DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61893#0411
Ch. XL THROUGH ITALY. 383
resist the influence of weather, and partly to its
situation, as it is joined to the walls of the city,
and forms part of the fortification. It stands
on a basis about ninety feet square, and rises
about a hundred and twenty in height. It is
formed, at least externally, of large blocks of
white marble : a door in the basis opens into a
gallery terminating in a small room ornamented
with paintings on the stucco, in regular com-
partments. In this chamber of the dead once
stood a sarcophagus, that contained the remains
of Cestius. At each corner on the outside there
was a pillar once surmounted with a statue: two
of these remain, or rather were restored, but
without the ornament that crowned them an-
ciently. It is probable that this edifice stands
on an elevation of some steps, but the earth is
too much raised to allow us to discover them at
present. Its form is graceful, and its appear-
ance very picturesque : supported on either
side by the ancient walls of Rome with their
towers and galleries venerable in decay, half
shaded bv a few scattered trees, and looking-
down upon a hundred humbler tombs inter-
spersed in the neighboring grove, it rises in
lonely pomp, and seems to preside over these
fields of silence and of mortality.
hen we first visited this solitary spot a Hock
o
resist the influence of weather, and partly to its
situation, as it is joined to the walls of the city,
and forms part of the fortification. It stands
on a basis about ninety feet square, and rises
about a hundred and twenty in height. It is
formed, at least externally, of large blocks of
white marble : a door in the basis opens into a
gallery terminating in a small room ornamented
with paintings on the stucco, in regular com-
partments. In this chamber of the dead once
stood a sarcophagus, that contained the remains
of Cestius. At each corner on the outside there
was a pillar once surmounted with a statue: two
of these remain, or rather were restored, but
without the ornament that crowned them an-
ciently. It is probable that this edifice stands
on an elevation of some steps, but the earth is
too much raised to allow us to discover them at
present. Its form is graceful, and its appear-
ance very picturesque : supported on either
side by the ancient walls of Rome with their
towers and galleries venerable in decay, half
shaded bv a few scattered trees, and looking-
down upon a hundred humbler tombs inter-
spersed in the neighboring grove, it rises in
lonely pomp, and seems to preside over these
fields of silence and of mortality.
hen we first visited this solitary spot a Hock
o