Tomb of the Scipios

Is it worth the trip?

For the history, yes: this is where one of the Republic’s great families buried its dead from about 300 BC, and two of the epitaphs found here are among the oldest known Latin texts in verse (de.wikipedia). But it is a hard place to get into. There are no opening hours: groups of up to 12 with their own guide book a slot, and individual visitors can book only on the few dates the city publishes each quarter. For October to December 2026 that is one day, 30 December. The sarcophagi are copies, and the visit is a tour of dim rock-cut galleries rather than of a building. If you have a date, it costs only €4; if you do not, there is little to see from the street, which is walled along most of its length (en.wikipedia). The Baths of Caracalla are about 800 m away in a straight line, and the Porta San Sebastiano in the Aurelian Walls about 300 m, so the tomb fits into a walk down the old Appia; see Rome for the rest of the city.

Getting there

The tomb stands on Via di Porta San Sebastiano, the stretch of the Via Appia inside the Aurelian Walls, before the Porta San Sebastiano (Sovrintendenza Capitolina); OpenStreetMap gives the address as number 9. An ATAC bus stop named “Porta S. Sebastiano/Sepolcro Scipioni” is about 45 m away, and there is a car park by San Giovanni a Porta Latina about 200 m away (OpenStreetMap).

Entry is by booking only, through Rome’s 060608 line (daily 09.00–19.00). Groups and associations of up to 12 with their own guide book a slot and buy at least five tickets; individual visitors can book only on the dates of the quarterly calendar, which for October to December 2026 has a single day for the tomb, Wednesday 30 December. A ticket is €4, or €3 reduced, paid in cash on site, and free for residents of Rome and its metropolitan area and for holders of the MIC Card. A guided tour is not included (Sovrintendenza Capitolina, read 24 October 2026). The tomb also opens on occasional event days, as for Appia Day on 3 October 2026 (Turismo Roma).

History

The tomb was begun in the first decades of the 3rd century BC by Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, consul in 298 BC and head of the Scipios, a branch of the Cornelii. The site was close to the Via Appia, opened in 312 BC, at the foot of a hill rising towards the Via Latina (Sovrintendenza Capitolina). It was then outside the city; the Aurelian Walls brought it inside later (en.wikipedia). Barbatus died around 280 BC and was the first known burial (en.wikipedia).

The family’s most famous member, Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal, most likely does not lie here: Livy and Seneca put his grave at his villa at Liternum (en.wikipedia), though the ancients were already unsure, since there was a funerary monument with his statue at both places (it.wikipedia). Around 150 BC, perhaps on the initiative of Scipio Aemilianus, a new gallery with its own entrance was cut on the Appia side, and probably at the same time the façade was rebuilt: half-columns above, and a podium painted with figured scenes. Livy records three statues on it, traditionally identified as Africanus, his brother Asiaticus and the poet Ennius, who had celebrated the family’s glories (Sovrintendenza Capitolina). The oldest layers of paint on the podium show historical scenes, with some soldiers still recognisable (it.wikipedia). The last two burials were made in the 1st century AD by the Cornelii Lentuli, a side branch that took the tomb over after the Scipios had died out (Sovrintendenza Capitolina).

A house was built over the tomb in the 3rd century AD, damaging part of it (it.wikipedia), and a lime kiln, where marble and travertine were burned for lime, was later cut into one corner, probably in the Middle Ages (Sovrintendenza Capitolina; en.wikipedia). The tomb was first found in 1614 and lost again, then found for good in 1780, when the brothers Sassi, priests who owned the vineyard above, broke into it while enlarging their cellar. Everything inscribed or carved went to the Vatican, and the tomb became a stop on the Grand Tour (Sovrintendenza Capitolina). The city bought the land in 1880 at the suggestion of the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani (en.wikipedia); between 1926 and 1929 it excavated and restored the area and laid out the Parco degli Scipioni behind it (Sovrintendenza Capitolina). Closed to visitors in 1992, the tomb reopened at the end of 2011 after work to consolidate the tufa and the old metal supports (Sovrintendenza Capitolina).