Roman Domus Emerges Beneath Rome’s Liceo Cavour After Students’ Persistent Claims
Students’ Whispers About Hidden Rooms Beneath the Gymnasium Led to the Discovery of a Perfectly Preserved Domus Steps From the Colosseum.
For years, students at the Liceo Scientifico Cavour claimed there were ancient rooms hidden somewhere beneath the boys’ gymnasium. Nobody took them seriously. In Rome, where the city is layered with 2,000 years of history, such stories are as common as tourists at the Colosseum. And then, last week, it turned out to be true.
Beneath the gymnasium of the school, which sits just steps from the Colosseum and within sight of the Forum, a Roman domus from the mid-second century AD has emerged. The discovery, announced on 28 May 2026, followed excavations funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) with €350,000, work that began in January after a professor and archaeologist on staff finally decided to investigate the students’ persistent claims.
The Find
What came to light is exceptional. The rooms, which had been sealed beneath metres of earth and debris for nearly two millennia, remain decorated with frescoes in extraordinary condition. The typical Pompeian red—the signature colour of Roman wall painting—is still luminous and bright. Human figures and floral motifs are visible, along with elaborate stuccowork bearing friezes and geometric meanders that would have adorned the vault ceilings.
One room contains a black mosaic with large irregular tesserae, a aesthetic choice that was fashionable among the Roman elite. Pottery has been recovered, including amphorae and drinking cups. Graffiti from the twentieth century—marks made by lighter flames between 1920 and 1950—shows that the rooms were accessible for decades before being finally forgotten.
Stratigraphic analysis of the deposits has allowed archaeologists to identify the property’s owners: L. Fabius Gallus, and later, a woman named Umbria Albina. The home was situated in one of Rome’s most prestigious neighbourhoods, the area between the Carinae and the Esquiline, where Cicero, Pompey and Octavian themselves maintained residences.
The Challenge
Excavating the domus presented significant challenges. The spaces were narrow, airless and lightless. Workers had to consolidate the masonry before they could proceed safely with uncovering the rooms. The conditions were nothing like the dramatic scenes of discovery: instead, they involved months of painstaking work in darkness and confined spaces, clearing metre by metre.
Yet the effort has revealed something that textbooks cannot: a snapshot of how wealthy Romans actually lived, their taste in decoration, the scale of their dwellings, and the durability of materials and techniques that have survived across twenty centuries.
What Comes Next
A question now hangs over the discovery. Will the domus be developed for public access? Will it be integrated into the school’s educational programme? Will it be excavated further into the courtyard, where it appears to extend? No final decisions have been made. The Soprintendenza Speciale (the special superintendency for archaeology in Rome) continues to conduct stratigraphic analysis and prepare detailed documentation.
What is certain is that the whispers of students have given Rome back a piece of itself. And the Liceo Cavour, an ordinary high school in an extraordinary city, has become the keeper of a second-century elite home that has survived wars, revolutions, and the relentless growth of the modern world directly above it.
