Nero became emperor in 54 at the age of 17, and soon gained a reputation for capriciousness and cruelty. He was also given to grandeur, best expressed in his ambitious projects for a new palace. Unsatisfied with Tiberius’s Domus Tiberiana on the Palatine Hill, he began a new residence, the Domus Transitoria, which extended from the Palatine across low ground to the Esquiline Hill to the north. This palace was destroyed in the great fire of 64, which started in the Circus Maximus and spread northward with devastating results. Burned completely was half the center of the city: three of the city’s fourteen administrative regions, with an additional seven regions damaged. Nero quickly set out to build a replacement, with the help of Severus, an architect, and Celer, an engineer. to annexation of additional land, the new palace, known as the Domus Aurea, the Golden House, occupied an even larger tract of land in the heart of the city than did its predecessor, ca. 50ha. A combination of parks, lakes, and buildings, the Domus Aurea was a country villa placed in a downtown urban setting. In its large entrance court stood a colossal bronze statue of Nero by the sculptor Zenodorus. According to the late first century writer Suetonius, the statue measured 120 Roman feet (= 35.48m) in height.
An artificial lake was created in the low lying land beyond (the site of the later Colosseum). The palace proper, the residential wing, stood on the south slope of the Esquiline hill (Figure 23.3). The whole complex — lake, gardens, and residence — was built over after Nero’s death, probably as a way of reviling his memory (damnatio memoriae). The descriptions of Suetonius and Pliny, however, together with the remains of architecture and wall paintings discovered in modern times make clear the lavishness of the building. Of prime importance was the central dining room, an original and influential piece of architectural design (Figures 23.4 and 23.5). Octagonal
Figure 23.4 Octagonal Dining Room from the outside (reconstruction), Domus Aurea, Rome
In plan, the room had a complicated but regular arrangement of recessed niches alternating with the straight walls. Most unusually, a revolving ceiling (perhaps some sort of canopy?) representing the heavens covered the room; above it was a dome. The ceiling is long gone, but the dome survives: a segmented dome, that is, not a continuous half sphere, but a series of eight curving panels, made of concrete. Round or octagonal spaces had heretofore been roofed with straightsided conical roofs, like the traditional Chinese laborer’s hat. The dome, which curves out as it descends, represents a new concept of roofing. The spherical dome, which we shall see shortly in the Pantheon, is simply the arch form turned in a full circle. Since the Romans had already
Made the arch a preeminent feature of their architecture, their developing of the dome should not surprise us. The Domus Aurea illustrates as well the Roman interest in curvilinear forms and interior space, both antithetical to Greek architectural design, in which the rectilinear post-and-lintel structure and the exterior view dominated.
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