Necropolis of Porta Nola

East of the road leaving the city through Porta Nola is a burial area with three tombs. The one with a squared fence is of M. Obellio Firmo, among the most important figures in the final years of Pompeii: inside the fence was a stele, the glass urn containing the ashes, the forum for libations, and the remain of the stake. The other two tombs are the exedra type: one is anonymous, the other is that of Aesquilia Polla, wife of N. Herennius Celsus, an influential person in the Augustan period. At the center is a podium with an Ionic column, topped by a marble urn, which in burial symbolism was supposed to contain the blessed water to bathe the dead.