,' in the singular--not in the
plural."

[Illustration: (_Tomb of Caecilia Metella_.)]

Forsyth refers to this tomb as the only one of the ancient structures
that bears the name of its tenant; this does not appear to be correct.
The beautiful tower rests upon a square basement, which has been
despoiled of its exterior coating by Popes and other purloiners, but
the greatest part of it is buried beneath the soil. The wall of the
tower itself, the interior of which is entirely built of brick, is 20
feet at least in thickness. The sepulchral vault was below the present
level of the earth, and it was not until the time of Paul III. that it
was opened, when the beautiful marble sarcophagus of Caecilia Metella,
now in the Palazzo Farnese, was found in it. A golden urn, containing
the ashes, is said to have been discovered at the same time. That
Caecilia Metella, for whose dust this magnificent monument was raised,
was the daughter of Metellus, and the wife of Crassus, is all we know.
"Her husband, who was the richest and meanest of the Romans, had
himself no grave. He perished miserably with a Roman army in the
deserts of the East, in that unsuccessful expedition against the
Parthians which has stamped his memory with incapacity and shame."[17]
The rude battlements on the top of the tower, and all the old walls
and fortifications which surround it, are the work of the Gaetani
family, who long maintained their feudal warfare here. Forsyth
observes:--"Crassus built this tomb of travertine stone 24 feet thick,
to secure the bones of a single woman; while the adjoining castle had
but a thin wall of soft tufo to defend all the Gaetani from the fury
of civil war." Eustace says: "The solidity and simplicity of this
monument are worthy of the republican era in which it was erected, and
have enabled it to resist and survive the lapse and incidents of two
thousand years."[18]

[17] Rome, &c., vol. ii.

[18] Classical Tour, vol. i., p. 407.

Next is the grey pyramidal Tomb of Caius Cestius, in the fields called
_Prati del Popolo Romano_, on the western side of the Aventine Hill.
This ancient monument remains entire, an advantage which it owes
partly to its form, well calculated to resist the action of the
weather, and partly to its situation, as it is joined to the walls of
the city, and forms part of the fortification. Its base is about 90
feet square, and it rises, according to Eustace, about 120 feet in
height. It is fo