7.2 The great fire of year 64 c.e. and Nero’s Palatine.

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The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archaeology and History of the Palatine Hill

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Sapienza University of Rome

The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archaeology and History of the Palatine Hill

86 calificaciones

Studying ancient - as well as medieval or modern - cities basically means telling local urban stories based on the reconstruction of changing landscapes through the centuries. Given the fragmentary nature of archaeological evidence, it is necessary to create new images that would give back the physical aspect of the urban landscape and that would bring it to life again. We are not just content with analyzing the many elements still visible of the ancient city. The connections between objects and architectures, visible and non visible buildings, which have been broken through time have to be rejoined, to acknowledge the elements that compose the urban landscape. Landscape and its content are a very relevant and still vital part of any national cultural heritage. The course will introduce students to the way we have been reflecting on over the last twenty years and still are engaged with the study of the past of our cities, beginning from the most complex case in the ancient Mediterranean World: the core of Italy and of Roman Empire. On the other hand, knowledge means also preservation and defense of material remains and cultural memory. “The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archeology and History of the Palatine Hill” presents to a large public the topographical lay-out of the most relevant part of the city (according the Greek and Roman Historians Rome was founded on the Palatine). Research developed on the Palatine since the end of last century by the team of Sapienza Classical Archaeologists opened a new phase in the urban archaeological investigation and in the scientific debate about the relation between archaeological features and literary tradition as well as the “correct use“ of both kind of evidence, key issues of wide archaeological and historical significance.

De la lección

The Golden City (1st – 2nd century c.e.).

Imperial Rome was much more like a contemporary metropolis than we can imagine. Urban landscape, in particular on and around the Palatine, was crowded by: luxury residences and, first among them, the Imperial Palace on the Palatine; buildings for spectacles; baths: buildings for leisure and culture; temples and cult places for traditional gods and for new gods, that is the deified emperors; blocks of multiple storey buildings. This is how Rome should have looked like when poets and writers called her the “Golden City” (Aurea Roma). By the end of this module you will able to: - discuss major changes occurred during Early Imperial period in Rome - define and identify a certain number of Roman monuments and/or places - identify Early Imperial artifacts, decorations and building techniques

7.1 Palatine after the death of Augustus (Julio-Claudian dynasty).5:43

7.2 The great fire of year 64 c.e. and Nero’s Palatine.8:57

7.3 A new palace for the Emperor9:55

7.4 The slopes of the Palatine5:38

Conoce a los instructores

Paolo Carafa
Prof.

Hello everybody and welcome back.

A.D. 64 - Rome is burning and the flames will go on destroying Rome for nine days.

There's just small parts of the city spared by this huge destruction,

as you can see in the image.

As a consequence of all these,

Nero creates a huge palace.

And he is going to build new pavilion on

the Palatine in the core of this huge palace along the sacred way,

as you can see here.

So now we have the House of Augustus,

the second imperial house here;

the Palace of Gaii,

on the limit of the Roman forum;

and the first Neronian house here,

which is destroyed and buried underneath three new nuclei,

which are now called,

for the first time,

Domus Augustiana - that is,

the house originated from the House of Augustus.

The work starts from the public part of the house of the first emperor, here.

Where the cult tuviste were,

now a hole with a lapse is created with a basin on one side.

All this is facing a huge fountain on

an underground floor which you can reach from a staircase here and here.

This is one fragment surviving of this huge hole in colored marble.

It's called Opus Sectile, as you can see.

This is how the fountain looked like,

the ramps of the staircase and the fountain was

facing a small peristyle with marble columns here.

In this section, you can see the Porticus inside the house of Augustos;

the Basilica, number four;

and the basin here, number five.

And here at the basin,

the underground passages, the fountain and there's more peristyle here.

We know how all this looked like,

thanks to this painting here from the 1721st

illustrating a fountain with marble colors and bronze capitals and bases.

Now, Nero is only

the - he is also the first one to enlarge the palace toward this area,

where he creates a huge terrace leading to a tower,

which you can see here and here with this imposing remain.

This is just the underground part of the structure

facing towards the valley where the core of his huge residence was.

And Nero is - is also the first one to enlarge the Domus Tiberiana here,

creating a huge open area around the core of the previous palace.

And now you can see that this part of the palace is physically joined to the oldest part.

This is the private part of the House of Augustus.

And also for the first time,

the palace is facing toward the sacred way,

which was running here.

Here you can see once again the core of the palace,

the open area, the staircase;

the sacred way is here,

the private part of the House of Augustus,

the sanctuary of the origin of Rome and the core of the previous palace where

the Emperor Tiberius was born.

In the substructure substaining the staircase,

a small bath is inserted with rooms for warm and cold water.

And the latrine here.

The core of the Neronian project was anyway the sacred way here,

which now was leading from the foreroom,

to the main entrance,

to this huge palace.

This is the area occupied by Nero Domus aurea.

Which you can see is nearly one fourth of the whole republican city.

We are standing on the sacred way now.

The luxury houses of the Palatine Hill open onto this street,

which was one of the most famous street of Rome.

In an archaeological area as complex as this one,

it's not so easy to understand which kind of feature

are you looking at and which period are you talking about.

The street is dating back to the end of the second century B.C.

In year 64 A.D.,

Rome had been burned down.

There was a great fire. The Nero's fire.

The remains of the building with

the decorations and an earth fill had been accumulated in this area,

so the level raised up.

New foundation were built such as this one and this one to create

a straight line surrounded by a Porticus on this side and on that side,

leading to the entrance of the palace of the emperor.

So a bending street like the previous one is

turned into an avenue flanked by huge Porticus.

The model of this huge dream were

the cities of the Hellenistic piece created by Alexander the Great.

So the new sacred way is shaped just like the canopic way in Alexandria in Egypt.

The fire destroys any building along the Republican's sacred way.

Here you can see the archeological remains of all these.

The dumps, a floor made black by

the fire and the traces of an iron gate melted by the heat over this white floor, here.

The area along the sacred way was placed at different levels,

as you can see from this section - from the atrium vestae to the first clivos

climbing up to the hill and

the remaining part from the first clivos to the second clivos here.

Now, a new steep level is created with the bulk of remains placed all around.

This is the archeological area,

this is the archeological trace of that surface.

Above these, at first,

a small square paving - which is paved in stones is created,

maybe to use this area and maintain these old streets.

You can see one more shot of the small square with bassel stones.

But soon after, a new sacred way is created with Porticus flanking on each side.

A new house for the vestal virgin is created around

the Aedes Vestae and this area here is left totally empty.

Here you can feel the difference between the layout

of the previous city in blue and the layout of the new Neronian city,

which will last until the end of the Empire.

As you can remember,

here were many memories of the origin of the city itself,

but Nero doesn't care;

he changes the layout.

All this - the huge palace,

the Domus aurea, the golden house - lasted just two years.

All this was inaugurated in A.D. 66,

but Nero killed himself in A.D. 68.

And the landscape is going to change once again. Thank you very much.

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