Cagliari, Grotta della Vipera

The hypogeum is an integral part of a larger funerary area that involves the Tuvixeddu hill.
The monument known as “Grotta della Vipera” is actually a funerary hypogeum (i.e. a burial place dug into the rock). This is one of the tombs that made up the monumental necropolis located in the Roman suburb of Cagliari. The tombs, consistent with an urban planning practice of which the most striking example is the Via Appia in Rome, were placed on the sides of the road that led out of the city.
More properly, it can be defined as a family mausoleum of the Roman noblewoman Atilia Pomptilla and her husband Lucius Cassius Filippo. The latter was perhaps related to the elderly jurist Gaius Cassius Longinus, who was exiled to Sardinia by Emperor Nero in 65 A.D. Lucius Cassius Filippo and his wife Atilia Pomptilla had also been condemned to exile on the island.
The façade, carved into the rock, reproduces that of a temple in the Ionic composite style. Inside, the mausoleum is divided into three rooms: a vestibule, a first burial chamber, a second burial chamber.
In the mausoleum, both the burial rite of burial and that of incineration are practiced.
The current name, “Grotta della Vipera”, derives from the presence on the pediment of two sculpted snakes faced, whose meaning has been variously interpreted by scholars: according to some, they represent the divine figures of Isis and Osiris; according to others, it would instead be the symbolic representation of Lucio Cassius Filippo and Atilia Pomptilla and, at the same time, of marital fidelity, as well as a warning to passers-by to respect the funeral place; according to others, finally, the two snakes are to some extent interpretable as a reference to the myth of Cadmus and Harmony.
The hypogeum has returned a total number of 16 inscriptions: nine are in Latin and seven in Greek; fourteen (these are those engraved on the walls of the first room) are in verse hexametre or elegaic couplets, while the remaining two (that is, the inscription on the pediment and the other in the table above the lintel of the entrance door to the first burial chamber) are not in verse.
Of one of these inscriptions, the one we find on the pediment, we report:
1) the text as it appears on the pediment:
O ▪ I ▪ O ▪ Q ▪ S ▪ MEMORIAE ▪ ATILIAE ▪ L ▪ F ▪ POMPTILLAE ARCHIBENEDICTAE ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ M (aritus) s (ua) p (ecunia)
3) the translation:
“Monument built and dedicated to the sacred memory of the blessed Atilia Pomptilla, daughter of Lucius. The husband (did) at his own expense.”
From the funeral eulogy engraved by Lucius on the walls of the tomb, we learn that Atilia Pomptilla would have offered her life to the gods in exchange for that of her husband.
The dating of the monument is a rather debated issue because of the complexity and heterogeneity of the elements that must be taken into account in order to arrive at a correct chronological framework. The dating proposals put forward so far fluctuate, in the opinions of scholars, between the second half of the first century BC and the middle of the second century AD.

History of studies
The tomb has been commented on, since the nineteenth century, in all the main works on Roman Sardinia.

Bibliography
P. Meloni, Roman Sardinia, Sassari, Chiarella, 1990;
S. Angiolillo, The Art of Roman Sardinia, Milan, Jaca Book, 1998;
A.M. Colavitti, Cagliari, Rome, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2003; A.M. Colavitti-C. Tronchetti, Archaeological Guide to Cagliari, series “Archaeological Sardinia. Guides and Itineraries”, Sassari, Carlo Delfino, 2003;
P. Floris, The pagan funerary inscriptions of Karales, Cagliari, Edizioni AV, 2005;
A. Mastino, History of Ancient Sardinia, Nuoro, Il Mistrale, 2005.