Pompeii Porta Nocera Tombs. South West side of Via delle Tombe.

Tomb 23OS. Aedicula tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros, Vesonia, and Marcus Orfellius Faustus, Publius Vesonius Pileros, Publius Vesonius Proculus, Vesonia Urbana, Eliodorus.

Excavated October 1954.

Porta Nocera Tombs Plan

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2011. Tomb 23OS. Looking south.

Aedicula tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros, Vesonia, and Marcus Orfellius Faustus. Photo courtesy of Buzz Ferebee.

According to Cooley, recent excavations inside the tomb enclosure of P. Vesonius Phileros have focused upon tracing the changing fortunes of those buried within and upon reconstructing the rites that took place at the tomb. The tale of false friendship, which is related on the façade of the tomb, is strikingly mirrored in the treatment of the burials of individuals within the enclosure.

Three figures are prominently represented on front of this tomb outside the Nucerian Gate (Tomb 23OS) by statues; in the centre is the deceased's patron, Vesonia, daughter of Publius, flanked by two men, the deceased Publius Vesonius Phileros and his friend Marcus Orfellius Faustus. Vesonius erected the tomb during his lifetime (and had to add Augustalis later on).

Eighteen herms were excavated inside the tomb enclosure, including herms of Vesonia, Phileros and Orfellius.

Here the impression of social hierarchy differs from the statues on tomb façade, with herms of Orfellius and Phileros appearing side by side in the key axial location, and Vesonia set apart.

Phileros renouncement of his friendship with Orfellius is confirmed by the fact that the herm of Orfellius has been sliced off where the shaft enters the ground.

There is evidence (in the form of pig bones) for a ritual meal being shared at the tomb, and a coin that had been burnt on a pyre was then buried with the deceased's ashes in an urn.

Still unpublished are three other inscriptions, on which the name of Phileros appears: on a boundary marker at the entrance to the enclosure; on the plaster sealing the tomb; and on a herm indicating his burial-place.

See Cooley, A. and M.G.L., 2014. Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, p. 153-5, E80-E86.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. October 2024. Tomb 23OS. Looking south.

Aedicula tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros, Vesonia and Marcus Orfellius Faustus.

Photo courtesy of Giuseppe Ciaramella.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2006. Tomb 23OS. Looking south.

Aedicula tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros, Vesonia and Marcus Orfellius Faustus.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS.

Photographed 1970-79 by Günther Einhorn, picture courtesy of his son Ralf Einhorn.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. 1964. Tomb 23OS. Looking south-west. Photo by Stanley A. Jashemski.

Source: The Wilhelmina and Stanley A. Jashemski archive in the University of Maryland Library, Special Collections (See collection page) and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License v.4. See Licence and use details.

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Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. Looking east along Via delle Tombe.

Tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros, Vesonia and Marcus Orfellius Faustus, on the right.

Photographed 1970-79 by Günther Einhorn, picture courtesy of his son Ralf Einhorn.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. 1964.

Tomb 23OS, on the right. Looking east along Via delle Tombe. Photo by Stanley A. Jashemski.

Source: The Wilhelmina and Stanley A. Jashemski archive in the University of Maryland Library, Special Collections (See collection page) and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License v.4. See Licence and use details.

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Pompeii Porta Nocera. April 2019. Tomb 230S, on the left. Looking south-west along Via delle Tombe. Photo courtesy of Rick Bauer.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. 1964. Tomb 23OS. Photo by Stanley A. Jashemski.

Source: The Wilhelmina and Stanley A. Jashemski archive in the University of Maryland Library, Special Collections (See collection page) and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License v.4. See Licence and use details.

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Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2006. Tomb 23OS. Three headless statues.

Publius Vesonius Phileros to the left wearing a toga.

Vesonia is in the centre wearing a tunic and mantle.

Marcus Orfellius Faustus the ‘friend’ is to the right wearing a toga.

According to Cooley,

The woman in the centre is the deceased’s patron, Vesonia, daughter of Publius, whereas the two men are the deceased Publius Vesonius Phileros together with his ‘friend’ Marcus Orfellius Faustus.

See Cooley, A. and M.G.L., 2004. Pompeii: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, p. 152.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. October 2024. Tomb 23OS. Marble plaques with Latin inscriptions. Photo courtesy of Giuseppe Ciaramella.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2010. Tomb 23OS. Marble plaque with Latin inscriptions -

P(ublius) VESONIVS G(aiae) L(ibertus)

PHILEROS AVGVSTALIS

VIVOS MONVMENT(um)

FECIT SIBI ET SVIS

VESONIAE P(ubli) F(iliae)

PATRONAE ET

M(arco) ORFELLIO M(arci) L(iberto)

FAVSTO AMICO.

According to Cooley, this translates as

Publius Vesonius Phileros, freedman of a woman, Augustalis, built this monument for himself and his kin in his lifetime, for Vesonia daughter of Publius, his patron, and for Marcus Orfellius Faustus, son of Marcus, his friend.      [AE (1986) 166a]

See Cooley, A. and M.G.L., 2004. Pompeii: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, G48, p. 152.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2006. Tomb 23OS. Marble plaques with Latin inscriptions.

According to Cooley, Vesonius erected the tomb during his lifetime and had to add Augustalis later on.

He had a life of ups and downs if we are to take seriously the message inscribed below, on the Podium.

This message is a curious variation on customary entreaties to a passer-by to stay awhile in order to read an epitaph.

See Cooley, A. and M.G.L., 2004. Pompeii: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, p. 152.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2010. Tomb 23OS. Plaque, in Latin, on front of tomb with a warning to passers-by.

HOSPES PAVLLISPER MORARE

SI NON EST MOLESTVM ET QVID EVITES

COGNOSCE AMICVM HVNC QVEM

SPERAVERAM MI ESSE AB EO MIHI ACCVSATO

RES SVBIECTI ET IVDICIA INSTAVRATA DEIS

GRATIAS AGO ET MEAE INNOCENTIAE OMNI

MOLESTIA LIBERATVS SVM QVI NOSTRVM MENTITVR

EVM NEC DI PENATES NEC INFERI RECIPIANT.

According to Cooley this translates as

Stranger delay a brief while if it is not troublesome and learn what to avoid.

This man whom I had hoped was my friend, I am forsaking:

a case was maliciously brought against me; I was charged, and legal proceedings were instituted;

I give thanks to the gods and to my innocence, I was freed from all distress.

May neither the household gods nor the gods below receive the one who misrepresented our affairs.      [AE (1964) 160]

See Cooley, A. and M.G.L., 2004. Pompeii: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, G49, p. 153.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2010. Tomb 23OS from the rear. Looking north-west.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2006. Tomb 23OS. South rear side of tomb.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2006. Tomb 23OS. Columellae at rear of tomb.

Sixteen columellae were found of which five, in marble or limestone, had inscriptions.

P VESONIVS / PILEROS.

VESONIA / P(ubli) F(ilia).

P(ublio) VESONIO / PROCVLO / V(ixit) A(nnis) XIII.

VESONIA VRBANA / VIXIT ANNIS XX.

ELIODO / RVS VIX(it) / ANN(is) / XVIII.

See D’Ambrosio, A. and De Caro, S., 1983. Un Impegno per Pompei: Fotopiano e documentazione della Necropoli di Porta Nocera. Milano: Touring Club Italiano. (23OS).

According to Wallace-Hadrill, there were no less than 18 such headstones within Vesonius’ tomb.

Apart from himself and his patrona, Vesonia, we find a Vesonius Proculus, who died at 13, a Vesonia Urbana, who lived to 20, and a (H)eliodorus, who lived to 18.

At this point we can only guess the story. The patrona sounds to have been his partner as well as former owner.

Presumably they are the parents of Vesonius Proculus and Vesonia Urbana.

Heliodorus should be one of their slaves, as in all likelihood are the 13 other unnamed columellae, unless any of them were freedmen.

See Wallace-Hadrill A., 2008. Housing the dead: the tomb as house in Roman Italy, in L. Brink and D. A. Green (eds.) Commemorating the Dead. Texts and Artifacts in Context (Berlin, New York, de Gruyter) 39-77.

According to Porter, the arrangement of the plots behind the memorial would seem to tell against Wallace-Hadrill’s theory - already problematic [Williams 263 n. 6] - that Vesonia and Phileros were married and that Vesonia was the mother of the children commemorated there. Against the latter notion, cf. Weaver 180, who notes that while patroni not uncommonly married their own libertae, “[t]here was a distinct prejudice against a freeborn patrona marrying her own libertus” — a prejudice reflected in the evidence of the epitaphs and in legal sources.)

See Porter J. R., 2020. Tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros: a complex tale of friendship betrayal and revenge reaching to the very grave, fig. 6. See article on Accademia

See Weaver, P.R.C. “Children of Freedmen (and Freedwomen)” in B. Rawson, ed., Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1991) p. 180.

See Williams, C.A. Reading Roman Friendship. Cambridge and New York, 2012, p. 263 n. 6.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. Plan of tomb precinct and burials.

According to Lepetz and Van Andringa, despite the modest size of the funerary precinct this site was one of intensive activity: it was visited, walked in, used in numerous ways, and it was constantly modified and re-organised. More than thirty graves were dug on a 32 m2 plot in Enclosure 230S with in a period of less than a century. As a place of separation between the living and the dead, where the dead were laid to rest, and where the Manes who protected them resided, this world of the dead, from an archaeological point of view, is as rich and varied as the world of the living.

See Lepetz S. and Van Andringa W., 2011. Publius Vesonius Phileros vivos monumentum fecit-.Investigations in a sector of the Porta Nocera cemetery in Roman Pompeii. p. 132.

See Porter J. R., 2020. Tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros: a complex tale of friendship betrayal and revenge reaching to the very grave, fig. 6. See article on Accademia

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. Columellae at rear of tomb.

The two freedmen's graves are placed side by side in the niche underneath the monument.

The patroness's burial is placed in front of the monument, on the left side.

In the centre is the columella of the son of P. Vesonius Phileros, Publius Vesonius Proculus who lived 13 years.

See Lepetz S. and Van Andringa W., 2011. Publius Vesonius Phileros vivos monumentum fecit-.Investigations in a sector of the Porta Nocera cemetery in Roman Pompeii. p. 117, Fig. 6.5.

(photo, A. Cailliot, MFP/FPN).

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. Marble male columella of P. Vesonius Pileros at rear of tomb.

He was the owner of the tomb and a freedman of Vesonia.

See D’Ambrosio, A. and De Caro, S., 1983. Un Impegno per Pompei: Fotopiano e documentazione della Necropoli di Porta Nocera. Milano: Touring Club Italiano. (23OS).

P VESONIVS / PILEROS.

According to Campbell, this reads

Publius Vesonius

Phileros      [AE 2006: 291]

See Campbell V., 2015. The tombs of Pompeii: organization, space, and society. New York-London: Routledge, p. 269.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. White limestone female columella of Vesonia from within the tomb.

VESONIA / P(ubli) F(ilia).

She was the daughter of a Publius Vesonius and the former owner and Patrona of Publius Vesonius Pileros.

See D’Ambrosio, A. and De Caro, S., 1983. Un Impegno per Pompei: Fotopiano e documentazione della Necropoli di Porta Nocera. Milano: Touring Club Italiano. (23OS).

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. Found 1966. Travertine columella of Eliodorus from within the tomb.

ELIODO / RVS VIX(it) / ANN(is) / XVIII.

Perhaps a slave of the family?

See D’Ambrosio, A. and De Caro, S., 1983. Un Impegno per Pompei: Fotopiano e documentazione della Necropoli di Porta Nocera. Milano: Touring Club Italiano. (23OS).

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS.

Marble columella of Publius Vesonius Proculus which had pride of place in the tomb.

In front of the niche underneath the monument in the centre is the columella of the son of P. Vesonius Phileros, Publius Vesonius Proculus who lived 13 years.

See Lepetz S. and Van Andringa W., 2011. Publius Vesonius Phileros vivos monumentum fecit-.Investigations in a sector of the Porta Nocera cemetery in Roman Pompeii. p. 117, Fig. 6.5.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. March 2024. Marble columella of Publius Vesonius Proculus.

P(ublio) VESONIO / PROCVLO / V(ixit) A(nnis) XIII.

Publius Vesonius Proculus Vixit Annis XIII.

On display in exhibition “L’altra Pompei, vite comuni all’ombra del Vesuvio”.

Photo courtesy of Giuseppe Ciaramella.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. Tomb 23OS. Columella of P Vesonius Pileros. The space beside him, meant for Orfellius, has been back-filled and paved over.

According to Lepetz and Van Andringa, Roman legal texts confirm that a tomb was not considered a sacred site until a body was buried in it, and only the spot where a body was interred was protected by law against profanation.

Since Faustus was still alive, Phileros was able to bar his former friend once and for all from the burial place he had originally provided for him in anticipation of death.

And this is what he did, destroying the slab that sealed the cavity for two adjoining and still empty graves.

He then erased his former friend's stele before backfilling the cinerary urn designated for Faustus and the ceramic pipe into which libations would have been poured on his remains.

Finally, the now obsolete grave was covered with a new sealing surface into which pieces of black stone marked Phileros's name and defined the parameters of a now extended grave available solely for Phileros.

See Lepetz S. and Van Andringa W., 2011. Publius Vesonius Phileros vivos monumentum fecit-.Investigations in a sector of the Porta Nocera cemetery in Roman Pompeii. p. 119, Fig. 6.6.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2010. Tomb 23OS. Centre niche on south side, with two lava columelle.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2010. Tomb 23OS. Lava columella.

Pompeii Porta Nocera. May 2010. Tomb 23OS. Lava columella.

Porta Nocera Tombs Plan