A Pyramid in Rome

Before noticing Monte Testaccio (or its unusual composition), visitors to the neighborhood will notice the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius, now forming part of the Aurelian walls. It’s right across the busy piazza from the Piramide Metro stop; it’s somewhat surprising to see such a monumental structure behind the speeding cars and motorini. The pyramid would also have been somewhat disconcerting in antiquity, for its foreign, pseudo-Egyptian shape. While Gaius Cestius, tribune of the plebeians under Augustus, who had the pyramid built as a tomb for himself, clearly liked the idea of the pharoahs’ tombs, the sharp angles of Rome’s only pyramid suggest that Gaius never made it to Egypt to inspect the pyramids he was so carefully copying. Though it wasn’t an exact replication, the pyramid can’t be accused of not being sturdy: its closely-mortared blocks have been undisturbed (except by stray cats) for nearly two thousand years now.

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