The Domus Aurea – Nero’s Golden House
After the Great Fire of AD64, which he may or may not have conspired to start, Nero took over large parts of the centre of Rome to build his famous property. Its lofty structures leapt between the crags, a feast of fabulous architecture. The interior décor was unbelievable, its richness and imagination surpassing anything artists had previously created. If the architecture was amazing, despite representing such blatant megalomania, even more dramatic was this entire landscape surrounding the halls and colonnades: a natural countryside within the city walls. Here there were parks and woodlands where wild and tame animals had roamed, all dominated by the famous Great Lake. It had been the tyrant’s private world, but Vespasian, in a calculated propaganda coup, had thrown it open to everyone as a vast public park – Smart work, Flavians! [PG]
Domitian was later to build imperial apartments on the Palatine, grand remnants of which you can see today. But Vespasian and Titus lived at the Domus Aurea when they were in Rome. In Time to Depart Falco goes to the west wing and in a secluded interior garden has his first meeting with Caenis.
One of the most famous rooms is the dining room with a revolving ceiling, which hosts my conference about organised crime: The room was full of light. There was an open aspect to the south, with a heart-stopping view that we would not be gazing at. There was a theatrical cascade (turned off). There were curtained side rooms in which scenes of revolting debauchery had once occurred (now empty). Above our heads had been the legendary revolving ivory ceiling that had showered gifts down upon lucky diners (dismantled; no presents for us). [TTD]
I was privileged to see the Golden House and this room before the monument was open to the public. Subsequently it was opened to small groups. Damage to the frescos caused by light and people’s breath became immediately apparent. The hill above, where Trajan’s Baths were built, lets in water. Public access became uncertain again, though there has been further investigation of the rooms.
The Colosseum
The Great Lake next to the Domus Aurea was drained by Vespasian for the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Colosseum (named after an enormous statue of Nero in a radiate crown). Throughout my series, the iconic building is slowly rising on its substructures.
It had three rows of arches, with columns in the three decorative orders; clad in marble, it featured triumphal quadrigae and other statues – many provided by Didius Geminus, according to Nemesis. An efficient system allowed rapid emergence of the audience. There were complex underground areas for the wild beasts and gladiators. Sailors hauled canopies across from the roof to give shade.
Coin of Titus showing the Colosseum
The Colosseum, with the Arch of Titus and the Colossus [Rome Reborn]
The Palatine
The Palatine today is a wonderful place to visit, though the ruins are hard to decipher and much of what you see dates from later than Falco – including Domitian’s Palace. So don’t be fooled into thinking Falco saw this. But you can have an atmospheric wander under the pine trees, with the perpetual traffic noise muffled. There is a small museum (with loos) and from time to time (depending on the vagaries of Roman museum opening) you can see the House of Livia, where Caenis lived. There were other buildings on the Capitol, such as the Temples of Apollo, Victory and Cybele, the House of Augustus, and presumably the house where the Flamen Dialis lived.
In Falco’s time the main building was the old palace of Tiberius, adapted by Caligula, where he has many meetings with bureaucrats. Nero’s Golden House extended right across the Forum to here. At the north end of the Forum, then as now, there was a route up into the main buildings, via a street called the Clivus Victoriae and entry through the Cryptoporticus, a formal covered passageway.
Supposedly unassuming … that miniature palace with every pampering amenity where our first emperor liked to pretend he was just a common man. [TFL]
Prisons
The Romans used prisons as holding cells rather than for punishment. Falco has experience of the two state prisons. I was in the Lautumiae Prison, along with various petty felons who could not afford a barrister, and all the Forum pickpockets who wanted a rest from their wives. The Lautumiae was a rambling affair, built to house squadrons of prisoners from provinces which were restless … Things could be worse; it could have been the Mamertine: the short-stay political holding cell with its twelve-foot-deep dungeon, whose only exit for a man without influence was straight down into Hades … In the Mamertine nothing breaks the monotony until the public strangler comes in to measure your neck. [VC]
Being caught in the House of the Vestals, for which the penalty is death, in One Virgin Too Many does bring him to the Mamertine, or Tullianum, which you can visit at the foot of the Capitol today, where the Gemonian Stairs used to be.
That bare, stinking hole near the Tabularium, from which the public strangler extracts his victims when they pay the final, fatal price for being enemies of Rome … a crude prison. Strong stone walls enclose irregular cells that used to form part of a quarry. Water runs through it. It was pitch dark. It was chilly. It was solitary and depressing. [OVTM]
Nero’s Circus
Situated at the foot of the Vatican Hill, adjacent to the Janiculan on the north bank of the Tiber, this arena could apparently be flooded and was a favourite venue for naumachiae, mock sea battles. Its red granite obelisk had been brought from Egypt (Heliopolis) by Caligula in a ship that was then sunk to form the mole across the harbour at Ostia. You can see the obelisk, now topped by a Christian saint, in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
Falco first meets Thalia there, in her tent. It is while watching attempts to train a tightrope-walking elephant (supposedly a popular trick) at the start of Last Act in Palmyra that Falco accepts Thalia’s commission to go to the East.
The Auditorium of Maecenas
Called the Mecenate, this is sometimes open to the public – or not: no bad thing in this case, because the frescos have deteriorated visibly.
The floor and walls, and the frames and ledges of numerous niches in the walls, were all marble-clad … The décor was entrancing. All the rectangular wall niches were painted with glorious garden scenes – knee-high cross-hatched trellises, each with a recess in which stood an urn, a fountain, or a specimen tree. There were delicate plantings, perfectly painted, amidst which birds flew or sipped from fountain bowls. The artist had an astonishing touch. His palette was based on blues, turquoise and subtle greens. He could make frescos that looked as real as the live horticulture we could see through the wide doors which had been flung open opposite the apse to reveal views over a lush terrace to the Alban Hills. [OB]
The Capitoline Hill
This important landmark has been completely altered since Roman times. Michelangelo and Victor Emmanuel left their marks in very different ways. Try not to shrink too much from the vainglory of the Campidoglio, which is sometimes called the ‘Wedding Cake’ – though I have never been to a wedding which had a triumphal quadriga galloping on its fruitcake …
Imagine instead what Falco would have seen: twin peaks, the Arx and the Capitol; the Saddle between them was where Romulus traditionally granted refuge to riff-raff in order to people his new city – for the Rome of the Caesars was founded by criminals, rejects and fugitives, thereby setting up a good class of inhabitants for a series like mine.
Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
(Jupiter Best and Greatest)
The largest temple ever, it had a golden roof that gleamed for miles. When Vespasian came to power, this fundamental temple had been destroyed by fire, so during the series it is a building site. Inaugurating its restoration, the Emperor carried away the first sack of rubble himself; he made special efforts to have copies created of all the ancient inscriptions that had been lost in the fire.
Temple of Juno Moneta (Juno the Admonisher)
Another great and very visible temple, which gave its name to the modern word ‘Mint’.
The Auguraculum
This was a consecrated platform which formed a practical, permanent augury site. An augur was supposed to mark out with a special curly stick the area of sky he intended to watch, then the area of ground from which he would operate and within which he pitched his observation tent. He sat inside from midnight to dawn, gazing out southwards or eastwards through the open doorway until he spied lightning or a significant flock of birds. [OVTM]
They accomplished the climb so quietly that the Romans on guard never heard a sound, and even the dogs – who are normally aroused by the least noise in the night – noticed nothing. It was the geese that saved them – Juno’s sacred geese, which in spite of the dearth of provisions had not been killed. The cackling of the birds and the clapping of their wings awoke Marcus Manlius. LIVY
The sacred geese and augurs’ chickens
Ever since a monstrous army of Celts once raided Italy, a permanent gaggle of geese had been given privileged status on the Arx, in honour of their feathered forebears who had raised the alarm and saved the Capitol. I had imagined the big white birds led a pampered life. This lot looked a bit wormy, to tell the truth. [TFL] Falco is perturbed that the Arx is an unsuitable location for geese – too rocky and with incorrect vegetation, and when he is forced to officiate at the annual ceremony he hates it.
The Campus Martius
Many public buildings have been inflicted on the Campus by men who thought they should be famous – all those pompously named theatres, baths, porticoes and crypts, with the occasional temple or circus to keep tourists agape … [PG]
Falco is beaten up here by Priscus and his thugs in Venus in Copper. Some of the buildings he visits in the series are:
The Porticus of Pompey
This is where Geminus often holds auctions. Porticoes were something like Lincoln’s Inn or the Palais de Justice in Paris. They had colonnades enclosing gardens, statuary and libraries. Pompey’s Porticus had the Library of Octavia where Caenis helps with the catalogue in The Course of Honour.
Heavy architecture on four sides formed a secluded interior where men could hang about pretending to admire works of art while they hoped something more lively would turn up – an invitation to dinner, a quarrel, an expensive boy with a body like a Greek god, or at least a cheap female prostitute. [PG]
The Pantheon
A masterpiece, and one of the first buildings ever to use that newfangled stuff, concrete. Behind the main building were baths where Agrippa bequeathed to the people permanent free access.
People scold me that the Pantheon was built by Hadrian. Thank goodness Hadrian’s inscription actually says it was created by Marcus Agrippa (in the reign of Augustus). Hadrian raised the height of the dome and restored it. That doesn’t mean Falco can’t go there. And he does, particularly in Time to Depart when he meets Florius.
You can still see the Pantheon, though it is regularly made inaccessible by use as a Roman Catholic church. As if there were not plenty in Rome!
The Saepta Julia
Beside the Pantheon Baths: its exact purpose is debated. It was a large enclosed building in two parts; at one end the Dolabrum may have been used for elections. It is said that the main part was flooded like an arena for mock sea fights, though Falco comments on the inconvenience, if so. Built on two levels, it had shops for goldsmiths and jewellers, so it is where I placed Geminus as an antique dealer and auctioneer. The Saepta was famously a haunt of informers. Both Titus and Domitian tried to clear them out (see Frequently Asked Questions).
I could see why he loved this place. There was never a dull moment, as fat jewellers and paranoid goldsmiths swaggered around trying to bamboozle would-be customers, while pickpockets tailed the customers and guards wondered absently whether to tackle the pickpockets. There were constant cries from food-sellers who wandered the building with gigantic trays or weighed down by garlands of drink flagons. Wafts of grilled meat and suet patties vied with the reek of garlic and the stench of pomade. Every now and then some man of note – or a nobody who thought he was one – pressed through the throng with a train of arrogant slaves in livery, trailing sweaty secretaries and put-upon fan-danglers. [NM]
Geminus has a suite on the top floor and a warehouse for storing goods more conveniently at ground level. From his upper office, where he tends to lurk with a packed lunch and wine, he can stroll out on to the balcony and look down into the enclosure. His bank box is bricked into a wall of the office.
Falco and Anacrites work at the Saepta temporarily in Two for the Lions, in an insalubrious office Anacrites hires. Falco comes back there in Nemesis.
The Janiculan Hill
My friend’s few happy acres vie
With the Hesperides; they lie
On the Janiculum’s long spine,
A flat crest with a mild clime …
On starry nights when there’s no cloud,
The graceful gable of his proud
Villa lifts gently towards heaven.
From one side you can see the seven
Sovereign hills
A bird’s-eye view
Of all Rome.
MARTIAL
I can’t really remember if that poem inspired the crook Priscus having a villa on the Janiculan, which makes Falco covet this location. Helena buys him his villa, but they find it too inconvenient for working in Rome. After a house swap with Pa, the bath house Helena began is found to contain the body that initiates A Body in the Bath House.
Scenes in Nemesis are poignantly set at the villa.
The Servian Walls (the Embankment)
Once past the squeaking booths of the puppeteers, the men with trained marmosets and the self-employed loom workers plying for hire, the ancient Servian ramparts form a breezy promenade … [SP] We went up the Embankment – the great ancient rampart built by the republicans to enclose the original city. Rome had long outgrown these battlements, which remained now as a memorial to our forefathers and a place to climb to view the modern city … [PG]
Horace mentions this recreational feature that had been improved when Maecenas took over the Esquiline paupers’ graveyard to create his Gardens:
Now the Esquiline Hill is a healthy place
To live in; you can stroll along the wall in the sunshine where recently
You had a grim view of white bones strewn on the ground …
Falco and Helena have a significant walk there on first returning to Rome in The Silver Pigs, a moment when they begin to relate to one another properly. In Poseidon’s Gold they return nostalgically and plight their troth after Helena points out that, according to the Roman legal definition, they are man and wife.
The Praetorian Camp
In the north-east of the city, just outside the walls; this presumably noisy district is where Caenis had her house (a memorial stone was discovered, put up by her steward Aglaeus). Her house is now under the Ministry of Transport and a hectic modern spot, but the Camp can still be envisaged from its enormous outline.
The camp itself is a monstrous spread in the shadow of the Servian Walls, mirrored by an even more gigantic parade ground that takes up most of the space between the Viminal and Colline gates; the troops inside are bastards to a man. [THF]
Close by is a wine bar used by soldiers where Falco gets inordinately drunk with Festus’ friend, the Praetorian Guard Frontinus, in The Silver Pigs. Falco also visits the Camp while chasing the serial killer in Three Hands in the Fountain.
The Pincian Hill
In the north of the city, this area still has gardens (the Borghese, with its dinky museum) and large residences, some diplomatic. The British School at Rome, a restrained Lutyens building, is in the Piazzale Winston Churchill off the Via Gramschi above the Villa Giulia Etruscan Museum.
Falco comments that this is an area of shuttered mansions belonging to the rich and he several times has trying experiences here: visiting the Hortensius freedmen in Venus in Copper, or trying to see the ex-Praetor Pomponius Urtica: Nice district. Patrician open spaces with panoram
ic views that were interrupted only by tall, elderly pine trees where doves cooed. Beautiful sunsets over the Tiber. Miles from the racket of the Forum. Clean air, peaceful atmosphere, stunning property, gracious neighbours: wonderful for the smart élite who inhabited that fine district – and miserably inconvenient for the rest of us if we came visiting. [TFL]
The Transtiberina
Nowadays called Trastevere, it is full of tourist restaurants in season, though a bit of a blank at other times.
The fullest description, too long to quote, occurs in Shadows in Bronze when Falco trails ‘Barnabas’ over there. This region had been outside the official boundary of Rome until Augustus rearranged the regions; I see it very much as an immigrants’ quarter, as derived from similar haunts in modern cities, particularly Paris – districts that are colourful, exotic, secretive, a little sinister to outsiders. Such places are regarded as trouble spots by the authorities, with the implication that some occupants may be there illegally. For that reason, they stare after strangers. People are poor, and have to struggle to make ends meet either through outright begging or selling cheap trinkets that no one really wants. Unregulated children often help in this.
Falco recognises dangers: Only an informer with the kind of brain disorder that needs his doctor to send him on a six months’ cruise with a huge bottle of purgatives and a fierce course of exercise goes into the Transtiberina at night. [SB] The hard round cake he eats, wanting to throw it down a drain but thinking it would cause a blockage, commemorates a very particular North African item Richard and I once bought from a booth in St-Michel in Paris. We hated waste but never managed to eat it.
Ostia/Portus
Outside Rome, but so close it could be reached in a day and linked to it by road, river, trade and tourist route, the port of Ostia and its newer harbour basin at Portus are an essential start to most overseas travel for Falco and Helena. The first significant scene is in Time to Depart, where Petronius sees off the crook Balbinus (he thinks). We glimpse the famous lighthouse with its sea-god statue, and when the thieves Gaius and Phlosis try to snatch Falco’s cargo of glass, we are introduced to some of the scams that will be explored much more fully in Scandal Takes a Holiday.
Falco: The Official Companion (A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery) Page 24