The columbarium, discovered in 1831 by Pietro Campana, is situated at a short distance from the Mura Aureliane and can be reached from a side street of the via Latina.
The tomb, built in cement-work and covered by bricks, can be dated back to the period between the period of Tiberio and Claudio (14 - 54 AD), as indicated by two epigraphs in the columbarium. One is dedicated to one of Tiberio’s servants and the other to two of Ottavia’s servants, the daughter of Claudio and Messalina. The valuable pictures which adorn the walls of the burial chamber can be attributed to this same period.
A niche on the wall, to be used for a cinerary urn, with a decorated apse with calcareous substance, is in front of the staircase. This urn was recently found in the Ravello cathedral, where it was probably taken after the tomb was sacked during the Middle Ages.
The names of the deceased couple found inscribed on the urn are the same as those found on the glass mosaic panel under the niche:
Cn (aei) Pomponi Hylae and Pomponiae Cn (aei) L (ibertae) Vitalinis.
The mosaic, which depicts two griffins in front of a cithara, datad back to the age of Flavio. It therefore belongs to a time when the tomb was being reconstructed. As indicated by the V (ivit) placed above the initial of the woman’s name, these cahnges were made by a widow for her deceased husband.
There is a square room with a vaulted ceiling on the right of the stairway which leads into the columbarium. A central apse contains an aedicule, resting on a podium. The podium is framed by two small columns and a frieze with a tympanum, and is flanked by two additional aedicules with tympani broken on the sides supported by centrings in the middle.
There is another aedicule with a triangular tympanum on the right wall. There are also two aedicules with a triangular tympanum on the left wall, decorated with painted stucco from the age of Flavio, above an architectonic composition, similar to the one on right side.
The room below the stairs houses a terracotta sarcophagus covered with tiles. An urn, now at the Palazzo dei Conservatori, found in the columbarium, is inscribed with a dedication to a man freed by Antonino Pio. This suggests that the tomb was still in use up to the second century AD.
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 | | | I Municipio
Rione XIX - Celio
Regio I - Porta Capena
(Tra via Appia e via Latina) |  |
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