The name mausoleum was apparently given to this tomb if not immediately, yet soon after its completion, not from any resemblance in the plan of the building of the famous monument of the Halicarnassian queen, which differed entirely in shape and design, but because the expression mausoleum had already become a name used to designate any tomb of colossal proportions. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was a rectangular building surrounded with a colonnade, while the Tomb of Augustus was cylindrical and ornamented with deep niches. Strabo gives the following description of the latter monument: “The most remarkable of all the tombs in the Campus is that called the Mausoleum, which consists of a huge mound of earth raised upon a lofty base of white marble near the river bank, and planted to the summit with evergreen trees. Upon the top is a bronze statue of Cæsar Augustus, and under the mound are the burial-places of Augustus and his family and friends, while behind it is a spacious wood containing admirably designed walks. In the middle of the Campus is the enclosure he made for burning the corpses, also of white marble, surrounded by an iron railing, and planted with poplar-trees.”[100] The mound of earth here described by Strabo was probably of a conical shape, and the trees were planted on terraced ledges. The mass of the building was cylindrical, like the central portions of Hadrian’s Mausoleum, and of the tombs of Plautius and Cæcilia Metella, and was supported upon a square basement which is now entirely buried beneath the level of the ground. The exterior of the cylindrical part was relieved by large niches which doubtless contained statues, and broke the otherwise heavy uniformity of the surface. At the entrance were the bronze pillars which Augustus had ordered to be erected after his death, on which was engraved a catalogue of the acts of his reign. We now possess a fragment of a copy of this interesting document in the famous Monumentum Ancyranum, found at Ancyra in the vestibule of a Temple of Augustus. Besides these pillars two obelisks stood in front of the entrance door, one of which is now placed in the Piazza of S. Maria Maggiore, while the other stands between the statues of the Dioscuri on the Quirinal. These obelisks were not, however, placed there at the time when the tomb was first built, but at a later period of the empire. The entrance fronted towards the city, i.e., to the south, near the apse of the Church of S. Rocco, and appears to have had a portico with columns, the traces of which are still left.