ANTIQUITIES. 
decorated with a fad and numerous 
exhibilion of them. But though 
the paffage over the bridge is very 
much enlarged and improved, and. 
forms a very handfome communica- 
tion between the city of London 
and borough of Southwark, we¢ can- 
not but lament, as if the miferable 
contrivance of the bridge itfelf were 
not a fufficient impediment to the 
navigation, that the four arches, 
which have been fo long occupied 
by an engine to fupply the neigh- 
bourhood with water, {till continue 
to be incumbered with it. 
Account of the Pyramid of Caius Ceffius. 
_ —From Lumifien’s Remarks on the 
Antiquities of Rome. 
LMOST joining to the gate of 
St. Paul, there is an elegant 
pyramid, which is built up in and 
ferves for part of the city wall. It 
had certainly ftood without the city 
before Aurelian extended the walls. 
This is the only pyramid remaining 
about Rome: but which conveys 
to us, though in miniature, an idea 
of thofe in Egypt! * It was built 
to perpetuate the name of Caius 
Ceftius, one of the /e/temvir Epulonum, 
But who this Ceftius was, other 
than the title given him on this 
monument, is uncertain. The 
Epulones were a college of priefts, of 
reat dignity, who prepared thofe 
feafts to the gods, called Ledtifernia, 
where their ftatues, laid on rich 
beds, were placed at table as the 
principal guefts. One of. thofe 
beds (of bronze curioufly wrought) 
421 
has been found in Herculaneum. 
Thefe fumptuous entertainments 
were devoured by the feven noble 
gormandizing priefts. It was to 
appeafe the gods, in time ofa plague, 
that the Romans firft inftituted thefe 
feafts, in the year of Rome 356 +. 
As the ground about the pyramid 
is much raifed, we have not fo ad- 
vantageous a fight of it as formerly. 
It is 164% palms high, all incrufted 
with white marble, and refts on a 
bafe of Tiburtine ftones, whofe 
height is 33 palms. The breadth 
of the fquare, on which it ftands, 
is 130 palms. Agreeable to the 
teftament of Ceftius, this vaft mo- 
nument was built in $80 days. The 
fepulchral chamber had been finely 
painted; it is now much defaced ; 
more perhaps from the fmoke of 
the torches ufed in fhowing it, than 
from the humidity of the place. 
Thefe figures and ornaments feem 
all to relate to the facred ceremo- 
nies of the Efulones, ‘The monu- 
ment was judicioufly repaired, with~ 
out altering its form, by Pope Alex 
ander VII. 
Roman Method of computing Time. 
ang Fyom the fame. 
N the authority of Varro,Pliny 
C) icon us, that the firft /un- dial 
fet up for public ufe at Rome, was. 
brought from Catania in Sicily, by 
the conful M.‘ Valerius Meflala, in 
the year U. C. 491, and was placed 
ona column near the rofra; but as 
this dial had been proyécted for a 
more fouthern latitude, ‘it did not 
fhow the hours with exactnefs. 
However, fuch as it was, the Ro» 
* Pliny, mentioning the pyramids of Egypt, juftly calls them, * regum pecunie 
otiofa ac ftulta oftentatio.’*—-Hift. Nat. |. 
Dd3 
+ Livius, 1]. 5. c. 13. 
JO. C. 126 
mans 
