The Hypogaeum of the Aurelii: collegium tomb

Alison Poe - Rutgers University

The third-century Hypogaeum of the Aurelii in Rome has received attention for its extensive and highly idiosyncratic program of wall paintings. Previous studies of the monument have chiefly sought the interpret the frescoes as a means of ascribing the tomb to Gnostics, Christians, or pagans. Leaving aside the question of religion, the present paper returns to the epigraphic evidence to argue that the hypogaeum belonged to a burial club, or collegium, and reconsiders some of the paintings in this light.

Two aspects of the main surviving inscription in the sepulcher indicate that the proprietors comprised members of a collegium rather than a nuclear family. First, the epitaph is located in the pavement of a cubiculum, whereas contemporary family tombs ordinarily lack inscriptions on the interior. Second, the dedicant, one Aurelius Felicissimus, identifies the three deceased, also Aurelii, as "brothers and fellow freedmen." As Saller and Shaw have shown, the great majority of tituli from family sepulchers of the imperial era name only the husband and wife, with the less frequent addition of children; sibling commemoration remains rare. Most likely, then, the "brothers" sharing the nomen Aurelius constituted a band of former slaves who, after emancipation by a common master of that name, had formed a collegium and had commissioned the tomb for themselves and for certain members of their family.

The motif of a tightly knit group of male figures occurs repeatedly in the hypogaeum frescoes. The figures in these tableaux, while always individualized to some extent, are consistently linked to one another by their proximity and by their similar dress, attributes, and actions. The close resemblance of these figures to images of the deceased as philosopher on third-century sarcophagi supports their interpretation as portraits. One such group stands poised at the threshold of a banquet, a symbol of the afterlife in both pagan and Christian funerary art. This scene of convivium, the author argues, represents the eagerly awaited reunion with fellow club members in the hereafter. The inclusion of an almost identical group in the scene of a triumphal procession into a city suggests that this image, too, presents death as a restoration of the collegium. The attribution of the Hypogaeum of the Aurelii to a burial club thus renders the tomb's enigmatic decoration more intelligible: it served to exalt the solidarity of the collegium, even beyond the grave.