ancient Roman trash, now a pretty green hill surrounded by night clubs and bars

…is a bright green figure looming over me this morning – as I bike down to the mercato biologico at the ex-mattatoio – and my favorite extant ancient Roman monument, this colossal trash heap created from about 2 BC until 3 AD consisting of around 53 million terra cotta amphorae containers used to transport olive oil to Imperial Romans, now a seemingly geological occurrence in the landscape, a mound of wild brush in the middle of the Testaccio neighborhood of Rome.