This symbolic monument of the Appian Way was built during the principality of Augustus to honor the memory of Cecilia Metella. Unfortunately, we have very little information on the life and death of this woman. Thanks to the marble plaque with inscription, placed on the front of the monument, we know that Cecilia Metella was the daughter of Cecilio Metello Cretico - glorious general who won the honors of triumph thanks to the subjugation of Crete - and that she was the wife of a certain Crassus, perhaps a son of the best known Roman consul, Marco Licinio Crasso. The imposing mausoleum is therefore to be understood as a sumptuous building aimed and dedicated to the glorification of the entire powerful family, rather than to the celebration of a single exponent, moreover a woman. What remains today of this imposing building lets you imagine all its ancient luxury.
The mausoleum is nothing more than a large tumulus tomb, consisting of a high circular cylinder covered in white travertine which rests on a high square-shaped base. On the outside it was originally richly decorated with a long frieze with garlands and bucrania, that is to say ox skulls, a very popular decoration among the ancients and which replaced the custom of hanging animal skulls on temples. It is precisely this decoration that in the following centuries earned the whole area the name of Campo di Bove. Entering the mausoleum and along a long and narrow corridor, you reach the real funeral chamber, also circular in shape and originally decorated with stucco. But there is also more, because the tomb underwent numerous transformations over the centuries.
In fact, in medieval times the imposing cylinder of the Roman mausoleum was transformed into a fortress, then passed from hand to hand to numerous families: in the fourteenth century it was the Caetani - an important Roman family that came to power thanks to its exponent, Pope Boniface VIII - to completely transform the mausoleum into a real castle: a mighty three-storey building complete with battlements, patrol walkway, keep and which reuses the ancient tomb as a keep, from which you can better monitor the entire area south of Rome . Today it is possible to visit the underground floor.