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The improvements which are being rapidly carried out, especially in the neighborhood of the Central Railway Station, supply us daily with discoveries, valuable artistically, scientifically, and geographically. It may be said that not one, but two Romes are being reconstructed at this moment - the modern, with its boulevards, squares, and churches; the ancient, with its temples, thermae, aqueducts and theaters.

Rodolfo Lanciani, Letter from Rome

The passage above, written on January 15, 1876, by the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani and published in The Athenaeum, an English journal of the fine arts, captures the spirit of excavation and modernization that characterized Rome in the late nineteenth century. Just six years earlier, the Eternal City had become the national capital of the newly united Italy, a position that granted it a political and civic prestige akin to that which it held as capital of the ancient Roman Empire.

As government offices and their associated civic servants crowded into the new capital, Rome experienced unparalleled growth - the population more than doubled in the years between 1870 and 1900 and continued to rise rapidly after the turn of the century. Such speedy growth demanded intense urban development: the city and its infrastructure were in dire need of expansion and modernization for many houses, roads, and sewers were at least several centuries old. Urban development was impossible in Rome, however, without conducting archaeological excavations upon the ancient, medieval, and early-modern ruins that lay below. Thus, in the decades following the unification of Italy, a great deal of archaeological activity accompanied urban transformation and growth.

Among the monuments to be excavated and studied in this time was an impressive tract of the Republican or “Servian” Wall on the Esquiline Hill. Running a course of about 100 meters and standing up to nine meters in height, the wall fragment is made of large tufa blocks, some of which still bear quarry-marks in the form of Greek letters. Late nineteenth-century excavators believed this tract to be part of the wall attributed by Livy (1.44) to Rome’s sixth king, Servius Tullius (578-535 BC). Despite the fact that this assumption has been disproved - the wall is constructed of a type of tufa available only in the Etruscan city of Veii and the quarries from which its massive blocks were lifted became available to the Romans only after their defeat of Veii in 396 BC - its preservation is still remarkable.

When, in 1938, the Romans found in necessary to improve their public transportation system with the construction of a new train station, the architect, Angiolo Mazzoni, was forced to contend with this hulking mass of ancient wall and he did so by building today’s Stazione Termini around and above the Roman structure. Thus, today, a trip to the train station is also a journey through time. Outside of Termini, the heavy “Servian” Wall is majestically juxtaposed with the building’s monumental travertine and glass facade (see photo above). Meanwhile, in the basement of the station, a further tract of the wall stands in the middle of a newly renovated shopping mall, cutting its path through an ever-busy McDonalds, where Romans and tourists alike snack on Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets while admiring the ancient structure.

From the Independent:

It still bears its thrilling ancient name, and the antique ruins on the Palatine Hill, the heart of ancient Rome and home of the Caesars, still gaze down upon it. But now it takes a feat of the imagination to see Circus Maximus as it must have been in its pomp.

Today it is little more than a long, narrow park, 340 metres in length, with a small archeological dig fitfully in progress at its south-eastern end. It can still hold a crowd: Genesis played a free concert here last year, and Bob Geldof persuaded Rome’s mayor, Walter Veltroni, to let him use it for the Italian leg of the Live-8 spectacular in 2005. The rest of the time it is the haunt of dog-walkers, joggers and the occasional conceptual artist.

But 2,000 years ago this was the most exciting spot in the city. Long before the building of the Colosseum, crowds in their hundreds of thousands packed the stands to watch 12 teams of charioteers scorch the earth. Gladiators and wild animals fought in mortal combat, and the central arena was often flooded so miniature triremes could battle it out for the Romans’ delight. If a particularly large number of people had to be crucified, Circus Maximus was the obvious place to do it.

The strip’s last big show was in AD549. Then the Barbarians arrived and laid it to waste, and for the next millenium and a half it was no more than a very large allotment with a fancy name.

But now, after the centuries of neglect and years of debate and campaigning, Circus Maximus is finally to get some attention. Beginning on 20 June, the city’s archeological authorities are to begin a careful and respectful restoration.

Eugenio La Rocca, Superintendent of Rome and lecturere in archeology at Rome’s Sapienza University, said: “We are trying to realise the old dreams that Rome has maintained from the 19th century up to the present. We will do our best to restore this site, which was of the utmost importance in our history. ”

[King] Tarquin drained the site 2,500 years ago, but it was Julius Caesar in 46 BC who erected the first buildings here, which were consumed by fire in AD64. With the Emperor Trajan, the performances began to assume the wondrous proportions that we only know today from films.”

Professor La Rocca stressed that he will not be attempting to restore the Circus to its former glory. “We will clean up the whole site to make it practicable and legible, and give it a simple curved enclosure,” he said. During chariot races the long track was divided by a raised spine of beaten earth, and this is one element the authorities plan to recreate.

They will also continue excavating, with greater urgency. Despite the fame of the Circus, Professor La Rocca told La Repubblica newspaper, “Paradoxically we have little information about it. Pliny claimed it could hold 250,000 spectators but others said 150,000, which seems much more likely.” Treasures recovered from the Circus and other sites will eventually find a home in a new Museum of the City of Rome, to be built a few steps away.