Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella

This guide to the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella on Rome's Appian Way opens with a woman history barely recorded, yet one of the largest tombs on the ancient world's busiest road. It traces the family behind it, including her father-in-law Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and what a monument this size was really meant to announce to everyone passing. It then jumps thirteen centuries forward, to a powerful family who moved onto the site and reshaped the ancient drum with medieval battlements. Look for the carved bull heads still ringing the frieze above you.