Old Rome: Handbook to the Ruins by Robert Burn

Author:Robert Burn [Burn, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Mausoleum of Augustus.

The northern part of the Campus Martius, between the Via del Ripetta and the Pincian Hill, contained only one great building of which we have any knowledge. This was the Mausoleum of Augustus, the ruins of which are now buried under the Teatro Correa, and are approached by a narrow entry leading out of the Via dei Pontefici. All that can now be seen of the shapeless mass which this once stately building presents, is a small part of the cylindrical brickwork basement on the left of the entrance to the Teatro Correa, and another fragment of the same at the back of the Church of S. Rocco. The proofs that these are the remains of the Mausoleum of Augustus are quite indisputable. Suetonius places it between the Tiber and the Flaminian Road, and Strabo speaks of it as standing near the bank of the river, descriptions which, though they are not very definite, agree with the site of the Teatro Correa sufficiently. Complete certainty is, however, afforded by the inscriptions which have been found on the site of the Ustrina Cæsarum, where the bodies were burnt before burial. These were found near the Corso, between the Via degli Otto Cantoni and the Via dei Pontefici, a spot answering to Strabo’s notice of the site of the Ustrina as standing in the middle of the Campus, which is here narrowed by the approach of the Pincian Hill towards the river.

Augustus had built this magnificent tomb in his sixth consulship ( B.C. 28). At that time the course of the Flaminian Road through the Campus was lined with the tombs of many eminent Roman statesmen and public characters, which have all, with the exception of the insignificant Tomb of Bibulus, totally disappeared. The modern city has entirely effaced all traces of these, but we may in all probability suppose that the Flaminian road presented no less striking a spectacle in the days of Augustus than the Appian, which we are accustomed to regard as the great burying-place of Rome.

The name mausoleum was apparently given to this tomb if not immediately, yet soon after its completion, not from any resemblance in the plan of the building of the famous monument of the Halicarnassian queen, which differed entirely in shape and design, but because the expression mausoleum had already become a name used to designate any tomb of colossal proportions. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was a rectangular building surrounded with a colonnade, while the Tomb of Augustus was cylindrical and ornamented with deep niches. Strabo gives the following description of the latter monument: “The most remarkable of all the tombs in the Campus is that called the Mausoleum, which consists of a huge mound of earth raised upon a lofty base of white marble near the river bank, and planted to the summit with evergreen trees. Upon the top is a bronze statue of Cæsar Augustus, and under the mound are the burial-places of Augustus and his family and friends, while behind it is a spacious wood containing admirably designed walks.

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