Tomb 56Isola Sacra Menu

Tomb 56 looks like a small altar with a niche. The grave has been removed from its original place, the right wall of tomb 55, to the back wall of the same tomb. The niche, standing on a brick base, is formed by two columns with capitals of tufa on which a triangular tympanum rests. In the niche we see depicted a double, half open door. From the back a man, unquestionably the deceased, is entering. His head is missing. This scene is well-known from archaic times: leaving this earthly life through the door to eternity. The grave has the following inscription:

D(is) M(anibus)
SABINO
TAVRIO FILIO
PIENTISSIMO
FECIT

Taurio has made (this monument) for his very pious son, Sabinus.

• Sources
• Russel Meigs - Roman Ostia, At the Clarendon Press 1973
• Guido Calza - Necropoli nell'Isola Sacra'(1940)
• Dr. Jan Theo Bakker.
• Hilding Thylander - Inscriptions du port d'Ostie (Lund C W K Gleerup 1952).
• Ida Baldassarre, Irene Bragantini, Chiara Morselli and Franc Taglietti - Necropoli di Porto, Isola Sacra (Roma 1996).