In 2016, construction crews breaking ground for Rome's new Metro C line at Piazza Venezia expected delays. This is Rome, after all—you can't swing a pickaxe without hitting something ancient. But what emerged from beneath one of the city's most famous squares wasn't another marble emperor or forgotten temple. Instead, workers unearthed something far more intimate and historically precious: an entire neighborhood of ordinary Romans, frozen in time. The discovery revealed a dense warren of working-class homes, shops, and workshops dating back nearly two millennia, complete with the everyday detritus of ancient urban life. Charred beans still sat in cooking pots. Children's toys lay scattered across the floor. The site became an accidental time capsule of common people who history books typically ignore, and it immediately threw the metro project into chaos. What was supposed to be a straightforward transit expansion became one of the most significant archaeological finds in modern Roman history.
