The OLD routemap - no longer valid
This was one the signs posted along the Archeobus route, in the days before it was shortened.
One of the largest tombs, on top of whose circular ruins a later farmhouse was built
Recycled fragments of earlier artworks
Decorations taken from the Casale Rotondo, reassembled on a wall
Parked at the end of the route
The 'Casale Romano'
A large, fortified farm building from the Middle Ages, in the centre of the Aqueduct park
The Park of the Aqueducts
In 312 BC the Roman censor, Appio Claudius, began the simultaneous construction of the
Appian Way and the city’s first aqueduct, 16 km long, diverting the flow of a spring
between the Via Prenestina and the Via Collatina. Before that the Romans had drawn their
supplies directly from rivers, springs and wells - for the subsequent 850 years, until
its destruction in 537AD by invading Goths, they were to enjoy the benefits of a system
that knew no equal in the ancient world, for either the quality or quantity of its waters.
The Park of Aqueducts protects a territory that formed the crossroads of the water system:
6 of the 11 aqueducts that supplied Rome crossed this 15 hectare area (the Anio Vetus,
Claudio, Anio Novus, Acqua Marcia, Acqua Tepula and Acqua Julia), transporting between them
13 cubic metres of water every second.... 10,000,000 gallons an hour... English one, not
American at that!
In 1585, Pope Sisto V added one more, the Aqueduct Felice.
Arches of one of the aqueducts
Into the distance
A succession of arches - the aqueducts that supplied much of the city's water
The Villa dei Quintili
This enormous Imperial Age country villa – whose monumental ruins are clearly visible from trains on the Rome-Cassino-Naples railway line - was built for Sesto Quintilio Condiano and Sesto Quintilio Valerio Massimo, two rich brothers from one of the most important aristocratic Senatorial families, whose names were found impressed on lead water conduits unearthed there.
Although friends of Marcus Aurelius, during the reign of his son - the Emperor Commodus - both were accused of plotting against the throne and executed in 182 AD. Not long afterwards the Emperor moved into their country home.
Archaeological excavations have uncovered only a third of the 24 hectares of the original site: it was the largest of the great suburban villas - so much so that at one time its ruins were known as “Roma Vecchia”, ancient Rome - with an aqueduct of its own that delivered hot sulphurous waters from the Bulicame spring near Viterbo.
During the Middle Ages its two-storey nymphaeum - a wide semicircular exedra with a large central fountain and niches on the walls - was incorporated into a fortress built by the Counts of Tuscolo, but can still be recognised in the beautiful C13th loggia of the Astalli family.
Behind the nymphaeum was a porticoed garden, 300x100m, close to which there was a baths complex, a main hall some 14m high with windows on two floors and a pool at its centre. Beside it stands an enormous circular room of some 36 meters, and a later hippodrome some 400 metres in length. Another wing of the palace incorporates an enormous cistern (almost 30 metres in diameter), once fed from the Anio Novus aqueduct, upon which was build the Casale di Santa Maria Nuova, for the monastery of the same name.
During C19th the Villa was purchased by the Torlonia family, from whom it was later acquired by the Italian State.
Address: Via Appia Nuova, 1092
Select the "Original" size for a clearer view of the bus numbers and stops,
and of the Metro stations in the area.
The last stop on the Archeobus route nowadays is the 'Torre Capo di Bove',
marked in pink...