MAUSOLEO. — Name given to the splendid monument erected at Halicarnassus by Artemisia in memory of her husband Mausolus, lord of Caria (352 BC), and extended to the most imposing funerary monuments (Strabo, V, 3, 8; Valerius Maximus, IV, 6; Pliny, XXXVI, 5, 4). From the primitive method of burial in earthen and stone tumuli raised over the corpse, in use among the agricultural populations of the Bronze Age, there was a gradual transition to the Etruscan tumuli of the necropolises of Caere, Tarquinia, and Vulci, consisting of an earthen cone surrounded by a crepidine (7th–6th centuries BC).
The Romans adopted this system, developing the crepidine vertically through a stone construction. In the 1st century BC, the support of the cone took the form of a cylindrical body, creating the type of funerary monument that culminated in the tomb represented by that of Cecilia Metella (2nd half of the 1st century BC), at the first mile of the Via Appia. The great m. of Augustus, near the Via Flaminia (28 BC), with its high drum, annular corridor, and superimposed tumulus covered to the summit with evergreen trees, is surrounded by the contemporary funerary m.: that of Casal Rotondo on the Appia, that of Lucilius Paetus on the Salaria, that of the Plautii on the Tiburtina, that of Munatius Plancus near Gaeta, and numerous others. The cylindrical m. became during the 1st century of the Empire the type of patrician tomb, of what may be called a national character. The m. of Hadrian (AD 132–39), now Castel S. Angelo, was of singular magnificence: it had a square basal zone above which rose the cylindrical core enclosing the burial chamber. The monument called that of Septimius Severus, on the Via Tuscolana, and that called that of the Gordiani (Tor de' Schiavi), on the Via Prenestina, are also of the same type, with a circular plan and domed crowning; so too are the tomb called that of Gallienus at the third mile of the Appia (3rd century) and the m. of Romulus, son of Maxentius, near the circus that bears that Emperor’s name. Approximately the same structure was possessed by the numerous m. erected after the triumph of Christianity around the Roman basilicas as tombs for members of the imperial household and illustrious Roman families, such as, for example, that of the Anicii, near the basilica of S. Pietro in Vaticano (4th–5th centuries). The Constantinian period includes the m. called that of S. Helena, mother of Constantine (Tor Pignattara), at the second mile of the Via Labicana, as is demonstrated by the structure of the masonry, the style of the construction, and the great porphyry sarcophagus found there, now in the Vatican Museum.
A notable contemporary monument is the m. of Costanza, daughter of Constantine and wife first of Hannibalianus and then of Gallus Caesar, near the basilica of S. Agnese fuori le mura. It is a rotunda within a 4th-century cemetery enclosure, with an annular plan and a barrel vault decorated with magnificent mosaics depicting vines and cupids engaged in the operations of the grape harvest, symbols of the faith, still enveloped in figurations of pagan character.
The series of m. closes solemnly with that of Theodoric (d. 526) in Ravenna, in which elements of diverse origin are fused, while remaining Roman in substance and in full correlation with the analogous monuments that preceded II. — Vedi tav. XXX.