The dig was part of work to repair damaged sewage pipes in Parco Scott, which is in the Appia Antica Archaeological Park, a popular destination for both historians and tourists because of its remains of monuments, tombs, and villas.

Officials stressed that the statue had probably been prominently displayed elsewhere but had been left there when the sewer system was completed, in the early part of the 20th Century. Convincing the team that the statue was indeed suggesting Hercules were the marble inclusions of a lion's coat covering the statue's head and the traditional giant club associated with the legendary Greek demigod whose exploits included the famous Twelve Labors. Officials said that the statue could have depicted someone living at the time and that the additions of the Hercules iconography was to emphasize the strength and character of the individual.

The dig is part of another project, that of finding the first mile of the famed Appian Way, one of Rome's first important roads and one that stretched about 560 kilometers (about 350 miles) from Rome to what is now Brindisi, on the Adriatic Sea. The Romans built more than 250,000 miles of roads that criss-crossed the Empire. They were a staple of the kind of civilization that Rome brought wherever they went.

Experts dated the statue to the time of the Roman Empire, which began in 27 B.C. under Augustus and, many historians say, ended with the fall of the Western Empire, in 476.