PULA SITES
The foundations of the octagonal mausoleum were excavated in 1941 and are now presented at their original location in front of the Twin Gates, two meters below the current walking surface. Individual elements of the monument were found during the dismantling of late antique and medieval city walls in 1907 and 1932. Sixteen pilasters, with a diameter of 11 meters, stood around the circular stepped podium, enclosing the monument. The mausoleum's podium is circular in shape and consists of three steps. The lowest step has a diameter of 10.66 m, and the highest, corresponding to the diameter of the inscribed circle of the octagonal body, is 9.46 m. The lower part of the octagonal structure has eight pilasters and a wall built in the opus isodomum technique, bordered at the bottom by smooth mouldings. The cornice at the top of the podium, as well as the entire central and upper parts of the structure, are lost.
The corners of the mausoleum were reinforced above the pilasters with Corinthian half-columns five meters high. Above them were a triple-banded architrave and a frieze with motifs of guardians of the afterlife—sphinxes, griffins, and Priapus—and a cornice with a cyma, consoles covered with acanthus leaves, ovules, and anthemia. From the bottom of the first circular step to the upper edge of the cornice, the mausoleum was approximately 9.2 m high. The solution for the mausoleum above the cornice is uncertain. One possible solution includes a roof railing – an attic – decorated with a frieze of acanthus tendrils.
The architectural solution also determined the question of the roof: if the roof covered the entire octagonal structure, as per the first proposed reconstruction, it would have had to be in the form of a low octagonal pyramid made of lead plates. If there was a superstructure above the octagonal body in the form of a smaller temple, it would have ended with a conical or pyramidal roof made of stone slabs. Judging by its size, the structure contained an inner burial chamber 4.7 m high, which archaeological documentation could not definitively confirm. The mausoleum was built in the first quarter of the 1st century AD and belonged to one of Pula's most prominent families.
