Back to menu

The House of the Gorgons (II)

From what we know about the libitinarii may be deduced that there was a Lucus Libitinae near Ostia, already in the Republican period, presumably in the necropolis to the south of Ostia and that there were puticuli somewhere in the necropolis (a lucar in Ostia is mentioned in the first century BC in a famous inscription mentioning the work of P. Lucilius Gamala "senior": "When he had accepted public funds for putting on games he gave them back, and made good the obligation from his own resources", In ludos cum accepisset publicum lucar, remisit et de suo erogationem fecit; CIL XIV, 375, translation D'Arms 2000, 192).

I suggest that he House of the Gorgons was the administrative office of the undertakers, and as far as I know the first building identified as such. Perhaps it was built by the colony, to be used by successive contractors. The south facade seems the logical place for the posting of the local lex libitinaria. In front of the facade was a small, demarcated area, perhaps paved with travertine.



The building seen from the south. Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.

People wishing to arrange a funeral apparently approached the building along the Cardo, where there was a sidewalk. They entered vestibule 6, where they could take place on a bench. A doorkeeper residing in rooms 1-2 would welcome them. Rooms 3, 16 and 17, all with a mosaic floor, would have been used for arranging the funeral and for keeping the Ostian death-register. Room 17 seems to have been the most important of these rooms: the emblema is larger than the one in room 3, there is a text below the gorgoneion, there is a rectangle in the mosaic behind the gorgoneion, and in the south wall are three heating-channels - like room 16, it has a hypocaust. This room would have been used by the contractor or his associate, sitting at a table. Dining room 11 would have been used by the contractors. Shop 4 and rooms 12 + 15 (an office?) do not seem to have been used by the undertakers, but surely the activity that went on there was related to the funerals. Rooms 12 + 15 may for example have been used by sellers of sarcophagi or the guild of the flute players. In the shop, incense and other materials for use in the house may have been sold.



The bench in vestibule 6, seen from the south-west. Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.

Finally we can have a look at the curious outer staircase 5, starting at 1 metre from the sidewalk and with thick travertine jambs and a travertine threshold, reused material. The staircase may already have existed in the second century (the masonry below the threshold belongs to the second century phase), but it may also have been hacked out later. No other threshold in the building is at this high level. Does the staircase start at a great height for practical reasons, a lack of space to reach the first floor? Or is it related to a raising of the street level? In late antiquity the level of many streets in Ostia was raised with building rubble, rubbish and sherds. This activity may have started after earthquakes in the later third century (cf. Stoeger 2002, cat.nr. OsAn_09). The high threshold of the staircase could be related. In that case we must imagine that it was added when the ground floor was no longer in use.



Staircase 5, seen from the west. Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.

Thick travertine door-jambs are rare in Ostia. They are found in the House of the Triclinia (I,XII,1), in a door next to a staircase in the north-west corner of the porticus; in an entrance in the west part of the Baths of the Philosopher (V,II,6-7); in a monumental main entrance of the Horrea Epagathiana et Epaphroditiana (I,VIII,3); and there is a single jamb in the east wall of the Baths of the Forum (I,XII,6), reused material. It is remarkable however, that travertine doorframes are very frequent in the tombs of the Porta Laurentina necropolis and of the Isola Sacra necropolis (at least 40) (Van der Meer - Stevens 2000, 187-195). We may conclude that travertine doorframes inside the city walls were a rare and conscious choice to accentuate an entrance. So, for example, archives may have been stored in the room next to a staircase in the House of the Triclinia. The entrance in the House of the Gorgons could be an echo of the entrances that are found in tombs. Perhaps corpses were taken to the first floor through this door. Normally bodies would stay in the house of the deceased, but what to do with bodies that had been thrown out, and those found in hotels? The high level of the entrance could then have prevented accidental access and pollution.

Not a single inscription from Ostia or Portus mentions the undertakers. The inscriptions do however provide evidence about the fear that the undertakers would not be allowed to do their work. According to Bodel a modest burial during the early Empire may have cost some 250 sesterces (Bodel 1994, 19), hundreds of euros. Some people would rather not pay the undertakers, especially for the burial of slaves, or simply could not. That is why the funerary inscriptions sometimes stipulate stiff fines when corpses were introduced in tombs without permission (Meiggs 1973, 461).

Important references to the Ostian undertakers are found in the literary sources: in the satires of Juvenalis, in the descriptions of the torturing and execution of martyrs, and in the Confessions of Augustinus. During the reign of Hadrian, Juvenalis comments upon a legatus called Lateranus. He had a bad reputation and was not willing to defend the limes: "Send to Ostia, Caesar, send, but look for the legatus in the big pub, and you will find him lying with some hit man, in company with sailors, thieves, and runaway slaves, among hangmen, bier-makers and the idle tambourines of a priest of Cybele, prostrate from drunkenness" (Mitte Ostia, Caesar, mitte sed in magna legatum quaere popina. Invenies aliquo cum percussore iacentem, permixtum nautis et furibus ac fugitivis, inter carnifices et fabros sandapilarum et resupinati cessantia tympana galli) (Juvenalis, Saturae 8, 171-176). Here we find some of the workers in the Ostian funerary trade: executioners and carpenters who made biers. The latter presumably made their products in the Lucus Libitinae.

In the third century a number of Christians was tortured and killed in Ostia and Portus. Prudentius describes the activity of the executioners and torturers (carnifices and tortores) (Prudentius, Peristephanon XI, 39-152). The descriptions in the Acta Sanctorum are full of torture and executions, but the people performing this are not referred to explicitly. Interesting are passages like this one: "Romulus ordered that they be brought to the arch in front of the theatre and there he made them undergo their death sentence. Then everyone spoke as if with one voice: 'All powerful lord God, receiver of our innocent spirits, accept our souls'. And they were beheaded in that very spot, giving thanks to God. But Romulus ordered the blessed Cyriacus to be beheaded in jail. Then, blessed Eusebius at night gathered up all the bodies of the saints - bishop Cyriacus, presbyter Maximus and deacon Archelaus. And he buried them with every care" (Acta Sanctorum, The martyrdom of Aurea, II,15). We may assume that, normally, the bodies of martyrs would be handed over to the people who were claiming them according to the law. If these did not appear, they would be taken to the puticuli, from which in this case they were rescued by a fellow Christian.

In 387 AD Monica, the mother of Augustinus, died in Ostia, shortly after the famous heavenly "Vision at Ostia". Part of her funerary inscription has been found near the church of Sant' Aurea in mediaeval Ostia. Augustinus refers to the undertakers (washers of the corpses, pollinctores) when he writes: "And whilst they whose office it was were, according to custom, making ready for the funeral, I, in a part of the house where I conveniently could ..." (et de more illis, quorum officium erat, funus curantibus, ego in parte, ubi decenter poteram ...) (Augustinus, Confessiones IX,12,31). About the funeral itself he says: "So, when the body was carried forth, we both went and returned without tears. For neither in those prayers which we poured forth unto Thee when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered up unto Thee for her, the dead body being now placed by the side of the grave, as the custom there is, prior to its being laid therein, neither in their prayers did I shed tears" (Cum ecce corpus elatum est, imus, redimus, sine lacrimis. Nam neque in eis precibus, quas tibi fudimus, cum offeretur pro ea sacrificium pretii nostri, iam iuxta sepulchrum posito cadavere, priusquam deponeretur, sicut illic fiere solet, nec in eis ergo precibus flevi; Augustinus, Confessiones IX,12,32; translation T. Matthew). We hear of a local, Ostian custom, namely placing the corpse next to the tomb, to perform a ritual. The eucharist was celebrated in the house or a church (Rebillard 1999[a], 1042; Volp 2002, 204; Rebillard 2003, 150, 155).

Augustinus was the eldest son of Monica, and he must have visited the House of the Gorgons to arrange the funeral. All those who were confronted with death were obliged to use the services of the undertakers, regardless of their religious convictions. The is presumably the reason that the gorgoneia were chosen by the undertakers: they have a certain neutrality, that would not insult anyone. The peacock in the Inn of the Peacock has a similar neutrality: certain Dionysiac motifs were acceptable to and used by Christians.



The Cardo to the west of the building, seen from the south.
Numerous funeral processions must have passed on this street.
Photo: Jorgen Christian Meyer.