"De ce côté, entre l'Aventin et le Tibre, hors de la porte Trigemina, étaient divers marchés, notamment le marché aux bois, le marché à la farine et au pain, les horrea, magasins de blés. Le voisinage de ces marchés, de ces magasins et de l'emporium, produisait un grand mouvement de transport et fournissait de l'occupation à beaucoup de portefaix. Plaute[363] fait allusion à ces porteurs de sacs de la porte Trigemina. On peut en voir encore tous les jours remplir le même office au même lieu."—Ampère, Hist. Rom. iv. 75.
From the landing-place for modern Carrara marble, a new road on the right, planted with trees, leads along the river to the ancient Marmorata, discovered 1867—68, when many magnificent blocks of ancient marble were found buried in the mud of the Tiber. Recent excavations have laid bare the inclined planes by which the marbles were landed, and the projecting bars of stone with rings for mooring the marble vessels.
In the neighbouring vineyard are the massive ruins of the Emporium, or magazine for merchandise, founded by M. Æmilius Lepidus and L. Æmilius Paulus, the ædiles in B.C. 186. Upon the ancient walls of this time is engrafted a small and picturesque winepress of the fifteenth century. The neighbouring vineyard is much frequented by marble collectors.
A short distance beyond the turn to the Marmorata the main road is crossed by an ancient brick arch, called Arco di S. Lazzaro, or Arco della Salara, by the side of which is a hermitage.
About half a mile beyond this we reach the Porta S. Paolo, built by Belisarius on the site of the Ancient Porta Ostiensis.
It was here, just within the Ostian Gate, that the Emperor Claudius, returning from Ostia to take vengeance upon Messalina, was met by their two children, Octavia and Britannicus, accompanied by a vestal, who insisted upon the rights of her Order, and imperiously demanded that the empress should not be condemned undefended.
"Totila entra par la porte Asinaria et une autre fois par la porte Ostiensis, aujourd'hui porte Saint-Paul; par la même porte, Genséric, que la mer apportait, et qui, en s'embarquant, avait dit à son pilote: 'Conduis-moi vers le rivage que menace la colère divine.'"—Ampère, Emp. ii. 325.
Close to this, is the famous Pyramid of Caius Cestius. It is built of brick, coated with marble, and is 125 feet high, and 100 feet wide at its square basement. In the midst is a small sepulchral chamber, painted with arabesques. Two inscriptions on the exterior show that the Caius Cestius buried here was a prætor, a tribune of the people, and one of the "Epulones" appointed to provide the sacrificial feasts of the gods. He died about 30 B.C., leaving Agrippa as his executor, and desiring by his will that his body might be buried, wrapped up in precious stuffs. Agrippa, however, applied to him the law which forbade luxurious burial, and spent the money, partly upon the pyramid and partly upon erecting two colossal statues in honour of the deceased, of which the pedestals have been found near the tomb. In the middle ages this was supposed to be the sepulchre of Remus.
"Cette pyramide, sauf les dimensions, est absolument semblable aux pyramides d'Égypte. Si l'on pouvait encore douter que celles-ci étaient des tombeaux, l'imitation des pyramides égyptiennes dans un tombeau romain serait un argument de plus pour prouver qu'elles avaient une destination funéraire. La chambre qu'on a trouvée dans le monument de Cestius était décorée de peintures dont quelques unes ne sont pas encore effacées. C'était la coutume des peuples anciens, notamment des Egyptiens et des Etrusques, de peindre l'intérieur des tombeaux, que l'on fermait ensuite soigneusement. Ces peintures, souvent très-considérables, n'étaient que pour le mort, et ne devaient jamais être vues par l'œil d'un vivant. Il en était certainement ainsi de celles qui décoraient la chambre sépulchrale de la pyramide de Cestius, car cette chambre n'avait aucune entrée. L'ouverture par laquelle on y pénètre aujourd'hui est moderne. On avait déposé le corps ou les cendres avant de terminer le monument, on acheva ensuite de la bâtir jusqu'au sommet."—Ampère, Emp. i. 347.
"St. Paul was led to execution beyond the city walls, upon the road to Ostia. As he issued forth from the gate, his eyes must have rested for a moment on that sepulchral pyramid which stood beside the road, and still stands unshattered, amid the wreck of so many centuries, upon the same spot. That spot was then only the burial-place of a single Roman; it is now the burial-place of many Britons. The mausoleum of Caius Cestius rises conspicuously amongst humbler graves, and marks the site where Papal Rome suffers her Protestant sojourners to bury their dead. In England and in Germany, in Scandinavia and in America, there are hearts which turn to that lofty cenotaph as the sacred point of their whole horizon; even as the English villager turns to the grey church tower, which overlooks the grave-stones of his kindred. Among the works of man, that pyramid is the only surviving witness of the martyrdom of St. Paul; and we may thus regard it with yet deeper interest, as a monument unconsciously erected by a pagan to the memory of a martyr. Nor let us think they who lie beneath its shadow are indeed resting (as degenerate Italians fancy) in unconsecrated ground. Rather let us say, that a spot where the disciples of Paul's faith now sleep in Christ, so near the soil once watered by his blood, is doubly hallowed; and that their resting-place is most fitly identified with the last earthly journey, and the dying glance of their own patron saint, the apostle of the Gentiles."—Conybeare and Howson.