Private Tour Ancient Dark Rome: Catacombs and Aqueducts Park

St. Callisto Catacombs
The catacombs of St. Callixtus are among the greatest and most important of Rome. They originated about the middle of the second century and are part of a cemeterial complex which occupies an area of 90 acres, with a network of galleries about 12 miles long, in four levels, more than twenty meters deep.

Aqueducts Park
The Roman aqueduct was a channel used to transport fresh water to highly populated areas. As water flowed into the cities, it was used for drinking, irrigation, and to supply hundreds of public fountains and baths. Roman aqueduct systems were built over a period of about 500 years, from 312 B.C. to A.D. 226

Ancient Appian Way
The Appian Way was a Roman road used as a main route for military supplies since its construction for that purpose in 312 BC. The Appian Way was the first long road built specifically to transport troops outside the smaller region of greater Rome (this was essential to the Romans).

The Tomb of Cecilia Metella by outside
This monument is dedicated to the daughter of the consul Quintus Metellus, wife of Marcus Crassus, the son of Marcus Licinius Crassus that in 71 BC suppressed the slave revolt led by Spartacus in 60 BC and formed the first triumvirate with Caesar and Pompey. The Tomb of Cecilia Metella has a structure similar to the mausoleum of Emperor Augustus: the original monument consisted of a circular building ,that still can be seen today, installed on a square foundation. The same battlements, later rebuilt higher in the Middle Ages, were already present in the structure in travertine.

Quo Vadis Church
Domine Quo Vadis is a 17th century conventual and devotional church at Via Appia Antica 72, in the Appio Latino quarter. The postal address is at number 51. Pictures of the church at Wikimedia Commons are here.

We will see the Circus Maximus an ancient Roman chariot-racing stadium and mass entertainment venue in Rome. In its fully developed form, it became the model for circuses throughout the Roman Empire.

The Basilica of St. John Lateran
The Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran, better known as the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, is, by definition, the "mother of all the churches in the world" and represents the ideal trait d'union between the pagan and the Christian era.

Initially born as a building for public meetings and for the administration of justice, it was transformed into a majestic ecclesiastical structure, suitable for hosting a large number of faithful, with the spread of the new cult.

Standing near Mount Celio, the Basilica was built on the same site as the one erected by Constantine, around 314, on land formerly owned by the noble Lateran family, from which the whole area takes its name.