Domus Aurea

The Domus Aurea, or “Golden House,” was Emperor Nero’s palace, built after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE. Construction took just four years, an unusually short time for a project of such scale, allowing Nero to occupy it briefly before his death in 68 CE. According to Suetonius, Nero himself remarked that he could finally “begin to live like a human being” once it was completed (The Life of Nero 31.2).

Ancient descriptions give a sense of its extraordinary scale and decoration. Suetonius describes a vast vestibule containing a colossal statue of Nero, a long triple colonnade, landscaped parks filled with wildlife, and banquet rooms decorated with ivory, gold, and precious stones. One dining room reportedly rotated like the heavens, while others featured ceilings that released perfumes and flower petals onto guests.

The palace was not only luxurious but also a statement of imperial power on a monumental scale. Its design is attributed to architects Celer and Severus, while the interior frescoes were likely overseen by Fabullus.

Modern reconstructions suggest that the Domus Aurea stretched across a vast section of central Rome. It extended from the Palatine and Velian, across what is now the Colosseum Valley, to parts of the Esquiline and Caelian hills. The artificial lake (stagnum) that once occupied the valley would later become the site of the Colosseum, marking a symbolic return of private imperial land to public use.

Only a small portion of the complex survives today. This section lies on the Oppian Hill and was preserved because it was incorporated into the foundations of the Baths of Trajan after 104 CE. The surviving remains measure roughly 300 meters in length and 190 meters in width. The western area features a large rectangular courtyard, while the eastern section is more complex, with polygonal and octagonal rooms. Some of the most famous frescoes, including scenes such as Achilles on Skyros, are still visible here.

After Nero’s death, the palace was gradually dismantled and repurposed. During Vespasian’s reign, the artificial lake was filled in to construct the Colosseum. Known as the Stagnum, this lake had filled the valley now occupied by the Colosseum, with its far end reaching toward the Oppian Hill entrance to the surviving palace rooms. Traces of what once surrounded it remain visible nearby: scattered in the grass close to the Colosseum are the truncated walls of pavilions Nero built along its shores. Close by stands the remains of the Meta Sudans, a large circular fountain built by Domitian. The pavilion walls mark the approximate edges of a pleasure lake that, in its own time, formed the true centerpiece of Nero’s sprawling palace grounds. Little else survives above ground to suggest the lake was ever there at all; its scale and setting are recoverable today only through ancient description and archaeological reconstruction. In recent years, archaeologists have explored its drainage channels, some of which were retrofitted for the drainage of water beneath the Colosseum.

While the lake vanished beneath the Colosseum,the Domus Aurea was rediscovered in the 15th century when a young man accidentally fell into an underground chamber on the Oppian Hill. Artists soon began exploring the site by lowering themselves through holes in the ceilings, many of which are still visible today in the surviving rooms.

Today, visitors can still walk through parts of this buried palace, moving through dimly lit corridors and painted chambers that once formed the center of Nero’s most ambitious architectural vision.

Bibliography:

• Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs: An Archaeological Guide. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.
• Warden, P. Gregory. “The Domus Aurea Reconsidered.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 40, no. 4 (1981): 271–78. https://doi.org/10.2307/989644.
• Gurgone, Federico, and Marco Ansaloni. “Golden House of an Emperor.” Archaeology 68, no. 5 (2015): 37–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43825196.
• Hannah, Robert, Giulio Magli, and Antonella Palmieri. “Nero’s ‘Solar’ Kingship and the Architecture of the Domus Aurea.” Numen 63, no. 5/6 (2016): 511–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44505307.
• Hemsoll, David. “Reconstructing the Octagonal Dining Room of Nero’s Golden House.” Architectural History 32 (1989): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/1568558.