The Suburra was originally part of the so-called Septimontium, an area of the city associated with a religious procession that was celebrated on 11 January of each year since the reign of Numa Pompilius.

The urban fabric of the neighborhood, now a part of the rione Monti, was heavily altered by the opening of Via Cavour and Via degli Annibaldi at the end of the 19th century, while the demolitions of the 1930s for the construction of Via dell'Impero (now Via dei Fori Imperiali) deleted all the civil and religious buildings which, from the Renaissance onwards, had been erected in the Forums.

The boulders with which it is made – arranged into highly precise laying surfaces – are not linked by mortar, but only connected to each other by dovetail oak joints, and the wall, interspersed with three travertine recesses, has stood for over 2000 years to its own weight.

At the time of its construction, the wall served several functions: it was a protection against fire, an element of separation between the residential area of the city and the public one, and a monumental backdrop of the Temple of Mars Ultor, to which it created a strong color contrast.

The orography of the area – with the hollow between the slopes of the major hills merging into the valley between the Capitoline and Palatine hills towards the Tiber – conditioned the road system and the development of the neighborhood: the higher areas hosted the houses of senators and equites (remains can be found under the present churches of San Pietro in Vincoli, on the Fagutal, and Santa Pudenziana, on the Viminal Hill), while the valley floor, the most popular and infamous part, was occupied by large insulae (multi-storey residential buildings with tabernae on the ground floor), such as those found during the restoration of the monastery of San Martino ai Monti.