Rome today is an economic oriented and liberal European city much like Paris, Madrid or Prague. It offers its residents and visitors alike all advantages of metropoles like a vibrant nightlife or shopping streets. Beneath this Rome though lies another city, an ancient behemoth and important cradle of Western civilisation – the capital of a forgone Empire which spanned almost the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean, at the same time being an antipode to the similarly developed Chinese Empire in the far east. Ancient Rome was a metropole of grandiosity with large temples and treasures beyond imagination, where gladiators fought in large stadiums to entertain the masses and the corrupt political elite discussed the faith of the continent in glamorous bath houses or while watching chariot races in the Circus Maximus. A city with paved streets in grid like arrangements, multi storied residential buildings, working sewerages and roofed shopping centers. Maybe not so different from the year 2020 after all.