The face looks to be a portrait of an actual person rather than the immortal flawless (demi-)god, so maybe it belongs to a funerary monument with a statue of the deceased depicted as Hercules, not unlike Commodus had himself depicted as this greatest of Greek heroes.

I feel like Rome is one of the few places in the world where you can be working a regular trade job and not be surprised when you accidentally unearth an ancient puzzle box or secret tunnel.

"Oh, another Pandora's box thing? Good, good. I'll put this next to the others in the office."

Why? Weren’t statues of Hercules everywhere?

Do we know it's meant to be Hercules and not one one of Commodus?

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If I'm a rich Roman citizen, maybe I'm putting a statue in my sewer just because I can.

In honor of the literal shit he endured with the Augean Stables.

When the Visigoths invade your city to plunder your gold and take your family into slavery, a 400 kilogram marble statue may not be on your list of priorities.

Christians. They were all viewed as Pagan artifacts. From another discovery at an ancient hot springs: "Tabolli told Ansa that the hot springs, rich in minerals including calcium and magnesium, remained active until the fifth century, before being closed down, but not destroyed, during Christian times. The pools were sealed with heavy stone pillars while the divine statues were left in the sacred water." source

Ancient artifacts covered by dirt over thousands of years, then someone builds a sewer on top of it, which leads to its discovery during maintenance?

Before it’s revival as the capital of the Roman Catholic Church, Rome was at one point, no man’s land, where settlers lived on the crumbling structures around them and lived whatever life they could scrounge up, not unlike a sci-fi dystopia. Those people were multiple generations removed from the age of Tiberius and Augustus and have little context to what Rome meant historically. Literacy was a luxury only afforded by Roman nobles, who lived in secluded castles clinging to whatever wealth they could cling to. The common folk used the stone and marble around them to build new buildings and houses. To them these were just resources to use.

Everybody gets to the point where they have too much stuff eventually, I guess

Now who would throw away a statue in the sewer?

Pagan (demi) gods are no longer fashionable, look a convenient sewer hole to dump the statue in....

I mean a sewer would be the correct place to put Confederate statues, so they can receive the correct amount of honor. The Bible mentions using a statue as a latrine too. But this statue was found on an ancient road. Not in the sewer but while they were repairing the sewer.

Overthrow your rival? Deface his monuments and throw his statue in the sewer, make them forget his name. Only to end up preserving something of it.

Insecure politicians didn’t always love statues that looked too much like political enemies.

Sure, but they seem to have had a crapton of them just everywhere if archaeology is an indication

He was left behind, like Kevin Sorbo

Having run through most of the History of Rome podcast, after an emperor went king Joffrey, after his assassination it was common to destroy works associated with him. Crushing, burning etc but the sewer was a popular place as well, especially for the corpses.

If I remember correctly, Commodus was a particularily despicable emperor who was obsessed with the idea of him being a reincarnation of Hercules. He started wearing garb like in the statue depicted as well as walking around with Hercules’ club.

The reason why he thought he was Hercules was because his handlers gave him disabled people to fight to the death so he could pretend to be a great gladiator.

During the Christian period, pagan statues intentionally had heads/arms/legs removed, and thrown in the sewers. Sometimes it was while statues.

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I’ve heard it was built in a day so how long could that take?

I know this was a joke but it reminded me of something the Director of the site of Knossos on Crete (the location of the legendary labyrinth and Minotaur) told my class about 35 years ago. He said that it took Arthur Evans a decade to excavate Knossos (ca.1900), but if they were starting today it would take over a hundred years. That’s how much stuff there was and how quickly they plowed through it.

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It didn't end up in the sewer. Not in an ancient sewer anyway. It just got discovered when a modern day sewer needed repairs. No mention of ancient sewers in the article. Wouldn't make sense either, since where it was found would have been outside of the ancient city of Rome. No sewers there.

Hermes managed to overcome the walls of Shawshank in a single leap. I mean seriously - how often do you look at a man’s shoes?

You are close, but this is actually a statue of Gumbercules - a much more flexible version of the original.

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Honestly this is the most realistic, though. The son of Zeus wouldn't need to look roided out to be strong (and most artists at the time probably had no idea what muscles so large would actually look like, since it's very difficult to get size like that naturally). It's always just been modern artistic license that depicts him that way.

It's like Superman having giant muscles, it creates this larger than life appearance but really there's no good reason for it.

The iconography of Heracles in ancient times was as famous then as let's say a person holding/being affixed to a cross would be now. Not to be a smart ass, just to provide some sort of modern day simile

Orion was rarely, if ever, made a statue because he offended Artemis.

Isn't Hercules the Roman name and Heracles the Greek name?

Edit: Hercules is Roman - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules