The Roman tomb
_{Level L2: the late-Roman catacombs}
Type	Lore: tomb, catacombs, cistern
Era	Late Roman, about 3rd–5th century
Builders	A late-Roman official; the fossores (gravediggers)
Location	The Octagon and the rock below
Status	Canon in the plans

The Roman tomb

The Roman tomb is the Octagon in its first life: the octagonal tomb of a late-Roman official, raised on the crown of the old Illyrian hillfort, with catacombs cut into the rock beneath it.

The tomb

A late-Roman octagonal tomb of the governor's-officer class, built by a villa owner on the hillfort crown: a podium, a drum and a domed rotunda, in big dressed blocks.
Its first owner was buried in the podium crypt; a sealed loculus there still holds a gilt crossbow brooch, the badge of his rank.
Its sarcophagus was robbed long ago.

The catacombs

Late-Roman fossores, the gravediggers' college, cut galleries (ambulacra) along a soft bed in the rock, with loculi stacked four or five high.
Painted chambers (cubicula) tell who was buried there: boats and nets for a fishing family, a vine for a wine merchant.
They cut an underground cemetery hall over a founder's grave.
Digging south, the fossors broke into a natural shaft, walled the gallery off and never finished the hall's apse; its south wall is still raw rock with tool marks.

The cistern

In the karst cave below, the Romans built a cistern to collect the drip water: 20 × 18 m, four piers, barrel vaults. A pot of late-Roman coins lies in the salt hall beside it.

Reused

Around the town, reused Roman sarcophagi still line the cemetery's processional way. About 1340 the tomb itself passed to a patrician family: see The patrician family.

Real-world grounding

Diocletian's mausoleum in Split (a Roman octagon later reused), and the late-Roman cemeteries of Salona (Manastirine and Marusinac).