Columbarium Tombs and Collective Identity in Augustan Rome

Dorian Borbonus

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781108436021
• eBook ISBN: 9781139698955
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Ancient Art

Columbarium tombs are among the most recognizable forms of Roman architecture and also among the most enigmatic. The subterranean collective burial chambers have repeatedly sparked the imagination of modern commentators, but their origins and function remain obscure. Columbarium Tombs and Collective Identity in Augustan Rome situates columbaria within the development of Roman funerary architecture and the historical context of the early Imperial period. Contrary to earlier scholarship that often interprets columbaria primarily as economic burial solutions, Dorian Borbonus shows that they defined a community of people who were buried and commemorated collectively. Many of the tomb occupants were slaves and freed slaves, for whom collective burial was one strategy of community building that counterbalanced their exclusion in Roman society. Columbarium tombs were thus sites of social interaction that provided their occupants with a group identity that, this book shows, was especially relevant during the social and cultural transformation of the Augustan era.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One Studying Columbaria as a Historical Phenomenon
• Chapter Two Tradition and Innovation in the Architectural Design of Columbaria
• Chapter Three Making and Breaking the Rules: The Use and Evolution of Columbaria
• Chapter Four Reading between the Lines: The Vocabulary of Columbarium Epitaphs
• Chapter Five Finding Niches in Society: The Occupants
• Conclusion
• Appendix A Archaeological Catalog
• Appendix B Summary of Epigraphic Data
• Appendix C Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index