It is situated between the second and third miles of the Via Appia, between the basilica and catacombs of San Sebastiano and the imposing late republican tomb of Caecilia Metella, which dominates the hill that rises immediately to the east of the complex.

The imperial box (pulvinar) of the Circus is connected, via a covered portico, to the villa of Maxentius, whose scant remains are today obscured by dense foliage, except for the apse of the basilical audience hall, which pokes out from the tree tops.

The track was excavated in the 19th century by Antonio Nibby, whose discovery of an inscription to the 'divine Romulus' led to the Circus being positively identified with Maxentius.

The Collector Earl of Arundel paid a deposit for the pieces in the 1630s and attempted to have them removed to London but Urban VIII forbade its export and his successor Innocent X had it erected in the Piazza Navona by Bernini.

[7] The circus-complex of Maxentius as originally conceived can be partly understood as an elaborate imperial version of the type of elite residences that appear in Rome and throughout the provinces in late antiquity, whose pretensions are evidenced in the regular presence of large audience halls, familial tombs and circus-shaped structures – the Villa Gordiani, also in Rome, and the complex at Piazza Armerina in Sicily, are two examples.

The pervasive emphasis of death and apotheosis has led to the argument that the whole complex became overwhelmingly funerary in character from this point, and that the memorial references generated by Romulus extend, spatially and ideologically, to the heart of Rome.