School administrators say the buried remains of a luxe, mid-Imperial Roman mansion were discovered accidentally (“scoperti casualmente”) in the basement of the students’ gymnasium beneath Rome’s C. Cavour State Scientific High School (Liceo Scientifico Statale C. Cavour). The adventurous teens had repeatedly stumbled upon this archaeological find, but, regardless, Cavour faculty only reported its existence to the Special Superintendency of Rome about six years ago. Now, after €210,000 ($242,698 USD) in restoration work, this mid-2nd century CE slice of ancient Roman life—once primo real estate, walking distance from Rome’s legendary Colosseum—has finally been presented to the general public. Claudia Marino, a history and Latin teacher at the high school who first brought the find to the attention of local authorities, said she didn’t take the claims of a buried Roman villa seriously until she heard the story from student activists who occupied the building during a 2021 protest.
“When it was over a group of students told me ‘there really is something under the school,’” Marino told The Times of London. She was inclined to take these idealistic protestors seriously, given the then-alleged find’s location in what was once a central part of ancient Rome—an elite neighborhood Octavian called home before he built his imperial palace on the Palatine Hill as Rome’s first emperor.
