Underground Rome
With this tour we discover the secrets of underground Rome.
Three thousand years of continuous human occupation have produced the most stratified urban site in existence. Deposits of a dozen meters overlie the street levels of the early Middle Age, which in their turn represent a rise of about two meters compared with the imperial city …and so on back to the huts of the Iron Age!
Much of ancient Rome is still being excavated today in the course of street works and other infrastructural improvements.
The Basilica of Saint Clement, provides a unique opportunity to travel back in time, from the church of the 12th century, to the earlier one of the 4th century and deeper still to where we find a complex of ancient Roman buildings, including a temple of Mithras! A mystical, all male religion of initiation imported from Persia.
From here walking about 15 minutes we reach the Celian Hill with the Church of St. John and Paul founded by the Roman Senator Pammachius in the early 5th century . Excavations under the church have revealed not only an early Christian meeting place but a sizeable slice of the Caelian hillside life in the 2nd and 4th century AD, a wealthy house with fine paintings and a smart apartment block!
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays as St. John and Paul excavations are closed, for preservation purposes, we visit in alternative the Tomb of the Scipios dating from the 3rd century BC and containing the burials of six generations of the "Cornelii Scipiones" one of the most powerful aristocratic families in republican Rome.
The tour can be further extended to include the Catacombs, the early Christian cemeteries , complex networks of underground passages dug on several levels along the Appian Way.
TRUE ROME has an extensive underground program, comprising these two itineraries, as well as numerous special site visits that can be arranged on requests, as not regularly open to the public, ask for Underground Specials.
HIGHLIGHTS: St. Clement’s Basilica – Roman Houses at St. John’s and St. Paul’s or Tomb of the Scipios
DURATION: 3 hours
ADMISSION FEES to be settled directly
DURATION: 3 hours
ADMISSION FEES to be settled directly
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