Along Via di San Sebastiano in Rome (the ancient urban section of the Appian Way) stands the Sepulchre of the Scipions, an underground complex that became a burial area since the third century b.C.  To walk here means to walk through the history of the Rome of that time, history made of rich families and politics.  Another way, for a local tour guide like me, to show you how the underground of Rome is always full of surprises and treasures.

The gens Scipia came almost to the top of Roman society during the third and second centuries b.C. thanks to the military enterprises of some of its exponents (like the famous Publio Cornelio Scipione, known as the African). The Sepuclhre develops along a large underground environment, completely excavated in the tuff rock, which goes to form a large square with two corridors intersecting in the center. Today, however, the entrance into these galleries gives unique emotions. Imagined when the area was full of tombs and sarcophagi, which were destroyed or removed over the centuries due to not authorized excavations. Imagine how just at the 1614 for the first time this area gave an archeological evidence: a sarcophagus that belonged to Publio Cornelio Scipione (the Scipio the African's father). At that time that artifact was really a surprise because over the centuries were not found important remains that could justify large buildings in that area. But after one hundred of years two brothers, the Sassi, bought this small piece of ground just outside the city centre of Rome in order to transform it in a farm. But they were very lucky because they found soon several marble evidences of an incredible sepulchre! So, slowly slowly, they took whatever they can, and we should imagine the surprise but also the happiness had by them. Then there was not the modern concept that we have today about archeology: so the Sassi brothers dug just to find something, in order to collect or sell whatever they can. The brothers didn't think about the preservation of the works of art. Moreover for two people who where not scholars or archeologists was not easy to understand all the things that they were finding, because this area became many things over the centuries.

Modern excavations found a columbarium from the imperial age, an insula from the III century a.D. and a medieval tower. In this way we can understand how the Sepulchre of the Scipions gives us another extraordinary example of the stratification of Rome, how the roman ground is made of historical layers that in some degree make the Eternal City so special. Think about the evolution: firstly, along the Appian Way that was the main road on the south of Rome (a way to improve the prestige of the family) to an insula (so a residential building) until a medieval fortification. We are lucky if men like Rodolfo Lanciani, an archeologist who gud a lot mainly at the end of the XIX century, complained a lot for the destructions had by this area over the centuries. And we should always thank Rodolfo Lanciani if one century ago, more or less, this area was bought by the municipality of Rome, being and public and preserved. Anyway the Sepulchre of the Scipions is another example of the beauty of Rome...