The Circo Massimo, the largest construction for performances ever built of all times, 600 m. long and 140 m. wide is connected by legend to the origins of the city. During the games in honour of Conso, the rape of the Sabines took place and this was when the city itself was born.
It is said that the first works on the Valle Murcia went back to the time of the Tarquinian people (Murcia held to have been the protecting divinity of the valley). This is related to the construction of a drainage system that permitted the entire area to be drained. Probably there were few tools for this purpose but later, over the centuries there were many interventions needed in this area. Starting from the 2nd Century b.c., many began to erect monuments such as the arch of Stertinio, erected in 196 b.c., the columns of the statues, the support with the ova to count the turns more easily.
Julius Caesar was the first to build a walled structure; its plan is still partially preserved in the later constructions bearing witness to a large number of network sections discovered at various points of the excavations. Augustus certainly contributed largely to its development. He completed and restored the hippodrome and decorated it with the obelisk now in Piazza del Popolo and constructed the Emperor’s box.
Destroyed many times by fire, it was later reconstructed almost entirely during the Domiziano-Traiano era. This period to which most of the brick structures, which are still visible now, belong.
Many of the successive emperors made numerous structural changes visible in sections of the brick screwed on walls. They also acted on large and small decorations such as the excellent erection of the gigantic obelisk brought to Rome by Costante II, now at the Laterano. The circus was in use, even only partially, until Totila inaugurated the last games.
Later the area was used for agriculture and the S.Lucia in Settezodio diaconia was established with a large functional complex as an aid to pilgrims. There is still some handwork and the turrets which can be reconstructed. This then became the property of S. Gregorio and was conceded as a permanent lease to the Frangipane (1145). During the same period, (1122) the Marian water was brought to Rome and ran through the circus before flowing into the Tiber.
The slope of the Aventino has a singular use, a Jewish cemetery, from the 16th Century onwards.
A new industrial phase was noted at the beginning of the 19th Century and a gasometer was installed towards S. Maria in Cosmedin and slowly, shops, manufacturers, artisans and houses grew up there.
As the area became free, as was desired for some decades, works began for creating a Monumental Area. These were carried out in the thirties together with great excavation works which together with the present activities, brought to light a good part of the Hemicycle and the remains of the Arch of Titus. As in the other buildings for the performances, the steps divided into three meniani were supported on parallel and radial structures that defined on their insides spaces with differentiated functions.
Going towards the outside of the arena, you can find the external ambulatory, the barrel vaults, the intermediate ambulatory and another series of rooms adjacent to the ima cavea. The barrel vaults have a ternary rhythm: one was the access to the ima cavea, another led nowhere and the third housed the staircase with a double ramp leading to the upper ambulatory, which was made from the arches inside the space of the barrel vaults themselves.
The two long straight-lined arms of the steps reached the hemicycle in the centre of which there is a three barreled arch in honour of Titus.
At the opposite side, located on a wide curve, there were twelve carceres supporting the loggia from which the magistrate threw his map. The fulcrum of the building was the longitudinal structure ending up in a tricuspid, and housing the supports with the ova and dolphins needed to signal which of the seven turns in the canonical competition had been arrived at. It was decorated by columns, statuary groups, altars, small temples and also housed two obelisks.
This structure was in fact the most appropriate seat for housing old and new cults of the circus valley, excluding the altar of Conso which was under the ground at the first arrivals, the sacellum of Murcia that was to be found in the area of the path next to the cavea and the Sun Temple inserted between the steps.
After about 15 years, works of excavation, consolidation and restoring were carried out. This was to prepare a project for developing the archeological area as well as organizing the Torretta and certain adjacent areas related to the Marrana as a Circus antiquarian.
|
 | | | I Municipio
Rione XII - Ripa
Regio XI - Circus Flaminius
Tra via dei Cerchi e via del Circo Massimo |  |
|
