SEP. C. CESTII
* the tomb of a C. Cestius, possibly the praetor who is
mentioned once by Cicero (
Phil. iii. 26; cf.
RE iii. 2005). In any case
he died before Agrippa, 12 B.C. (
CIL vi. 1375), and the monument dates
from that period. It is a pyramid, standing in the angle between the
Via Ostiensis and the street which skirted the south-west side of the
Aventine, directly in the line of the later Aurelian wall close to the Porta
Ostiensis. It is of brick-faced concrete covered with slabs of white
marble, is 27 metres high and about 22 square, and stands on a foundation
of travertine. In the interior is the burial chamber,
1 5.95 metres long,
4.10 wide and 4.80 high. On the east and west sides, about halfway up,
is the inscription recording the names and titles of Cestius, and below,
on the east side only, another which relates the circumstances of the
erection of the monument (
CIL vi. 1374). In front of the west side two
bases of statues were found in 1660,
2 each with an inscription recording
its erection by the heirs of Cestius (
CIL vi. 1375). In the Middle Ages
this monument was called sepulcrum Remi (Petrarch, Ep. vi. II; Poggio
de var. Fortunae, Paris 1723, p. 7, ap. Urlichs 236; De Rossi, Piante
pl. ii. I), and meta or sepulcrum Romuli (
Jord. ii. 430;
BC 1914, 395;
cf. also HJ 179-180;
NA 1910, 193-204; Reber 540-542;
Middleton
ii. 284-286; DuP 137-139; RA 15, 16).
