The Appia Antica Park announced on Facebook that the area “has reserved a great surprise for us: a life-size marble statue which, due to the presence of the club and the lion’s coat covering its head, we can certainly identify as a figure representing Hercules”. The discovery was made during repair work on some sewer pipes that had collapsed, causing landslides. The excavations reached a depth of 20 metres and, as often happens in Rome, were carried out with archaeologists present. The statue dates to roughly between 27 BC and 220 AD. Crews were excavating the area to repair a sewer pipe that had collapsed under a park in Rome. |
![]() | The statue was found along the Appian Way, an ancient road that runs from Rome to the southeastern region of Italy. The road was critical to Rome’s conquest of Southern Italy. A separate dig alongside the Appian Way, also known as Regina viarum, or queen of the roads, revealed other finds, including a first-century marble head of a man, ceramic fragments, coins and jewelry. However, archaeologists were unable to find what they were looking for - the start of the Appian Way. | ![]() |