ROME — Sometimes the most extraordinary finds occur by sheer luck.

At least that was the case of a fourth century B.C. chamber tomb that came to light five weeks ago during the construction of an aqueduct in a Rome suburb, when an earthmover accidentally opened a hole in the side of the chamber.

“Had the machine dug just four inches to the left, we would have never found the tomb,” Francesco Prosperetti, Rome’s special superintendent with archaeological oversight, told reporters on Friday. The tomb contained the remains of four occupants — three men and a woman — and funerary wares.

Archaeologists are calling it “the Tomb of the Athlete” because of the presence of two bronze strigils, the instrument used by ancient Greek and Roman athletes to scrape sweat from the skin after a workout. Actually, the male skeletons in the tomb belonged to older men (all three were over 35 — very old in those days). “To say there was an athlete is a bit of stretch, but it works journalistically,” joked Fabio Turchetta, the on-site archaeologist who followed the aqueduct works.

All major construction that intrudes on Italy’s underbelly requires the presence of an archaeologist. Mr. Turchetta said he’d been on the job for about a year but that very little had turned up until this tomb. It was worth the wait, he said.