Caecilia Metella

Who is Caecilia Metella?

Caecilia Metella was a daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus, who was a Consul in 69 BC. She married to Marcus Licinius Crassus who was the elder son of the famous Marcus Crassus and his wife Tertulla who and served under Julius Caesar in the Gallic Wars.

Their son was Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was denied the spolia opima by Augustus as part of a deliberate policy to stress the importance of the Emperor and reduce that of individual generals. This Caecilia Metella appears to have been rather different from the other more famous Caeciliae Metellae, in that she lived and died in obscurity apart from her famous son and the magnificent tomb which her husband erected in her memory.

Located at the top of a hill on the Appian Way, the tomb dominates the surrounding landscape. Atop a quadrangular base seven meters high, it consists of a cylindrical body 11 meters in height, with a diameter of 29 meters; this is surmounted by fortifications added during the medieval period. The simple inscription facing the Appian Way reads: CAECILIAE / Q. CRETICI F. / METELLAE CRASSI, or "To Caecilia Metella, daughter of Quintus Creticus, [and wife] of Crassus".