A couple of American tourists have returned a piece of the Colosseum they hacked off 25 years ago as a souvenir.
The bit of stone, small enough to fit into a pocket, arrived in Rome in a courier package from Greensboro, North California.
''We should have done this sooner,'' the anonymous souvenir hunters said in an accompanying note.
''Every time I looked at my souvenir collection and came across that piece it made me feel guilty,'' wrote the wife.
''Over the years, I started thinking that if all the visitors to that beautiful monument took a piece of it away with them nothing would be left standing''.
''It was a selfish and superficial act''.
Rome archeological officials accepted the couple's apology, saying the episode proved that ''Rome and its monuments are the dream of all the world's tourists''.
''The message is that visitors to our city continue to cherish it even after so many years,'' said Lazio Tourism chief Claudio Mancini.
He invited the couple back to the Italian capital.
Last August a German tourist was caught trying to sneak a 9 kg rock from the Forum out of Italy in her backpack.
In 2006 another German tourist was caught at Fiumicino Airport with a piece of a Roman column in his bag.
