while studying for my final i’ve decided the pyramid of cestius is one of my favorite monuments in rome. gaius cestius was, for all intents and purposes, a fucking nobody.
dude was a mid level bureaucrat who decided “fuck it, I want my tomb to be a big fuckin pyramid.” and built it. and you know what? i can respect that.
this wasn’t a trend or anything. he just decided that the egyptian pharaohs had pretty kick ass tombs and decided he was good enough to warrant one.
The fact that it is just standing there… at the street.. with a wall going right through it.. It’s like someone just dropped a pyramid in the city and everyone went like aw shit and then went in with their lives like nothing had happened..
But what’s even funnier is that most of the architecture was obviously build afterwards so that means that city planners actually went aw shit and pretended it wasn’t there like there’s a wall that was literally build “through” the pyramid askdjdsff
That’s exactly what happened! When they were building the Aurelian walls they just decided to incorporate it because
it would take too long to change the plans for the walls and build around it
it was at the junction of two major roads
hey, the stone’s already there!
In the middle ages they saw it and went “Wow….this must be very important.” There was also another pyramid called the Pyramid of Romulus on the other side of the city so they all went “Oh my god. If that’s legendary Romulus this must be his brother Remus!” until they found the inscription and realized it was just some fuckin loser government dude.
@elenothar





















