum.

Grave monument of a girl.
Beginning in the Augustan period, tombstones showing the dead person reclining on a couch were placed in tombs, either in niches or on flat bases. Eventually, as Roman funerary practices changed, these sculptures began to be used as lids for sarcophagi.
From Rome, dating AD 120-140, now in the Getty Villa Museum, Malibu, USA.

Marble funerary slab decorated with a skeleton.
From Rome, now in the British Museum.

Tombstone of the Roman soldier Dannicus.
Found at Cirencester, UK; now in the town's terrific new museum.

The dead person lies reclined on a couch; in some cases the dead person was propped up to sit in a chair. Any information as to the provenance of this piece would be greatly received.

Relief sculpture from Amiternum, 1st century AD, now in Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo, L'Aquila, Italy.

Sculpted stone sarcophagi (a Greek word meaning "flesh-eaters"), came into use in the 200s A.D., and soon became symbols of wealth and status. Since Romans favored certain themes for sarcophagi, they were often bought ready-made and then customized by the addition of a portrait of the deceased.
Originally from Rome, now in the Getty Villa Museum, Malibu, USA.

With the shift from cremation to interment that took place in the 100s A.D., the garland motif that had decorated funerary altars was adopted for the decoration of sarcophagi.
Now in the Getty Centre, Los Angeles.

Good example of a short Latin inscription from the tomb of Valeria, a former slave-girl turned hairdresser.
In the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, USA.

How to go about deciphering Roman tombstones, with examples for you to translate.

Introduction to Roman funerals.

Account of the cult of the dead on the Pompeii official website, with links to three of the cemeteries (or necropolis) outside the gates.

Long, detailed and illustrated essay on burial practices and funeral customs including descriptions of different types of tombs. Written nearly a century ago the language is sometimes odd, but the content is sound.

Another long, detailed account of Roman funerals from the 1875 Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities".

Typical Roman mourners dressed in dark (not necessarily black) clothes.

More images from the TV series "Rome":

- Pay the Ferryman: a coin was placed in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon the Ferryman's fare for taking souls across the River Styx to the abodes of the Dead in the Underworld.

- Crematorium - ustrinum: the designated places for burning dead bodies lay just outside the city walls.

- The Cremation of Julius Caesar: his body was "accidentally" burned while still in the Roman Forum.

The three great sinners of Classical myth cast into Tartarus.
Part of a sarcophagus found in a tomb along the Via Appia Nuova, dating c.160-170 AD; now in the Vatican Museums.

As depicted on p.96 of CLC Book 1.

The three great sinners of Classical myth cast into Tartarus.
Part of a sarcophagus found in a tomb along the Via Appia Nuova, dating c.160-170 AD; now in the Vatican Museums.

As depicted on p.120 of CLC Unit 1.

From ghouls to geese... a webpage on some of the more unusual things the Romans believed.

Although nominally dealing with magic in Roman North Africa, this long, involved webpage offers insights into ancient magic.

Greek and Roman wolf stories, and how the wolf took on sinister overtones in later times.

Read the original, Roman account of a werewolf by the author Petronius which is he basis for our story "fabula mirabilis" in Stage 7. Scroll down to paragraph LXII (62) to begin.

Another reminder to live for the day! This wonderful Roman cup is now in the Louvre museum, Paris, but was found in the Villa of the Pisanella at Boscoreale near Pompeii - which was perhaps owned by Caecilius!

The theme of death leveling out the inequalities between rich and poor is vividly portrayed in this mosaic tabletop. A builder's level is supported by symbols of the wealthy (sceptre and expensive purple cloth on the left) and the poor (staff and sheepskin on the right) while from the level hangs a skull (death) above a butterfly (the soul) and a wheel (fortune).
From a house (I.5.2) in Pompeii, now in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples.

Beautiful painting depicting silver dishes, bowls, jugs, drinking-horns, cups, spoons and ladles. The painting is not on a dining-room wall of a house as you might expect but the enclosure wall of the Tomb of Vestorius Priscus in Pompeii - again linking feasting and death.

This mosaic decorated a dining-room floor. Guests could easily have confused their real leftovers with the amazingly life-like scraps depicted which include a chicken breastbone, leg and foot, a fish skeleton, a crab claw, various shell fish, snail shell, two olives, and various fruit pips.
The mosaic is a Roman copy of a Greek mosaic called the Unswept Floor by an artist called Sosus.

Here's another view, and a section with a mouse!

This copy, discovered on the Aventine Hill in Rome, is in the Museo Gregoriano Profano in the Vatican. Another version (from Emperor Hadrian's villa at Tivoli) is in the Capitoline Museum, Rome .

Boo! Traces of colour are still visible on this wonderful sculpture from the House of Neptune and Amphitrite in Herculaneum, near Pompeii.

Several versions of this mosaic have been found in Roman houses so it was obviously a popular one to have! This version is from a 1st-century BC suburban villa about 8 miles south of Rome. (The caption on the linked photo is incorrect).

Here's another version from the House of the Faun in Pompeii, now in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples.

"Death is nothing to us," as Epicurus puts it, for "when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist." Website dedicated to this Greek philosopher who believed that pleasure was obtained by knowledge, friendship, and living a virtuous and temperate life.