B-Walls NEP Editors’ Preference .—TEX–: - //

2 6 C I T Y W A L L S

where the travertine brackets that supported the portcullis are still visible. TheMuseo delle Mura is now housed in the same chamber and adjacent towers.

Of particular interest is the next section of wall, between Porta S. Sebastianoand the Bastion of Sangallo, which is open to the public. A late ByzantineMadonna and Child can be seen in the fourth tower from the gate. The originalstructure of the rampart-walk between the first and sixth towers and betweenthe tenth and eleventh is particularly well preserved. The eleventh tower hasits original stairs, allowing access to the upper level of the wall, which offersa panoramic view of the wall complex. Immediately beyond this tower, the wallsturn a corner at a well-preserved postern gate that was closed during one of thelater reconstructions. At this point, the walls incorporate an early Imperialtomb. The tour of the gallery concludes at the fourteenth tower, which wascompletely destroyed. The great bastion, begun in by Antonio da Sangallo,begins here. Here, too, stood Porta Ardeatina, destroyed together with a sectionof the walls to facilitate construction of the bastion.

After the Bastion of Sangallo, the walls proceed northwest along a straightline and then turn to the southwest, forming a reentrant to include the far slopesof the Lesser Aventine. There is evidence of many restorations, particularlyduring the Renaissance; almost all the towers are reconstructed.

The next gate is Porta S. Paolo, the ancient Porta Ostiensis, similar to PortaAppia in its excellent state of preservation (FIG. 7). Here, too, various phasesof reconstruction can be discerned. In the first phase, the gate had two entrancesframed by semicircular towers. During the reign of Maxentius, two walls wereadded, describing a tong shape, together with an interior gate that, like the maingate, had two travertine arches. This is the only fully preserved example of thevantage courts added at the rear of the principal gates of the Aurelian Walls.At that time the towers received a new facing. As was typical under Honorius,the two external arched entrances were reduced to one (the two openings ofthe interior gate, however, were preserved in their original state). The towerswere raised at this time. Later modifications are also visible. In AD , theGoths under Totila entered Rome through this gate.

Via Ostiensis ran from this gate to Ostia, the ancient port of Rome. The gatecomplex is now occupied by the Museo della Via Ostiense. Here models of Ostiaand of the ports of Claudius and Trajan are on display, as well as casts of reliefsand inscriptions that reconstruct the course and monuments of the ancient road.Of special note are three painted lunettes decorated with images of Prometheus,birds, and other subjects displayed in the portcullis chamber between the twotowers. These once decorated a Severan tomb that was cut into the rock facingthe apse of S. Paolo fuori le Mura (Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls).

Immediately to the west of the gate is one of the most fascinating tombs ofthe early empire, the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius, which, like so many othermonuments, was incorporated into the walls. Beyond the pyramid was a posterngate that may have been connected with the oldest Via Ostiensis, whose earliest