Not to be confused with the older and larger Circus Maximus

Circus Maximus

The Circus Maximus is an ancient Roman chariot racing stadium and mass entertainment venue located in Rome, Italy. Situated in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, it was the first and largest stadium in ancient Rome and its later Empire...

.

The Circus of Nero or Circus of Caligula was a circus

Circus (building)

The Roman circus was a large open-air venue used for public events in the ancient Roman Empire. The circuses were similar to the ancient Greek hippodromes, although serving varying purposes. Along with theatres and amphitheatres, Circuses were one of the main entertainment sites of the time...

 in ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

.

Construction

It was begun by Caligula

Caligula

Caligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...

 on the property of his mother Agrippina

Agrippina the elder

Vipsania Agrippina or most commonly known as Agrippina Major or Agrippina the Elder was a distinguished and prominent granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus. Agrippina was the wife of the general, statesman Germanicus and a relative to the first Roman Emperors...

 on the Ager Vaticanus (today's rione

Rione

Rione is the name given to a ward in several Italian cities, the best-known of which is Rome. Unlike a quartiere, a rione is usually an official administrative subdivision...

 of Borgo

Borgo (rione of Rome)

Borgo , is the 14th historic district of Rome, Italy. It lies on the west bank of the Tiber, and has a trapezoidal shape. Its coat of arms shows a lion , lying in front of three mounts and a star...

), and finished by Nero

Nero

Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

. The circus building's alignment is on the same axis as both new and old

Old Saint Peter's Basilica

Old Saint Peter's Basilica was the building that stood, from the 4th to 16th centuries, on the spot where the Basilica of Saint Peter stands today in Rome. Construction of the Basilica, built over the historical site of the Circus of Nero, began during the reign of emperor Constantine I...

 St Peter's to the left as you look at the western front from the piazza

Piazza

A piazza is a city square in Italy, Malta, along the Dalmatian coast and in surrounding regions. The term is roughly equivalent to the Spanish plaza...

.

Nearby Roman cemetery

The Via Cornelia

Via Cornelia

Via Cornelia is an ancient Roman Road that supposedly ran east west along the northern wall of the Circus of Nero on land now covered by the southern wall of St. Peter's Basilica. It is closely associated with the Via Aurelia and the Via Triumphalis...

 ran parallel with the north side of the Circus, and its course can be traced with precision, for pagan tombs have been discovered at various times along its edges. Sante Bartoli's memoirs record that when Alexander VII

Pope Alexander VII

Pope Alexander VII , born Fabio Chigi, was Pope from 7 April 1655, until his death.- Early life :Born in Siena, a member of the illustrious banking family of Chigi and a great-nephew of Pope Paul V , he was privately tutored and eventually received doctorates of philosophy, law, and theology from...

 was building the left wing of Bernini's colonnade and the lefthand fountain, a tomb was discovered with a bas-relief above the door representing a marriage-scene ("vi era un bellissimo bassorilievo di un matrimonio antico"). Others were soon found. The best discovery, that of pagan tombs exactly on the line of St Peter's tomb, was made in the presence of Grimaldi, 9 November 1616:

"On that day, I entered a square sepulchral room the ceiling of which was ornamented with designs in painted stucco. There was a medallion in the centre, with a figure in high relief. The door opened on the Via Cornelia, which was on the same level. This tomb is located under the seventh step in front of the middle door of the church. I am told that the sarcophagus now used as a fountain, in the court of the Swiss Guards, was discovered at the time of Gregory XIII in the same place, and that it contained the body of a pagan."

Place of martyrdom

The circus was the site of the first organized, state-sponsored martyrdoms of Christians in 65

65

Year 65 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Nerva and Vestinus...

. Tradition holds that two years later, Saint Peter

Saint Peter

Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...

 and many other Christians shared their fate. The circumstances were described in detail by Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

 in a well-known passage of the Annals

Annals (Tacitus)

The Annals by Tacitus is a history of the reigns of the four Roman Emperors succeeding Caesar Augustus. The surviving parts of the Annals extensively cover most of the reigns of Tiberius and Nero. The title Annals was probably not given by Tacitus, but derives from the fact that he treated this...

, (xv.44).

The site for crucifixions in the Circus would have been along the spina ("spine"), as suggested by early Acts of Peter describing the spot of his martyrdom as inter duas metas ("between the two meta

Meta

Meta- , is a prefix used in English to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter....

e or turning-posts", which would have been equidistant between the two ends of the circus). This identification is likely to be genuine given the trauma of the event for the Christian community. An obelisk found at the centre of this circus's spina was re-erected in Saint Peter's Square

Saint Peter's Square

Saint Peter's Square is located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave within Rome .-History of St...

 in the 16th century by the architect Domenico Fontana

Domenico Fontana

Domenico Fontana was a Swiss-born Italian architect of the late Renaissance.-Biography:200px|thumb|Fountain of Moses in Rome....

. The obelisk was originally brought to Rome by Caligula.

The traditional location of Saint Peter's tomb

Saint Peter's tomb

Saint Peter's tomb is a site under St. Peter's Basilica that includes several graves and a structure said by Vatican authorities to have been built to memorialize the location of St. Peter's grave. St. Peter's tomb is near the west end of a complex of mausoleums that date between about AD 130 and...

 is in this area, in the cemetery mentioned above and on a site suggested by the basilica (see below).

Constantine's basilica

A basilica (Old St. Peter's) was erected by Constantine over the site, using some of the existing structure of the Circus of Nero. The basilica was sited so that its apse

Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

 was centered on Peter's tomb (now beneath the high altar of "New St Peter's").

External links

• Lacus Curtius website: Circus of Nero, plan superposed with the Basilicas, showing the tomb of Peter, and text by Rodolfo Lanciani describing the largely inadvertent archaeology