Tomb 42Isola Sacra Menu

Tomb 42 is a tomb with two floors.
The grave borders to the south upon tomb 39, but has been built in a later period.
Originally tomb 42 was detached with a view on the Via Severiana. After the erection of tomb 41 in front of it the view was lost. Today's street level is higher than the level of the floor of tomb 42, and the lower burial chamber can only be reached by three steps down.
There are several clues that tomb 42 was built in two phases. The façade of the lower burial chamber was strengthened with two walls to carry the upper floor. The letters D and M, part of the inscription above the entrance, are cut out in slabs of travertine on both sides of that inscription. Only the M is still visible. The letter D disappeared behind the stairs to the upper floor.

 

  

 

Above the entrance is a marble plate with the following inscription in small, irregular characters:

C(aius) IVLIVS FELIXS ET IVLIA ASIA
FECERVNT SIBI ET LIBERIS SVIS
LIBERTIS LIBE[RTAB]VSQVE [POS]
TERISQV[E EORV]M H(oc) M(omumentum) E(xterum)
H(eredem) [N(on) S(equetur)]

(According to this inscription Caius Iulius Felix and Iulia Asia made this grave for themselves and for their children, their freed slaves, and the descendants. The tomb could not be inherited by strangers).

During the excavations the following graffito has been found in the white stucco of the ceiling in front of the entrance of the lower burial chamber¹:

ego memini quenda(m) crissasse puellam
cuius cineres aurea terra tegat

"I remember touching the buttocks of a certain girl, whose ashes covers the golden earth". Unfortunately the graffito does not exist anymore.

 

The lower burial chamber has a double row of arcosolia for inhumation in three walls. Several niches still have paintings of flowers.
Next to the entrance are smaller niches for urns. These niches were not used.
The black-and-white mosaic floor, partly preserved, covers three formae.
The ceiling has the only still existing cross vault in the necropolis. This ceiling was beautifully decorated with geometric figures. In the centre a male figure was depicted. Each surface had a painting of an animal. The decoration dates from the end of the second century AD.
The arcosolia were red coloured and decorated with, among others, cows. The painting from the upper niche in the right wall is today in the museum of Ostia (inv. nr. 10034). The smaller niches flanking the entrance are painted with red flowers.

 

 

 

 

The upper floor can be reached by a staircase against the outer wall of the lower burial chamber.
The staircase consists of eight travertine steps and turns halfway 90 degrees to the right. At the top first you enter a walled-in, open space in front of the actual burial chamber. This space was probably used as a solarium (see tomb 29).
The solarium has a black-and-white mosaic floor with geometrical motifs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The upper burial chamber has a double row of arcosolia alongside three walls. In each of them was room for two bodies.
The floor has a polychrome mosaic. In the middle we see a round medallion in a square field. In the medallion a bowl with flowers and pigeons are depicted. The mosaic is special because the depiction in the medallion is facing the back wall and not the entrance.
The following inscription, also part of the mosaic, can be read from the entrance:

IN PAIMENTO SARCOFAGA N IIII IN LONGO 

This inscription tells us that four sarcophagi have been placed longitudinally under the floor (east/west).

 

Extensive investigation in the area around tombs 41 and 42 has shown the complex situation before the building of the two tombs.
On account of the obvious fast silting up of this part of the necropolis many graves had been built on top of each other in the previous periods. Not much can be said with certainty about the exact position of the various graves. We know however that tomb 42 in the north-east corner is supported by an older tomb "a cassone", today known as tomb 42bis.

 

• 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).
  
  
• Notes
• 1:The graffiti is described by G. Calza as well as by Thylander. The text should be a variation on a Greek epitaph (R. Lattimore). The beginning of the text was unreadable and should miss the word “hic”. The possible translation is curious: was the author an unknown lover of the girl or someone who had the intention to blemish the deceased still? We shall never know. G. Calza: “Necropoli nell’Isola Sacra”. Rome 1940-Thylander: “Inscriptions du port d’Ostie”.-R. Lattimore: “Themes in Greek and Latinepitaphs”.