The Meta Sudans was a monumental public fountain that stood near the Colosseum at the entrance to the Sacred Way. Built by the Flavians around the same time as their grand amphitheatre in the late 1st century AD, the conical fountain stood up to 20 metres in height. #LostRome 
The fountain took its Latin name from the "metae" turning posts of the circus racetrack, while "sudans" means to perspire; water is thought to have flowed gently down the cone of this "sweating post" rather than jetted out. #LostRome
As charioteers would wheel around the metae of the hippodrome, this meta marked a turning point for triumphal parades, where the Emperor's procession would turn from the Via Triumphalis left onto the Via Sacra, and onward to the Roman Forum. #LostRome
A smaller but wonderfully preserved public fountain at Djémila (ancient Cuicul) in Algeria, may give some idea as to the appearance of the Meta Sudans. #LostRome
Intriguingly, excavations in 2002 proved this was not the first fountain to have stood on the site. Remains of a smaller fountain from the Augustan age were revealed 6 metres below ground level, lost under the ruins of the Great Fire and building of Nero's Domus Aurea. #LostRome
With the decline of Rome and destruction of the city's aqueducts, the Meta Sudans would have quickly fallen into disuse. The fountain was stripped of its marbles and even its brick core was gouged out for its internal piping – seen here in a 1575 engraving by Dupérac. #LostRome
Though many thought it unsightly, the remaining brick core of the fountain, with its proximity to the Colosseum, often shows up in art and photography from subsequent centuries. A photographer can be seen here capturing an image by the Meta Sudans in the 1860s. #LostRome
Thorald Læssøe painted this evocative view of the Meta Sudans in 1867, its remains now dwarfed by the Arch of Constantine and Colosseum. Looking east up the Via Sacra the Arch of Titus is visible in the distance. #LostRome
By the twentieth century Fascist era the remains of the fountain were seen as an eyesore and impediment to increasing car traffic. Road widening was also prioritised to allow more space for Mussolini's blackshirts to parade; as shown here in September 1931. #LostRome
For these reasons and to create a traffic link between Via di San Gregorio and Mussolini's new Via dell’Impero, both the Meta Sudans and base of Nero's Colossus were demolished in 1936. An outline in the ground is all that now remains of the Roman fountain. #LostRome
