← Back to the map 17th-century painting of the Roman Forum (Campo Vaccino) by Claude Lorrain

Claude Lorrain, 1636 · Wikimedia Commons

Rome

Name: Rome
Address: Italy

Italia · Roman province·Italy·Founded 753 BCE (traditional)

Caput mundi. Around 1 million people in 117 CE — the largest city on earth for centuries either side.

Italy's capital of nearly 3 million people; the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine form a fenced, uninhabited archaeological park inside the UNESCO-listed historic centre.

Excavation history

1803

Carlo Fea — Fea began clearing debris near the Arch of Septimius Severus in 1803, marking the start of systematic excavation of the Roman Forum.

1861-1870

Pietro Rosa, patronized by Napoleon III — A decade of excavations on the Palatine Hill, funded by the French emperor, exposed the hill's northern face and the foundations that still form the backdrop to the Forum today.

1898-1925

Giacomo Boni — Introduced stratigraphic, layer-by-layer excavation to the Forum and uncovered the Lapis Niger, the Regia, the Temple of Vesta, and an archaic necropolis with burials dating back to the 10th century BCE.

1811-1814 and 1930s

Napoleon-era excavators, then completed under Mussolini's government — The Colosseum's underground hypogeum was first systematically uncovered by French excavators during the Napoleonic occupation of Rome; repeated attempts flooded out, and the chambers were finally fully cleared of earth in the 1930s.

Notable finds

Augustus of Prima Porta

Workmen excavating the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta in April 1863 uncovered this cuirassed marble statue of Augustus, its breastplate carved with a Parthian returning a captured Roman standard.

Vatican Museums (Braccio Nuovo)

Laocoon and His Sons

A farmer digging in an Esquiline Hill vineyard in January 1506 struck this marble group of a Trojan priest and his sons crushed by sea serpents; Pope Julius II bought it within weeks.

Vatican Museums (Museo Pio-Clementino)

Farnese Bull

Excavators clearing the Baths of Caracalla for the Farnese family unearthed this colossal marble group, the largest single sculpture to survive from antiquity, before it later moved to Naples.

Naples National Archaeological Museum

Boxer at Rest

Workers found this seated bronze boxer, his ears battered and his wounds inlaid with copper blood, on Rome's Quirinal Hill in 1885 — one of the finest surviving Hellenistic bronzes.

Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Museo Nazionale Romano

Ludovisi Throne

Found around 1887 on the grounds of the ancient Horti Sallustiani, this three-sided marble relief usually reads as the birth of Aphrodite; a minority of scholars have argued since the 1990s that it is a modern forgery.

Palazzo Altemps, Museo Nazionale Romano

Open Rome on the interactive map →

Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →