Roman Ruins in Strange Locations

Hello there, guys. It is so good to be back. For those who didn't know, I was on a month-long archaeological excavation in Greece, and after that I traveled across Europe for a bit. It was a great adventure, and I'd be happy to talk about it more at a later date. But today, I wanted to highlight just one small part of my adventures. While I was in Italy, I not only visited the famous Roman monuments like the Colosseum or the Pantheon, but I took the time to seek out the much lesser-known ruins left by the Roman Empire. The ones people walk by every day without even noticing. The ones in bizarre and surprising locations that you, yes you, could visit if you so wished. I'm not gonna lie, I looked kinda crazy to random people walking by when I recorded some of these bits, so please enjoy them. I was partly inspired by a really great fellow YouTuber named Tolden Stone, who has a series about similar Roman buildings hidden in plain sight. Definitely check out his videos, he's really great. In any case, sit back and enjoy my own personal tour of four Roman ruins in unexpected places. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is a must-see for any tourist visiting Florence. The 15th-century cathedral is grand and beautiful, but its grandeur makes it easy to miss out on some of the unique sights along the way. For example, if one takes the Via di Cetatoni to the cathedral, they will encounter a much smaller and far less grand church along the way, the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. This church is made of simple cobblestones. Compared to the many other churches in Florence, it is unremarkable, except for one thing. If you stand outside on the sidewalk facing the north side of the church and tilt your head up, you might be able to see a very eerie sight. A human face, pale and ancient, sticks out randomly from the side of the building, and appears to scowl down at the pedestrians and the traffic passing by. Who is this mysterious stone figure? Well, her origins are uncertain, but the local folklore of the city claims her name is Laberta. According to legend, she was once a living, breathing woman in the Middle Ages, but she was cursed by an alchemist whom she insulted, and was consequently turned into stone. Modern historians, on the other hand, have suggested something, uh, different, but still very interesting. They identified the head as nothing more than a Roman marble bust, belonging to a woman, likely dated to late antiquity, towards the fall of the Roman Empire. That's right, you can see a likely authentic piece of ancient art in Florence without buying a ticket to the museum. It's just there, for birds to poop on and everything. Just make sure you bring binoculars like I did. Perhaps Laberta was once the portrait of some Roman emperor's wife or mother. But where did it come from, and how did it end up just randomly in the side of a church? Unfortunately, the only research I've been able to find about Laberta is entirely in Italian, so I'm a little hazy on the details. But some archaeologists have pointed out that the square Romanesque bell tower that contains Laberta is strange in multiple ways. Lower down the tower, you can actually see another white marble slab, which contains a Roman-era inscription. The tower also has irregular angles and masonry to the rest of the building, making it asymmetrical when viewed from the street. Because of this, it has been suggested that this tower doesn't exactly belong, and is in fact far more ancient than the rest of the building around it. Italian archaeologist Emiliano Scampoli has proposed that the bell tower was once part of the original Roman city's defensive walls. The medieval church was merely built up around it later. This means that in antiquity, the head of Laberta might have faced out from the walls of My personal theory is that the head was intended to be the head of the Gorgon Medusa. I say this because there is precedent for this type of behavior in other ancient cities. The city of Veria, in northern Greece for example, had a giant Medusa head built into the wall of the city, also facing north. This Medusa head was intended to symbolically scare away invaders and instill terror. Could this female marble bust have been placed into the outside of the tower for a similar purpose? Maybe. It's hard to say without any records, and I'm no expert. The point is that the ancient bust somehow ended up in the side of a church, but the how and the why was forgotten over the centuries, leaving us in the modern day with, well, Laberta. Lucca is a small and quaint city out in the Tuscan countryside with a lot of medieval charm. Little of its original Roman origins are visible at the street level. That is except for one of the city's plazas. If the name doesn't give it away, you might notice that the buildings that surround the Plaza dell'Invitrio are oddly curved, forming a near-perfect oval around the shops and restaurants. The shape betrays what the site once was. This was once a Roman amphitheater, with rows and rows of seating, similar but smaller to the one in Rome, but serving the same purpose. That's right, right where these babies are standing is the same exact spot where the Romans 2,000 years ago hosted gladiatorial fights, beast hunts, and executions. Fun for all ages. At its peak, this amphitheater likely hosted 10,000 spectators. However, during the middle ages, the theater had become a crumbling ruin. Its skeleton was used as foundation for shops, housing, and even a prison. This resulted in many of the modern buildings retaining the structure's curvature. Little of the amphitheater remains on the surface, but in some places along the outside of the plaza, you can see the original Roman engineering shining through the cracks, including the lost art of Roman concrete, still doing its part to keep the adjacent modern buildings standing. Rome is a city filled to the brim with monuments and ruins. The Pantheon is one of Rome's largest and most well-preserved, but on your way to the Pantheon, make sure you peel off into a sketchy back alley. Okay, let me explain. You'll know it by the single misshapen lump of stone sticking out of the wall. Like La Berta, most people walk right by it, but not us. This lump has quite the story. It was probably the base of a column that once supported a Roman temple, the Temple of Metidia. Built in 119 AD, under the reign of Hadrian, it was dedicated to his mother-in-law. After the decline of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity, the temple was demolished and left in disrepair. Much of it is gone now. The location remained relatively insignificant until, according to legend, a certain Christian knight was visiting Rome in the Middle Ages. This knight was Roland, a Frankish general and one of King Charlemagne's right-hand men. He wielded the legendary sword Durandal, said to be indestructible, capable of smashing boulders. According to the folklore of the city, Roland visited Rome and was walking down this very same sketchy alleyway when a couple of bandits tried to mug him. Roland then supposedly unsheathed Durandal and fought his attackers. One of these sword slashes cut deep into the column base of Metidia's temple. The mark of this encounter can allegedly still be seen today, and you can touch it for good luck. And I saved this one for last. Behold, the only McDonald's in the world that has an archaeological site inside. Yes, probably one of the funniest finds of my vacation was stumbling into the McDonald's at Roma Termini Station. This McDonald's not only boasts chicken nuggets and burgers, but proudly displays two massive chunks of what was once Rome's Servian walls. The third chunk appears to be claimed by the neighboring Sephora. These segments once formed a greater hull, the defensive boundary that surrounded the whole city of Rome in the 4th century BC. Built under the reign of King Servius Tullius, the walls once protected the city from invaders. But as Rome grew in size, both in real estate and population, the walls lost their purpose, and eventually the city extended far beyond them. Today, pieces of the Great Wall can be found all over Rome. There's actually a really huge intact section directly outside the train station. The pieces at McDonald's, though, are definitely my favorites. I wonder if Servius Tullius could ever have imagined that this would be his legacy. Special note to anyone who wants to visit this Mickey D's. It is the one located downstairs in the train station, not upstairs. If you go to that McDonald's, you will be sorely disappointed. And that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed my little taste of what I was up to the last month or so. I have a lot more of my adventures to share, in addition to my normal content, so please stay tuned. Thank you so much for watching, and also, uh, oh my god, I'm so close to a million. I know I promised something to you guys a long while ago, so expect something special when it actually happens. Okay, goodbye, thank you. Oh how the gentle wind beckons through the leaves as autumn colors fall