Casal Rotondo
The Casal Rotondo is a tomb on the Via Appia Antica in the southeast of Rome .
background
According to the Twelve Tables law , it was already in the 5th century BC. It was forbidden in Rome to bury the deceased within the city walls. This led to the creation of some large necropolises and burial grounds outside the city. A well-preserved example can be found in Hierapolis in what is now Turkey . Alternatively, tombs were erected - often for miles - along the main arterial roads, including the Via Appia, one of the most important highways in the Roman Empire .
The external shape of the tombs depended on the one hand on the shape of the burial. In the first few centuries it was customary to burn the dead and bury them in urn graves . From around the 3rd century AD, the burial of unburned bodies prevailed. On the other hand, the tombs were representative; Their design provided information about the importance of the deceased and / or the financial possibilities of the bereaved.
This resulted in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. They ranged from underground niches in the catacombs to simple tombstones and temple-like buildings. For example, the Cestius pyramid on the Roman Via Ostiensis or the tomb of Poblicius in Cologne are known . Large-scale, cylindrical grave monuments were very expensive and therefore more common among wealthy families , whereby two basic shapes could be distinguished: Some were domed (such as the Roman Helena mausoleum ), others were covered by a conical, planted earth tumulus (one of the largest examples is this Augustus mausoleum in Rome).
Examples of tombs:
Gravestone of Oclatius in Neuss
Tomb construction in Hierapolis
Tomb of Poblicius in Cologne
Cestius pyramid in Rome
Helenamausoleum in Rome
Reconstruction of the Augustus mausoleum in Rome
description
The shape of the rotunda can be found several times on the Via Appia. The tomb of Caecilia Metella is well preserved, with another monument next to the Emporion at Ciampino Airport, which was for a long time mistakenly interpreted as the Temple of Hercules, largely overgrown . This group also includes Casal Rotondo, located near the 6th milestone (i.e. more than 10 km from Rome). The name comes from the round shape and the fact that a farmhouse that still stands today was built on the cylindrical basement in later times. At that time the building belonged to the influential Roman family Savelli (from whom some cardinals and popes emerged) and was integrated into a system of watchtowers along the Via Appia.
The original mausoleum dates from around 30 BC. With a diameter of 35 m, it is larger than the Metella tomb, making it the largest along the Via Appia. The upper edge of the substructure is decorated with a frieze , and there was seating on the lower edge.
A few meters from the tomb, a brick wall was erected before 1856, to which marble incrustations and other fragments were attached that are said to come from the tomb. From the sequence of letters "COTTA" on one of the fragments it was concluded that the tomb of M. Aurelius Cotta Messallinus was built for his father Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus , but today it is more likely that these fragments were from a smaller building come nearby, so the question of who was buried at Casal Rotondo remains unanswered.
literature
- Michael Eisner: On the typology of grave structures in the suburb of Rome (= communications of the German Archaeological Institute, Roman Department . Supplement 26). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1986, pp. 61-63. 203.213 Cat.No. A 32.
- Paolo Montanari: Sepolcri circolari di Roma e suburbio. Elementi architettonici dell'elevato. Fabrizio Serra Editore, Roma 2009, ISBN 978-88-6227-198-1 .
Web links
Coordinates: 41 ° 49 ′ 16 ″ N , 12 ° 33 ′ 21 ″ E