The aristocratic tomb, located on Viale Sant’Avendrace near the Punic necropolis of Tuvixeddu, was dedicated by the Roman Lucius Cassius Philip between the late 1st and 2nd centuries AD to his wife Atilia Pomptilla.
Legend has it that, when L. C. Philip fell seriously ill, the woman prayed to the gods so fervently that she succeeded in obtaining her husband’s salvation by dying in his place.
Thus was erected this burial temple in which Pomptilla’s remains were laid to rest.
The name Cave of the Viper, already known in the seventeenth century as Cripta serpentum, originates from the friezes on the lintel: two snakes, symbols of eternal life and marital fidelity.
The monument was built on a pre-existing cave that underwent an extension, with an elevation that was given the appearance of an Ionic temple.
But the Cave of the Viper, more than for the structure, is important for the inscriptions with which its walls are embellished: these are twelve poems, some in Greek and others in Latin, which with mythological and literary references extol the figure of Pomptilla and her conjugal love.
The value and suggestion of the place were widely recognized already in the last century when famous Sardinian scholars devoted special attention to it, but it is Alberto La Marmora whom we have to thank if we, even today, can visit it: in fact, in 1822 he prevented the mines placed near the Grotto from being detonated during the works for the construction of the Cagliari-Sassari road.
