A languid stone’s throw from the hubbub at the Colosseum is a street quite out of time. The Clivo di Scauro (in Latin the clivus scaurus; “clivus” means slope and incidentally gives its name to a sloping piece bone at the base of the skull which, though interesting, shan’t concern us here).
The name of steep road is taken from a (possibly pertinent) ancient inscription and medieval sources. These suggest it was first laid out by a member of the gens Aemilia Scauri, a branch of the ancient and patrician Aemilia family, quite possibly Marcus Aemilius Scaurus who was consul in 115 BCE.
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