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