Pyramid of Cestius

Stand still for a moment and let the traffic swirl around you. Trams rattle past, scooters whine, and somewhere a bus sighs at its stop. Then lift your eyes. Rising above the noise is a sharp white point of marble, slightly grey with weather, catching the Roman light. A pyramid, here, in the middle of a modern road junction. It looks like it belongs to another continent. In a way, it does.

This is the Pyramid of Cestius, and it is one of the best-preserved ancient monuments in Rome. It is not a temple and not a monument to a god. It is a tomb. Inside these walls a single Roman man wanted to be remembered forever. He chose the most dramatic shape he could imagine. More than two thousand years later, his plan is still working... because you are standing here saying his name.

The man was Gaius Cestius Epulo. His name is carved on the face of the pyramid in large Latin letters. The inscription lists his titles. He was a praetor, which was a senior judicial official. He was a tribune of the plebs, an office meant to protect ordinary citizens. And he was one of the septemviri epulonum — a college of seven priests who organised the sacred feasts held for the gods. Fittingly, the word epulo means something close to banquet master.

The tomb was built in the late first century before Christ, during the reign of the emperor Augustus. Historians usually date it to roughly the years between 18 and 12 BCE. Why so precise? Because statue bases found nearby name a famous heir — Marcus Agrippa, the general and close friend of Augustus. Agrippa died in 12 BCE. So the tomb must have been finished before that year, while he was still alive to inherit.

Here is the first surprise. A second inscription states that the whole structure was completed in 330 days. Cestius had written this deadline into his will. If his heirs failed to finish within the time, they would lose their inheritance. So the builders worked fast. Imagine the scaffolding, the carts of brick, the gangs of workers racing a legal clock. A man's fortune depended on this point of stone.

But why a pyramid at all? Shortly before this tomb went up, Rome had conquered Egypt, in 30 BCE, after the defeat of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Suddenly Egyptian style was fashionable. Obelisks, sphinxes and Nile imagery appeared in Roman gardens and homes. A pyramid tomb was the boldest possible statement. Rome actually had several pyramids in this period. This is the only one that survives.

Look at the angle of the sides. It is much steeper than the great pyramids near Cairo. The shape looks more like the pyramids of ancient Nubia, in what is now Sudan. Some scholars think Roman builders knew those southern examples. The structure is about thirty-six metres tall, on a square base of about thirty metres a side. The core is concrete faced with brick. Over it sits a skin of white marble blocks.

Inside, there is a small burial chamber. It is surprisingly modest, a narrow vaulted room in the heart of the mass. Its walls were once painted with delicate frescoes of female figures and vases, and traces still survive. The chamber was sealed when it was finished, with no entrance. Even so, robbers broke in during antiquity. Whatever Cestius took with him into eternity was gone long before anyone recorded it.

Now the second surprise — the reason this tomb survived when others vanished. In the 270s, the emperor Aurelian ordered a huge new wall around Rome to defend it against invaders. To save time and materials, his engineers built existing structures straight into the line of the wall. The pyramid became part of the defences. Look to either side and you can see the old brick wall running into it. Being useful kept it alive.

In the Middle Ages, Romans forgot who Cestius was. Legend has it that this was the tomb of Remus, the twin brother of Romulus, the mythical founder of the city. People called it the Meta Remi. In the 1660s, Pope Alexander the Seventh had the base cleared of centuries of soil. Workers uncovered the inscriptions and the ancient columns. Two of those columns were raised again at the corners, where you can still see them.

The gate beside you is Porta San Paolo, the ancient Porta Ostiensis. It opened onto the road to Ostia, Rome's old seaport. Behind the pyramid lies the Non-Catholic Cemetery, a quiet green garden of cypress trees and old headstones. The English poet John Keats is buried there. So are the ashes of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Many travellers walk from the roar of the junction into that calm in under a minute.

The marble you see today is brighter than it was not long ago. A major restoration was completed in 2015. It was funded by a Japanese businessman, Yuzo Yagi, as a gift to the city. Conservators cleaned away black crusts of pollution and repaired damaged stone. Notice how the marble is not uniform. Some blocks are warm and creamy, others colder and grey. Each shade marks a different history of weather and repair.

Before you leave, walk slowly along the edge and look up at the point against the sky. Listen to the city moving around this silent shape. You might spot one of the cats that live in the grassy area at its feet. A Roman priest wanted to be remembered, and he gave himself only 330 days to do it. As you walk away, glance back once. The white point will still be there, above the traffic, exactly where he wanted it.