“Turn to the mole which Hadrian rear’d on high, Imperial mimic of old Egypt’s piles, Colossal copyist of deformity, Whose travell’d phantasy from the far Nile’s Enormous model, doom’d the artist’s toils To build for giants, and for his vain earth, His shrunken ashes, raise this dome! How smiles The gazer’s eye with philosophic mirth, To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth, seem rather applicable to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius than to this mausoleum. The Castle, as it now appears, is but the skeleton of the magnificent tomb of the Emperors. Procopius, writing in the Sixth Century, describes its appearance in his time. “It was built,” he says, “of Parian marble; the square blocks fit closely to each other without any cement. It has four equal sides, each a stone’s throw in length. In height it rises above the walls of the city. On the summit are statues of men and horses, of admirable workmanship in Parian marble.” Canina, in his _Architectura Romana_, gives a restoration of the mausoleum, which shows how it consisted of three stories: 1, A quadrangular basement, the upper part intersected with Doric pillars, between which were spaces for epitaphs of the dead within, and surmounted at the corners by marble equestrian statues; 2, a circular story, with fluted Ionic colonnades; 3, circular story, surrounded by Corinthian columns, between which were statues. The whole was surmounted by a pyramidal roof, ending in a bronze fir-cone. The history of the Mausoleum, in the Middle Ages is almost the history of Rome. It was probably first turned into a fortress by Honorius, A.D., 423. From Theodoric it derives the name of “Carcer Theodorici.” In 537, it was besieged by Vitiges, when the defending garrison, reduced to the last extremity, hurled down all the magnificent statues which decorated the cornice, upon the besiegers. In A.D., 498, Pope Symmachus removed the bronze fir-cone at the apex of the roof to the court of St. Peter’s, whence it was afterwards transferred to the Vatican garden, where it is still to be seen between two bronze peacocks, which probably stood on either side of the entrance. Belisarius defended the castle against Totila, whose Gothic troops captured and held it for three years, after which it was taken by Narses.