![]() ![]() ![]() Human things does change from the most glorious and House of Nero now nothing but a heap of vast andĬonfused ruins, to show what time and the vicissitude of Vestiges of the Palazzo Maggiore, heretofore the Golden I guess that Structure belonged to Nero's Golden House.įlaminius Vacca's 1594 account of discoveries of antiquities which took place in his lifetime, as quoted in "The Travels of the Learned Father Montfaucon from Paris thro' Italy - 1712"ĭescending the Mons Caelius, we came against the But there is now a Pit made of a vast depth by which it appears, that, a larger Structure was in this Place before the building of Titus's Baths and now there are most beautiful Capitals set up, adorning the Chappel in the Church of Jesus. Peter ad Vincula stands, many Marble Figures dug up, and an infinite Number of square Marble Ornaments, to reckon up which would be endless Work. I have often seen, when they have been digging at Titus's Baths, where now the Monastery of St. Walls supporting Terme di Traiano and including a pavilion of the Golden House Rodolfo Lanciani - Ancient Rome in the light of recent discoveries - 1888 Suetonius adds that the day Nero took possession of his Golden House, he was heard to exclaim, "At last I am lodged like a man." (.) All these details sound like fairy-tales, like the dream of a fertile imagination still they are described minutely by contemporary and serious writers, by Suetonius, by Martial, and by Tacitus. Of the wonders of the Golden House it is enough to say that there were comprised within the precincts of the enchanting residence waterfalls supplied by an aqueduct fifty miles long lakes and rivers shaded by dense masses of foliage, with harbors and docks for the imperial galleys a vestibule containing a bronze colossus one hundred and twenty feet high porticoes three thousand feet long farms and vineyards, pasture-grounds and woods teeming with the rarest and costliest kind of game zoological and botanical gardens sulphur baths supplied from the springs of the aquae Albulae, twelve miles distant sea baths supplied from the waters of the Mediterranean, sixteen miles distant at the nearest point thousands of columns crowned with capitals of Corinthian gilt metal thousands of statues stolen from Greece and Asia Minor walls encrusted with gems and mother-of-pearl banqueting-halls with ivory ceilings, from which rare flowers and precious perfumes could fall gently on the recumbent guests. Its area amounted to nearly a square mile: and this enormous district was appropriated, or rather usurped, by the emperor, right in the centre of a city numbering about two million inhabitants. In the rebuilding of the city the emperor secured for himself the lion's share and his Golden House, domus aurea, of which we possess such beautiful remains, occupied the whole extent from the Palatine to the Viminal, where now the central railway station has been erected. ![]()
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