How the Colossus got its name

In the paving between the Colosseum and the arch you can see two shapes picked out in a different coloured stone, and they mark what once stood and then vanished here.

The larger one was the base of the Colossus of Nero, a bronze statue over thirty metres tall that the emperor had made of himself for his palace. After his downfall it was given a crown of sun rays and renamed as the sun god, and the emperor Hadrian later had it moved to this spot using twenty-four elephants. It stood here for centuries, and the amphitheatre next door picked up its nickname from that neighbour: the Colosseum is named after a statue that no longer exists.

The smaller outline belongs to the Meta Sudans, a cone-shaped fountain from the days of the emperor Titus, where water sweated its way down the sides. The remains were still standing until 1936, when they were demolished because they were in the way during the parades.

We follow the Via di San Gregorio south, between the Palatine and the Caelian hills, to the long open field on the right.