Athena Review Image Archive ™
Rome: Plan of Domus Aurea and Baths of Trajan
Plan of the Domus Aurea and overlying Baths (after Lanciani 1897).
A
newly found mural in Rome is probably part of a series of
Pompeian-style frescoes in the vast Domus Aurea (Golden House) built by
the Emperor Nero in AD 64-68. An unknown city scene in the mural may be
Rome itself before the Great Fire of AD 64, after which Nero erected
his luxurious new palace complex with lakes, forests, and vineyards.
Soon after Nero’s death, the palace and grounds occupying one square
mile were built over, successively, by the Colosseum, Baths of Titus,
Baths of Trajan, and Temple of Venus and Rome. Brick arches of the vast
edifice of Trajan’s baths, begun in AD 104, intrude into the room with
the fresco.
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