Chap. IV.

ROMAN.

199

each other without cement, and its four sides are all equal. In height it tops the walls ofthe city; there are also statues on it of men and horses, finished with wonderful skill out ofParian marble. The inhabitants observing some time ago, that it stood like a tower over-looking the city, carried out two arms from the walls to the tomb, and by building theminto it united it so that it became a part of the walls.” And the same writer tells us thatin his time, during the siege, the Goths under Vitiges , having broken the statues, whichwere of marble and of great size, they threw down large stones made out of their fragmentsupon the heads of the enemy.

Euitprandus, who wrote in the time of Pope Boniface IV. , alludes to this tomb, then afortress: “ in the entrance to the city, there is a castle of great strength and astonishingconstruction. In front of the gate is a bridge over the Tiber , which is the first in goingin or out of Rome : nor is there any other way of passing except over this bridge. But thiscannot be done, except by permission of those that hold the castle, which is so high, that achurch built at the top in honour of the archangel Michael is called St. Angelo : there is afigure of an angel on the top.” The present fortifications were made about 985, by Cres-cenzio, since whose time it has undergone many changes, though the chamber which con-tained the porphyry urn, now in the Vatican , and in which wxre the ashes of the emperor, isstill shown.

Fig. 231.

SECTION OP TOMB OP ADRIAN.

The columns which surrounded this fine tomb formed a part of the church of St.out-of-the-walls, and in the conflagration, which destroyed that building a few years a e°>they perished.

The tombs of the rich citizens were commonly built of marble, and the ground around,enclosed with a wall or iron railing, was planted with trees, as Pausanias , lib. ii. 15. mentionswas the practice among the Greeks. Many of these tombs were built during the lifetimeof the Romans, as upon some remain such inscriptions as V F, vivus fecit; V F C, vivusfaciendum curavit; V S P, vivus sibi posuit, and Se vivo fecit; and Pliny severely(Ep. vi. 10.) censures those friends who neglected to complete the tomb after the deceaseof the individual. Sepulchres common to many families, constructed at vast expense underground, were called hypogaa ; such catacombs are found in the neighbourhood of all largecities and towns in Italy . In them were recesses and niches for the urns which containedthe ashes of the dead; they were styled columbaria , in consequence of bearing a resemblanceto the arrangement of a dovecote.

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