Download Nero`s House of Gold in Rome

6. Housing
The Roman Domus
Wheeler describes the earliest Roman houses in Pompeii as dating back to roughly 300BC,
They were a series of “rooms grouped in un-Greek symmetry round a court or atrium,
which usually contained a tank for rainwater” (Wheeler, p.124). This tank or impluvium
was later fed by a drained skylight or compluvium above in the partial roofes that covered
these atria supported by four columns rising from the four corners of the impluvia. The
atrium was described by Vitruvius as the main room of the house and beyond closed off by
no more than a curtain was the tablinum: the principal room of the house, where business
was conducted. To the sides were two corridors or alae, which led on off to the minor rooms
of the house. Beyond and in the back there might have been a small garden colonnded in the
Greek style by a peristyle in wealthier homes and off this peristyle usually one found the
main dining room or triclinium in which the family reclined on three couches to eat.
Wheeler, p.127, il.108
NOT in Wheeler
Below: a compluvium over the atrium of the
House of the Vettii in Pompeii.
Wheeler, p.128, il.109
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Peristyle in House of the Vettii, Pompeii: Wheeler, p.127, il.106
“Outside of Italy the atrium house scarely existed” (Wheeler, p.128). Vitruvius identified
a different kind of house that he called the Rhodian type after the thriving Roman trading
colony on the island of Rhodes after Greece became a province of the Republic in the mid 2nd
century BC. Wheeler cites one such example from the island of Delos in the Aegean.
The Rhodian-type house
The courtyard, though not a Roman atrium, was all important in the Greek house. Like the
Roman houses, the rooms were clustered around it but it was rarely enclosed in the Rhodiantype; rather it functioned as the central court and the main source of light for the inwardlooking house. It was colonnaded on three or maybe four sides but the side porticos were set
lower than that of the andron (the man’s room) supported by bracket protrusions from the
outermost columns of the andron. “This contrivance emphasized the importance of the
inner-most room, which thus equated with the tablinum of the Pompeian scheme”
(Wheeler, p.128).
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Tenements
“In Rome and Ostia the busy days of the early Empire meant concentrated populations
and rising ground-rents and, as in comparable circumstances of far more modern times,
buildings tended to grow vertically rather than laterally” (Wheeler, pp.128-9)
Roman tenement blocks were often made of brick or concrete, at least in the lower storeys
according to Vitruvius, but more often than not the upper storeys were built of timber,
which according to Strabo contributed to the ferocity of the Great Fire of AD62 in Rome.
Augustus limited their height to 70 feet and Trajan to 60 ft. It was possible nonetheless to
find 5 or even 6 storeyed blocks of apartments that fell within the law such as on the
tenement in Delos below and the Ostian reconstruction below.
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At Ostia, the tenements were often middle-class and some were even decorated with wallpaintings (see 4th Style Wall-Painting: The House with the Painted Vault). Their general plan
was a corridor that served three of four rooms and terminated in a large room, looking out
onto the street below. Poorer tenants tended to rent single rooms in the timber attic storeys
above. Whilst reasonably comfortable, at least on the lower storeys, the tenements had no
heating flues in the walls nor any system of sanitation. Ostia is special in that there does
not seem to be any evidence of slums like those that existed in larger cities such as Rome or
Pompeii (See Town-Planning: Italy – Ostia).
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The House of Amor and Psyche in Ostia
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Dates to 4th century AD when the newer harbour of nearby Portus had largely taken
over from Ostia as the main port of Rome and thus overcrowding was no longer a
problem in the town.
The house makes “opportunist re-use of earlier walls” (Wheeler, p.132)
Few windows that face outswards. The light source for the house comes from the
nymphaeum within.
A single storey house equipped with wall-flues for heating
In plan, a wide central corridor serves 4 rooms and terminates in a larger room
containing a private lavatory and a stairway on the west side and a niche in the southeast corner for a statue.
The corridor is colonnaded on one side in the Corinthian order and opens into a
rectangular garden before a Corinthian portico leading into a mirror gallery backed by
a series of 5 alternating arched and rectangular niches for statues.
Wheeler describes his impression of the House as “one of graciousness, charm and
comfort with a hint of the almost eighteenth-century elegance” (Wheeler, p.133).
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Country Villas
Wheeler offers no examples of these country villas but he does explain how, particularly in
Gaul and Britain, these mansions surrounded by the crude homes of commoners, provided
northern Europe with a model that anticipated feudal estates. Wheeler cites the 5th century
Gallo-Roman bishop Sidonius Apollinaris who mentions one such landowner by the name
of Pontius Leontius who during those troubled times built a mansion with walls thick enough
to withstand both siege engines and a massed attack; which reminds us of the construction of
medieval castles. Wheeler goes on to tentatively though cautiously suggest original Roman
names for modern French towns such as Frontignon (Frontinus), Pouily (Paulus) and Juilly
(Julius).
In plan, these mansions often featured a colonnaded corridor serving a series of rooms
terminating in two wings at either end.
See 3rd Style Wall-Painting: Small Panels and Vignettes for more on this harmony between
villa and peasant huts.
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Palaces
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Hadrain’s Villa at Tivoli, near Rome
The palace of Augustus on the Palatine hill in Rome was “relatively simple and
seemly” in consequence of “the studied moderation of the first Emperor”
(Wheeler, p.137) but the later emperors quickly abandoned his austerity in favour of
more luxurious residences.
Wheeler makes the point that some of the larger provincial villas, especially in Gaul,
might be described as palaces but the examples he takes are imperial palaces proper.
Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, near Rome
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Located in the Sabine hills of Latia at the falls of Tibur tributary the Anio river at
Tibur (modern Tivoli) 15 miles north-east of Rome
Built c.AD125-138
In the latter years of his reign the Emperor lived exclusively in the villa preferring its
environs to the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill and a busy postal service
maintained constant communication between the capital and the Villa
Wheeler describes it as “the most fantastic material creation of the Roman
genius” (Wheeler, p.137).
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The Canopus and Serapeum
Located to the East of the complex is a water-feature garden that alludes to the
Temple of Serapis and the canal in Canopus, Egypt in design and name as well as to
Athens by its architectural elements. The canal was colonnaded in the Corinthian
order and at least on the western end copied Caryatids (statues of maidens) substituted
for columns as they do in the Erechtheum on the Athenian acropolis.
The Vale of Tempe
To the west of the complex (not shown on Wheeler’s plan) stood the folly known as
the Vale of Tempe, which featured at its centre a Greek tholos temple. It can
identified as a temple of Venus by the Roman copy of the Venus of Praxteles of
Cnidos that stood outside. One end of the garden was as ‘the styx’ and the other as
‘the Elysian fields’, which Wheeler says, “lent an indulgent melancholy to the
prospect of old age” (Wheeler, p.138) to the Villa as a whole.
The Piazza d’Oro
Wheeler briefly describes the colonnaded court though he makes no mention of the
euripus canal running along its north-south axis (clearly marked in the plan) between
the two domed structures “of remarkable plan” (Wheeler, p.138) he finds
interesting. The smaller of the two domes is composed of alternating rectangular and
apsidal bays. The piers of each bay are crowned by and arch and the entire structure is
capped by a Hadrianic ‘pumpkin’ dome; a peculiar dome that was unique to Hadrian’s
reign and probably designed by the Emperor himself. It featured an oculus like the
Pantheon at its centre. On the other side of the square is a similarly odd plan of a
building consisting of 8 alternating convex and concave recesses set between piers
that supported another pumpkin dome of vast size. The hall was facilitated by
adjoining rooms that served to buttress the walls of the building to cope with the
enormous thrust of the dome. The pumkin domes have not withstood the ravages of
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time however. Both collapsed since the time of Hadrian unlike the Pantheon’s dome,
which was completed in Hadrian’s reign.
Although Wheeler briefly describes the Maritime Theatre with its Ionic persityle
where Hadrian had his private retreat, he offers no photograph other than one of the
Poikile above but adds that in the complex, “the combination of new and ingenious
craftsmanship with traditional features epitomized the outlook of Hadrian and
his epoch” (Wheeler, p.141) meaning that the Villa is a testament to the diverse
cultural tastes and ambition of the Emperor. With its many features, rooms, gardens
and purpose-built amenities including an academy (university) and even a prytaneum
where the service staff lodged “it fed the nostalgia of the ageing Emperor”
(Wheeler, p.138).
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Nero’s House of Gold in Rome
“All Rome is transformed into a villa. Romans, flee to Veii, if only the villa does not
also spread itself to Veii!” (Suetonius, Nero, XXXIX)(Wheeler, p.142)
 Built by Nero AD64-8 on land requisitioned by compulsory order after the Great
Fire of AD64. There was even a suggestion that Nero started the fire for that
reason, leading to Suetonius’ famous joke that Rome fiddled while Rome burned
(Suetonius, Nero, XXXVIII). Actually Suetonius says that Nero reacted to news of
the fire by producing his lyre and singing the Sack of Ilium as Rome burned.
 “Located between the Palatine, Caelian and Esquiline hills amidst an artificial
landscape of which a lake on the site of the subsequent Colosseum was a central
feature.” (Wheeler, p.142)
 Only the vaults and cellars now remain as Titus and then Trajan built baths on the
site
 The palace was accessed via a luxurious polygonal court, popular at the time, like
that depicted in the wall-painting from the Villa of Lucretius Fronto, near Pompeii.
 Colonnades fronted a long range of sellaria (sitting rooms) in the front.
 Suetonius describes a dining-room located in a kind of rotating globe; the
mechanism for which was unearthed by archaeologists in 2009.
 The palace was grotesquely luxuriant. The walls were gilded and bejewelled, the
ceilings made of ivory. Perfume was sprayed through pipes in the walls.
 The cellar-vaults were decorated with wall-paintings in the 4th Style and featured
fake windows looking out on a sacro-idyllic landscape where commoners engaged
in romantic pursuits (See Wall-Painting: 4th Style – Nero’s Domus Aurea)
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Here, Nero is said to have thought he could live almost as a human being (quasi
hominem).
Nero lost the support of the people and failed also to commit suicide. He asked a
friend to murder him instead.
Within a generation of his death the site of his House of Gold had been buried and
built over. Only parts of the sub-vaults survive today and parts of them were
damaged in a recent earthquake in 2010.
Although Wheeler describes Emperor Domition’s palace on the Palatine Hill as “lavish
enough in it’s more conventional and urban way” with its courts, banquet halls and
peristyle but feels that it was “constricted by the hill-top.” He goes on to comment that,
“These earlier post-Augustan palaces have one character in common: they belonged to
an age of lavish wealth and unquestioning security which were liable to find expression
in a cultivated exhibitionism. By the latter part of the third century this was a thing of
the past” (Wheeler, p.144).
Diocletian’s Palace at Split, Croatia
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Built as a retirement home by Diocletian in AD300
Its defensive walls are 510 x 600ft and 60ft high and 7ft thick with square towers at
intervals and 2 polygonal towers at the main gate.
The complex was quartered by Corinthian colonnades
The complex also featured the Emperor’s octagonal mausoleum at the centre on an
11ft podium surrounded by a Corinthian peristyle on isolated pedestals.
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The load of the dome was carried by thick walls reduced by alternating arched and
rectangular niches beneath an engaged entablature carrying smaller alternating
Corinthian and composite columns.
The dome itself is round inside and octagonal outside.
Opposite the mausoleum was a tetra-style prostyle Corinthian temple of Jupiter
standing atop a barrel vaulted podium
A gallery featuring corbelled columns (arches springing directly from column capitals
rather from piers – see below): the first large scale use of such a scheme in
architectural history (See Wall-Painting: 2nd Style – Villa of Mysteries).
Commenting on its many oddities, Wheeler says of this palace that “Roman is
sensibly merging already into Romanesque” (Wheeler, p.147).
Corbelled columns or arches springing directly from column capitals.
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