Tomb of Priscilla, Ancient Roman tomb on Via Appia Antica, Rome, Italy

The Tomb of Priscilla is a first-century funerary monument on the Via Appia Antica, opposite the Church of Domine Quo Vadis. It stands on a quadrangular base of travertine blocks; two superimposed cylindrical drums of opus mixtum and opus reticulatum once rose above it, the upper one with 13 statue niches. The barrel-vaulted burial cell, entered by a corridor now reached from the basement of an adjacent house, held three sarcophagus niches.

The monument was built in the 1st century for Priscilla, wife of Titus Flavius Abascanto, a freedman who served under Emperor Domitian. During the Middle Ages it was transformed into a fortress held first by the counts of Tusculum and later by the Caetani family.

The tomb is identified through the fifth book of Statius's Silvae, which describes Priscilla's funeral: she was not cremated but embalmed on Abascanto's orders, wrapped in Tyrian purple and laid in a marble sarcophagus. A marble slab found near the mausoleum in 1773, dedicated to the slave Aphrodisius by the tomb keeper Epaphroditus, is now in Ferrara.

Access to the burial chamber runs through a corridor in the basement of an adjacent house along the ancient Appian Way. The underground passage requires care due to tight spaces and uneven flooring.

The tomb's identification rests on a passage in Statius's Silvae, Book V, which describes Priscilla's funeral and states she was embalmed rather than cremated on Abascanto's orders. A marble slab found near the mausoleum in 1773, dedicated to the slave Aphrodisius by the tomb keeper Epaphroditus, is now in Ferrara's civic lapidarium.