 Piramide di Caio Cestio (Apr 09) by MM212 | Ancient Rome tips and photos posted by real travelers and Rome locals. • 124 Photos
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 The marble-clad Pyramid
of Caius Cestius by Lacristina
VT friend Antonio Barbieri did!
We agreed to meet in front of the huge (36 meters) pyramid 15 minutes before the scheduled Saturday morning tour. Most guide books say you can’t visit the inside – but you can when the twice monthly tour is given.
To check for the next tour when you’re in town, buy the publication “Roma C’è” at newsstands. Unfortunately, the listings are mostly in Italian – so ask your hotel to make a reservation for you. The tour of the Pyramid was given only in Italian, but interestingly enough, 2/3rds of the visitors in our group were not native speakers of Italian. The tour guide kindly spoke very slowly for us!
After the Roman conquest of Egypt, in 30BC during the reign of Augustus, tourism boomed. Rich Roman tourists were so impressed with the pyramids as burial monuments, several were built in Rome, but only this one survives. It was built, according to the Latin inscription on this marble-clad tomb, in just 330 days. Not much is known about Cestius, but the inscription says he was a praetor (magistrate).
Entrance to the burial chamber requires stooping a bit through a low door and tunnel. Like its much larger Egyptian cousins, this pyramid was broken into and robbed. The chamber is about 6 meters by 4 meters by 5 meters high. While most of the decorative fresco medallions on the white walls have been stolen (literally chiseled out of the wall) there are enough left that you can imagine the original design.
The pyramid was incorporated in the Aurelian Wall, around 271 A.D. The Pyramid is also home to one of Rome’s cat sanctuaries, like the one at Largo Argentina, but smaller.
The Pyramid of Caius Cestius (Pyramide Cestia, pronounced "peer RAH mee day CHESS tee ah) is easy to find, just a little outside of the center of Rome, south of the Aventine Hill, at the Porta Ostiense, also called the Porta San Paulo. Leave a Comment
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Roman Goddess of the moon, free nature, wild beasts and hunting. Her cult centers were holy groves all over Italy (f.e. Capua/Aricia).
She also had a main temple in Rome on the Aventine - the statue which was kept in this temple was a copy of the Artemis of Massalia (which was a copy of the Artemis of Ephesus).
Diana was a patron of women and hunters. She was considered the protector of the lower classes, especially slaves. Her festival on August 13, in both Rome and Aricia was a holiday for slaves and on her feast day, all Romans had to give their slaves the day off. Her temple became a sanctuary for runaway slaves. The late Princess Diana comes to mind often as we read of this ancient Roman Goddess - the eulogy of her brother, Earl Charles Spencer, at the funeral of Pricess Diana noted both striking coincidences and sad similarities.
In psychotherapy and Jungian psychology, Artemis/Diana has come to represent the multifaceted, contradictory, beautiful, violent aspects of the feminine psyche. Her temple at Ephesus was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World and the site of one of Saint Paul's least-successful missions - built probably by Mario Asprucci, based of course on classical models, it is an example of a circular peripteral temple.
Photo 1 - Temple full view
Photo 2 - Ceiling detail - In the center medallion, the goddess Diana with one of her hunting dogs; the octagonal spaces are given over to hunting motifs
Photo 3 - Hunting dogs detail in octagon spaces
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Never miss to visit this place should you have enough time going around Rome. I suggest take the Archeobus from Termini Station (Pizza del Cinquecento) and book yourself to the next trip to Via Appia Antica. It will be a rolling trip (no stops with the guide, simply viewing while on the bus) with a bi-ligual guide (English and Italian) and you can hop on and hop off at Archeobus stops if you want to visit the museums-catacombs and the like. However, best suggested that you finish the trip (trip takes to an fro (Termini-Aquiducts-Termini) up to the Aquiducts and then hop off on your way back to sites you desire to visit. At the Roman aquiducts, you'll be given 5 minutes to get off the bus and take pictures.
The aquiducts are one of the best engineering works of the Romans that are worth a genius' mind. It used to be a water-system supplying the water needs of the Roman baths. Other than that, the place is also very, very scenic especially on a nice sunny day.
Ticket cost 8euros. Leave a Comment
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 Catacombs - ahhh, OK,
maybe later............. by icunme,
1 more photos
The Appian Way was begun in 312 BC by the consul Appius Claudius Caecus over an existing track that connected Rome with the Alban Hills. Supposedly, to be the one that originally brought Latins from Albalonga to Rome when it was founded.
The original path of the Appian Way connected Rome (heading in the area of Baths of Caracalla) with Ariccia, Forum Appii, Terracina, Fondi, Formia, Minturnae (Minturno), Sinuessa (Mondragone) and finally Capua – extended in 190 BC to Benevento (Beneventum) and Venosa which was founded at that time and populated by 20,000 Roman farmers – then to Taranto (Tarentum) and Brindisi (Brundisium).
Via Appia Antica was the most famous of all road that led to Rome, stretching all the way from Rome to the seaport of Brindisi, which accommodated trade with the colonies in Greece and the East.
A new Appian Way was built in parallel with the old one in 1784. After the fall of the Roman empire, the road was not as used as before; Pope Pius VI ordered its restoration and brought it into new use.
You will see many tombs and catacombs of Roman and early Christian origin along the road close to Rome with great monuments and ancient tombs of patrician Roman families. Burials were forbidden within the city walls as early as the 5th century B.C. and, beneath the surface, miles of tunnels were hewn from tufa stone.
Also the Church of Domine Quo Vadis is in the first mile of the road. It was along the Appian Way that an escaping Peter encountered the vision of Christ, causing him to go back to the city to face subsequent martyrdom.
These tunnels, or catacombs, were where early Christians buried their dead and, during the worst times of persecution, held church services discreetly out of the public eye. A few of them are open to the public, so you can wander through mile after mile of musty-smelling tunnels whose soft walls are gouged out with tens of thousands of burial niches (long shelves made for 2-3 bodies each). In some dank, dark grottoes, you can still discover the remains of early Christian art. The requisite guided tours feature a small dose of extremely biased history and a large dose of sermonizing.
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 Cat Sanctuary by Callavetta
Torre Argentina is located at the intersection of Via Arenula and Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Leave a Comment
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 The Mouth of Truth by mabelyn
Today the church is under massive restoration and the Bocca draws hundreds of tourists seeking that token hand in mouth photo op. We were almost run over by a crowd of Japanese tourists. They come by the bus loads and the only thing snapping are the shutters of many a camera. It's a lot of fun. Don't miss it. Leave a Comment
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 by TexasDave
In the middle of the square stands this small obelisk perched on the back of a baby elephant (a baby obelisk deserves a baby elephant, I guess). It was designed by Bernini in 1667. It's a neat litle curiosity to look for when leaving the Pantheon area. Leave a Comment
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 by ruki
Address:Aventine Hill, Rome Leave a Comment
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This ancient Monument is often never seen by many Tourists because it is not on the main Tourist Routes. It is really easy to find and worth a quick look. Just get off the Metro at the Piramide stop and there it is outside! There is a theory that it has survived because it became part of the Aurelian Walls. It is just to the right of the Porto San Paulo gate, which is the start of the Via Ostiense route.
The Pyramid is the tomb of Caius Cestius, Roman Praetor, tribune and wealthy man. It was built in the year 12 A.D. in about 300 days. It stands 27 meters high and the east side is inscribed with part of his will outlining which relatives benefited from his death. It is amazing that this monument was not looted over the years for building materials. Many other ancient monuments were looted as Rome expanded. It is made from brick and covered in marble.
Directions: Metro Stop Piramide on Linnea (Metro) 'B'
You can't miss it. Leave a Comment
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 Via Appia by mccalpin
On Sundays, Romans since ancient times have ridden out the Via Appia for a pleasant drive and a picnic among the tombs - it's not macabre, it's actually very pretty.
The attached photo is of the Via Appia in one of the sections that has been paved over with asphalt. Note that there are sections that still have the original Roman stones.
Much of this area is now a park. See http://www.parcoappiaantica.org/en/default.asp for a great website in English for the park that contains monuments, catacombs, and the Via Appia Antica.
You will see that on Sundays and holidays, that the park is shut down to traffic and becomes a giant pedestrian zone, so I would say that walking on those days is not only safe, but encouraged. Leave a Comment
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