A very extraordinary tomb arrests the attention near the ruins of this villa.  It looks like an inverted pyramid, or a huge architectural mushroom.  This appearance has been given to the monument by the removal of the large blocks of stone which formed the basement, leaving the massive superincumbent weight to be supported on a very narrow stalk of conglomerate masonry.  It is a striking proof of the extraordinary solidity and tenacity of Roman architecture, defying the laws of gravitation.  It is called the sepulchre of the Metelli, the family of Caecilia Metella; but this is a mere guess, as there is no record or inscription to identify it.  Next to this singular monument are the remains of a tomb which must be exceedingly interesting to every classical scholar.  The inscription indicates that it is the tomb of Quintus Caecilius, whose nephew and adopted son, Titus Pomponius Atticus, as Cornelius Nepos tells us, was buried in it.  This celebrated Roman knight was descended in a direct line from Numa Pompilius.  Withdrawing from the civil discords of Rome, he took up his abode in Athens, where he devoted himself to literary and philosophic pursuits and acquired a knowledge of the Greek language so perfect that he could not be distinguished from a native.  At the Greek capital, the then university of the world, he secured the devoted friendship of his fellow-student Cicero, whose brother was afterwards married to his sister; and to this intimacy we owe the largest portion of Cicero’s unrivalled letters, in which he describes his inmost feelings, as well as the events going on around him.  The uncle of Atticus, the brother of his mother, whose family tomb we are now examining, left him at his death an enormous fortune, which he had amassed by usury.  Atticus added greatly to it by acting as a kind of publisher to the authors of the day—­that is, by employing his numerous slaves in copying and multiplying their manuscripts.  He kept himself free from all the political factions of the times, and thus managed to preserve the mutual regard of parties who were hostile to each other,—­such as Caesar and Pompey, Brutus and Antony.  He reached the age of seventy-seven years without having had a day’s illness; and when at last stricken with an incurable disease, in the spirit of the Epicurean philosophy, since he could enjoy life no longer he starved himself to death, and was interred in his uncle’s tomb on the Appian Way.  Almost side by side with this ruin is the sepulchre of the family of Cicero’s wife, the Terentii, who were related to Pomponius Atticus by the mother’s side.  In all likelihood Terentia herself, Cicero’s brave and devoted but ill-used wife, was interred here with her own friends, for her husband had divorced her in order to marry a beautiful and rich young heiress, whose guardian he had been.