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The King of Jungle briefly became the Emperor of Rome this weekend after a lion escaped from an Italian circus and prowled around in public.

The jailbreak happened Saturday evening in the seaside town of Ladispoli -- where a traveling circus was passing through, and the big cat somehow got out of its cage and began roaming the streets, with a lot of eyewitnesses and cameras rolling.

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Several bystanders captured video of the lion walking around residential neighborhoods ... casually cruising along sidewalks and in between parked cars, minding its own business.

Eventually, the circus owners and local vets were able to track it down and sedate it -- bringing it back to where it belonged -- and nobody was harmed while it was out and about.

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