La fontana, reproduced on coins from 80-81 AD, was in use until the 5th century AD when the fillings of the Valley began to obstruct the water drainage channels. The ruins were demolished in 1933 for the creation of Via dei Trionfi.
Thanks to the numismatic representations and the drawings made at the time of demolition, it is possible to reconstruct the original appearance: a base cylinder covered with marble and perhaps articulated in niches, a conical upper element decorated at the top with a flower or a sphere.
Today only the foundations of the circular basin and a concentric perimeter added in the 4th century are visible.
The Meta Sudans occupied a site of great urban significance, near one of the vertices of the sacred boundary of the Romulean city, at the intersection of two streets connected to the triumphal route and at the meeting point of four regions of Augustan Rome.
In the same area, Augustus had already erected a smaller fountain, remembered by the sources and found during recent archaeological excavations.
The Flavians thus perpetuated the memory of a highly symbolic monument.
