Global art (and antique) sales in 2021 experienced their post-pandemic recovery with the market increasing by approximately 29% on the prior year to reach a total value of US$65 billion. The trick to finding the right art to invest in is knowing where to look. Places like the sewers of Rome.

Rome is home to some of the world’s most coveted works of art, particularly statues: Raphael’s Frescoes, Michelangelo’s Moses and Berninis’ Ecstasy of St Theresa. However, the latest to grab the headlines is one that was fished out of Rome’s waste discharge system.

During sewer repair works in the Italian capital, a life-sized statue of a Roman emperor posing as the mythological Greek demigod Hercules revealed itself as a bulldozer demolished its way through old pipelines near Appia Antica (Appian Way), ancient Rome’s first highway.

“This face appeared, and it was then immediately identified as a character dressed as Hercules,” said Francesca Romana Paolillo, an archaeologist who (luckily) was appointed to oversee the work and rightly intervened.

According to Ms Paolillo, the two key giveaways in the statue’s characteristics were ‘frown lines’ on the forehead which attempt to depict Roman emperors during the 3rd century, a time of considerable crisis for the empire, and the Nemean lion skin garment with a club in tow, reminiscent of the son of Zeus himself.

The archeologist also believed the statue to be of Emperor Decius, who ruled Rome from 249 to 251 AD was the first Roman emperor to be killed in battle in the empire’s 1,000-plus year reign before it collapsed in the 5th century. She added that it was “quite rare” to find Roman leaders miming Hercules.

As bulldozers are not nimble-enough archeological tools, the statue suffered some accidental damage during its recovery and consisted of several broken pieces when fully excavated. As at 3rd February 2023, it was being cleaned and restored to be placed on public display.

There is no indication yet on the value of the find or if the emperor’s effigy will fall into investor hands, but the broader art/historian community can be glad knowing that this is not a work of art that ended up going down the drain.