I am frequently asked the question of where famous people from the ancient world were buried. In most cases, we have no idea where the remains of famous people from the ancient world were originally deposited. Nonetheless, when it comes to famous rulers from the ancient Mediterranean world, we often have a great deal more information about where they were buried than we do for ordinary people.
For instance, we actually do have some information about where famous leaders such as Perikles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Augustus’s remains were deposited. Unfortunately, even when we do know the exact location of a person’s original burial, it is exceedingly rare for their remains to have survived to the present day. None of the bodies of any of the rulers I have mentioned have ever been identified by archaeologists.
Burial practices in the ancient world varied considerably from one culture to the next. The ancient Romans traditionally cremated their dead. The ancient Greeks traditionally buried their dead in the ground uncremated and unembalmed with grave markers to show where the person was buried. The ancient Egyptians traditionally embalmed their dead and placed their embalmed bodies in tombs with extensive grave goods.
Perikles
The ancient Greek politician Perikles (lived c. 495 – 429 BC) is renowned as the greatest leader of the Greek city-state of Athens. He died in 429 BC during the terrible Plague of Athens, which utterly devastated the population of Athens. The plague that killed Perikles is described in great detail by the ancient Athenian historian Thoukydides (lived c. 460 – c. 400 BC) in his Histories of the Peloponnesian War. Thoukydides had witnessed the plague firsthand and contracted it himself. Unfortunately, Thoukydides tells us nothing about where Perikles was buried after his death from the plague.
The much later ancient Greek travel writer Pausanias (lived c. 110 – c. 180 AD), however, records in his travel guide The Guide to Greece 1.29.3 that Perikles’s grave was located along the road in Athens that led to Plato’s Akademia, alongside the graves of other great Athenian politicians and generals, including Thrasyboulos, Chabrias, and Phormion. Pausanias states that Perikles’s grave was still visible in his own time in the second century AD. Pausanias writes, as translated by W. H. S. Jones:
“Such are their sanctuaries here, and of the graves the first is that of Thrasybulus son of Lycus, in all respects the greatest of all famous Athenians, whether they lived before him or after him. The greater number of his achievements I shall pass by, but the following facts will suffice to bear out my assertion. He put down what is known as the tyranny of the Thirty, setting out from Thebes with a force amounting at first to sixty men; he also persuaded the Athenians, who were torn by factions, to be reconciled, and to abide by their compact. His is the first grave, and after it come those of Pericles, Chabrias and Phormio.”
Unfortunately, although the ancient road to Plato’s Akademia has actually survived to the present day and can be visited by anyone visiting in Athens, Pausanias does not give the exact location of Perikles’s grave and there is no grave in Athens that can be conclusively identified as belonging to Perikles that has ever been excavated by archaeologists.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the ancient road in Athens that leads to Plato’s Akademia. The ancient Greek travel writer Pausanias records that the great Athenian statesman Perikles was buried alongside this very road. Unfortunately, Perikles’s grave has never been identified.
Alexandros III of Makedonia
The ancient king Alexandros III of Makedonia (lived 356 – 323 BC), who is best known today in English as “Alexander the Great,” died in the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon on either 10 or 11 June 323 BC after twelve days of extreme illness. The disease that killed him is unknown. There are hypotheses that Alexander may have been poisoned, but these are unlikely, since twelve days passed between Alexander falling ill and his death and it is generally thought that such an extremely slow-acting poison probably would not have been available in Babylon at the time of Alexander’s death.
After he died, Alexander’s body lay unburied for a very long time while his generals disputed over matters of succession. There was considerable controversy over where Alexander was meant to be buried. In late 322 BC or early 321 BC, Alexander’s general Perdikkas ordered for Alexander’s body to be carried as part of a massive funeral procession back to his home kingdom of Makedonia in what is now northern Greece and placed in the royal tombs at Aigai alongside his ancestors.
The funerary procession, however, was hijacked while it was passing through Syria by Alexander’s other general Ptolemaios I Soter, the ruler of Egypt. According to the Roman orator Klaudios Ailianos (lived c. 175 – c. 235 AD), an oracle had foretold that the land where Alexander was buried would be happy and prosperous forever. Thus, Ptolemaios I seems to have been determined to ensure that Alexander would be buried in Egypt.
ABOVE: Mid-nineteenth-century engraving of the funerary procession of Alexander the Great, based on a description by the Greek historian Diodoros Sikeliotes (lived c. 90 – c. 30 BC)
According to the contemporary Parian Chronicle, as well as the later account of the travel writer Pausanias, Alexander’s body was placed in a tomb at Memphis, but it was later transferred during the reign of Ptolemaios II Philadelphos (ruled 284 – 246 BC) to a mausoleum in Alexandria. Alexander’s embalmed body was kept in the mausoleum in Alexandria for centuries, where it was visited by many famous individuals who greatly admired Alexander for his conquests.
In 48 BC, during the Civil War, the Roman general and politician Julius Caesar visited the tomb of Alexander in Alexandria. The tomb of Alexander was later visited by Julius Caesar’s grandnephew Octavian Caesar (i.e. the future Emperor Augustus) in 30 BC According to the Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquilus (lived c. 69 – after 122 AD) in his Life of Augustus section 16, when Octavian was asked if he wanted to see the bodies of the Ptolemies, he retorted, “I came to see a king, not a bunch of corpses.”
Eventually, the mausoleum of Alexander the Great disappears from the historical record. It may have been destroyed in 272 AD during the emperor Aurelian’s destructive sack of the city of Alexandria. In any case, when the Christian Church Father Ioannes Chrysostomos (lived c. 349 – 407 AD) visited Alexandria in around 400 AD and asked to see the tomb of Alexander, he reported that no one could tell him where it was. Later Arabic writers, however, record being shown tombs which purportedly belonged to Alexander. No tomb that can be conclusively identified as belonging to Alexander the Great has yet been excavated in Alexandria.
ABOVE: Engraving produced in 1643 by the French artist Sébastien Bourdon depicting the Roman general Octavian Caesar, who would later become Emperor Augustus, visiting the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria in 30 BC
Julius Caesar
The Roman politician and general Gaius Julius Caesar (lived 100 – 44 BC) was assassinated by being stabbed twenty-three times in the torso on 15 March 44 BC in the Theater of Pompey in Rome by a conspiracy of Roman Senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Decimus Junius Brutus.
As I discuss in this article I originally published in March 2017, contrary to popular belief, Julius Caesar’s last words were not “Et tu, Brute?” That line was made up by the English playwright William Shakespeare (lived 1564 – 1616) for his historical tragedy Julius Caesar, which was first performed in around the year 1599 or thereabouts. In historical reality, it is highly unlikely that Julius Caesar said anything while he was being stabbed.
In line with ancient Roman tradition, Julius Caesar’s body was cremated. As it happens, we actually do know exactly where Julius Caesar’s cremation took place; he was cremated at a spot in the Roman Forum near the Regia and the Temple of Vesta. An altar was erected on the site of his ashes. Later, the Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar was constructed on the site where Caesar was cremated, with the altar being incorporated as part of the temple.
The temple was inaugurated on 18 August 29 BC by Julius Caesar’s grandnephew and heir, the emperor Augustus. (As I discuss in this article I published in August 2019, Julius Caesar died with no legitimate offspring and, in his last will and testament, he declared his grandnephew his sole legal heir.)
Julius Caesar’s actual ashes have not been excavated and it is highly unlikely that they have survived. Nevertheless, the ruins of the temple that was built on top of them have survived. Anyone visiting the city of Rome can go to the Roman Forum to see what is left of the Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the ruins of the Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar in Rome. This temple was built over the site where Julius Caesar was cremated. The altar inside marks the exact spot where his body lay.
Kleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt
Kleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt (lived 69 – 30 BC), the Egyptian queen most commonly known today in English as simply “Cleopatra,” committed suicide on either 10 or 12 August 30 BC after her forces were defeated by the forces of Octavian Caesar (i.e. the future Emperor Augustus). According to ancient writers, she killed herself because she did not want to be taken prisoner and led in a Roman triumph, which she believed would be the utmost humiliation.
As I discuss in this excellent article I published in August 2019, the popular story about Cleopatra committing suicide by allowing an Egyptian asp to bite her on the breast is almost certainly apocryphal. Although the story can be traced back to shortly after Cleopatra’s death, it is only one of several different stories that were in circulation at the time about how she killed herself and, of all the stories, it is the most absurd and fanciful. It is far more likely that Cleopatra actually either drank poison or poisoned herself through a cut in her arm made by a needle or hairpin.
The Greek biographer Ploutarchos of Chaironeia (lived c. 46 – c. 120 AD) states in his Life of Marcus Antonius that Cleopatra’s lover, the Roman general Marcus Antonius, was cremated in the traditional Roman fashion. Cleopatra herself, however, was not cremated, since she was a Greek ruler of Egypt and cremation went against Egyptian customs.
Ploutarchos records that Octavian allowed Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius’s remains to be deposited together in a tomb, but he does unfortunately does not state where this tomb was, meaning it could be basically anywhere in Egypt. It is unlikely that the tomb of Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius will be discovered anytime soon.
ABOVE: First-century AD Roman fresco from the House of Giuseppe II in Pompeii depicting Cleopatra wearing her royal diadem, about to drink a cup of poison. Her son Kaisarion stands behind her, also wearing his royal diadem.
Augustus Caesar
The Roman emperor Augustus Caesar (lived 63 BC – 14 AD) died in the town of Nola, Italy on 19 August 14 AD at the ripe old age of seventy-five, probably of natural causes. By the time of his death, he had ruled the Roman Empire for an astonishing forty years—longer than nearly any other Roman emperor who came after him. He was succeeded by his stepson, the emperor Tiberius (ruled 14 – 37 AD).
In traditional Roman fashion, Augustus was cremated. His ashes were deposited in the Mausoleum of Augustus, which is located on the Field of Mars in the city of Rome. Augustus had ordered the mausoleum’s construction in 28 BC near the very beginning of his reign.
Augustus’s original ashes have not survived, nor has the urn in which they were kept, but the mausoleum itself still stands today. In fact, in 2017, a full restoration of the mausoleum began. The restoration is still ongoing, but, once it is complete, the mausoleum will be reopened to the public.
ABOVE: Photograph of the exterior of the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome, where Augustus Caesar’s remains were deposited, taken in 2005 before restoration
Conclusion
We actually do know a few things about where some famous people from ancient times were buried. If we are to believe the testimony of Pausanias, Perikles was apparently buried in Athens somewhere along the road that led to Plato’s Akademia. Alexander the Great’s body was held for centuries in a mausoleum in Alexandria, but we do not know what happened to that mausoleum.
Julius Caesar was cremated in the Roman Forum and the Temple of the Deified Julius Caesar was built over the site of his ashes. Cleopatra was buried in a tomb somewhere in Egypt alongside her lover Marcus Antonius. Augustus was cremated and his ashes were deposited in the Mausoleum of Augustus on the Field of Mars in Rome, although they are no longer there today.
