Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: baths of titus, baths of trajan, brick, bronze, colosseum, concrete, domus aurea, flavian amphitheatre, fresco, gold, golden house, great fire of rome, ivory, marble, nero, pliny the elder, sol, statue, tempus of venus and roma, trajan, trompe l'oeuil, urban, vespasian, via appia
After the Great Fire in 64 AD devastated Rome and destroyed two-thirds of the city, Nero used created a new urban development plan, leading to Roman houses to be more spaced out, built in brick, and faced by porticos on wide roads.
Nero used from 100 to 300 acres of the land that was cleared away by the fire to build himself the Domus Aurea, also known as the “Golden House.” The Domus Aurea was built of brick and concrete and included a man-made lake. His 300 rooms were sheathed in polished white marble. The hallways were decorated almost entirely in gold. The stuccoed ceilings had semi-precious stones and veneers of ivory, and the walls were decorated with many frescoed trompe l’oeuil works. One of the rooms had frescoes of Romans who seemed to be looking at you through painted windows on the walls.
At the entrance of the main palace by the terminus of Via Appia is a colossal bronze statue of Nero. Pliny the Elder writes about the resemblance he saw between Nero and the sun god Sol, and shortly after Nero’s death, the face of the statue was modified to appear more like Sol’s.
Since the Domus Aurea was such a severe embarrassment to Nero’s successors after his death, the palace and grounds were filled in with earth. Within a decade, the Domus Aurea was stripped of its marble, jewels, and ivory.
In 79 BC, Trajan built the Baths of Titus on part of the Domus Aurea site. Also, Emperor Vespasian tore down large parts of Domus Aurea and built the Flavian Amphitheatre on the site of the man-made lake, in the middle of the palace grounds. The Baths of Trajan and the Temple of Venus and Roma were built on the site as well.
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- Domus Aurea (“Golden House”)
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[...] Temple of Vesta burned down twice in written history. The first time was during the Great Fire of Rome, started by Nero in 64 AD. Then in 191 AD, it burned to its foundations, but Empress Julia Domna, [...]
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