Nero's rotating banquet hall unveiled in Rome

[JGolomb]

VERY cool finding released today. Two stories linked below. I pulled a couple of images and text from the first story, but there's a full gallery as well.

 

Nero's rotating banquet hall unveiled in Rome from Yahoo/AP

 

'Nero's dining room found'Room rotated on wooden platform to follow movement of Earth from ANSA.it

 

Just found this slideshow from Discovery News...has some images not in yahoo/ap story: Nero's Dining Room Found

 

Latin biographer and historian Suetonius, who chronicled his times and wrote the biographies of 12 Roman rulers, refers to a main dining room that revolved "day and night, in time with the sky."

 

 

 

ROME

Edited September 30, 2009 by JGolomb

[JGolomb]

Here's another story from the Globe and Mail online that provides more history on Nero as well as a video report (at the bottom of the story).

 

Roman Emperor Nero's legendary rotating dining room uncovered by archaeologists

[Rompe]

This is such a find! To think I was in almost the exact spot a few months ago. The story is so big, FoxNews.com even has it on their front page..which rarely happens with stories like this. It is the 2nd most read story right now =)

 

I can not wait to see new fotos/videos of more that they find.

 

Wonder if they will ever open it up like they do other parts of the "Golden Palace" once they are done with the main excavation process? Would be so wonderful to see in person.

[caesar novus]

Wonder if they will ever open it up like they do other parts of the "Golden Palace" once they are done with the main excavation process? Would be so wonderful to see in person.

The other part was only briefly open when it had to be reshut for emergency restoral, projected to last a couple years from now (anyone know more precisely?). http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=Domus+Aurea shows a bit of the old tour. In a couple hours from this post there will be a repeat of "rome: engineering an empire" on history intnl channel which shows a recreation of the palace at about the middle of it's two hour run.

 

P.S. isn't the new Gerhard Baudy theory interesting, which presents circumstantial evidence that an extremest Christian sect really did set Rome ablaze, as Nero claimed? Not as likely as the accident or 3rd party theories, but equally as likely as Nero did it. How about petitioning the Pope to have Nero cannonized as a saint, to balance all these years of persecution

Edited October 1, 2009 by caesar novus

[JGolomb]

Wonder if they will ever open it up like they do other parts of the "Golden Palace" once they are done with the main excavation process? Would be so wonderful to see in person.

The other part was only briefly open when it had to be reshut for emergency restoral, projected to last a couple years from now (anyone know more precisely?). http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=Domus+Aurea shows a bit of the old tour. In a couple hours from this post there will be a repeat of "rome: engineering an empire" on history intnl channel which shows a recreation of the palace at about the middle of it's two hour run.

 

P.S. isn't the new Gerhard Baudy theory interesting, which presents circumstantial evidence that an extremest Christian sect really did set Rome ablaze, as Nero claimed? Not as likely as the accident or 3rd party theories, but equally as likely as Nero did it. How about petitioning the Pope to have Nero cannonized as a saint, to balance all these years of persecution

 

Thanks for the Baudy reference. I hadn't heard that before, but just spent a few minutes trying to find his theory on the web. The best I could come up with was the following from an old special on PBS: "He (Gaudy) has learned that in the poor districts of Rome, Christians were circulating vengeful texts predicting that a raging inferno would reduce the city to ashes. "In all of these oracles, the destruction of Rome by fire is prophesied," Baudy explains. "That is the constant theme: Rome must burn. This was the long-desired objective of all the people who felt subjugated by Rome."

 

I have the "Engineering an Empire" on my DVR...I'll give the Domus Aurea section another whirl. Thanks for the reminder.

[JGolomb]

For those following this story, here's a analytical view of the recent announcement. I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been more suspicion of what was actually discovered from within the UNRV community.

Have we found Nero's rotating dining room?

by Mary Beard

 

The first I knew of this 'discovery' -- of Nero's famous dining room -- was when I got an email from the World Service, wondering if I had a view which could be broadcast. As it happened, I didn't (I had other things on today, even though the World Service is always worth helping out).

 

But I still haven't worked out what it was that had been 'discovered'.

 

The basic 'facts' go back to Suetonius, who claims in his 'Life of Nero' that in the famous 'Golden House'. Nero had some kind of revolving dining room: there were, Suetonius says, "dining rooms <plural> with fretted ceilings of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes. The main banquet hall was circular and rotated day and night, like the heavens."

 

This vast palace took up huge tracts of land in the centre of Rome, but it has always been a bit unclear exactly what it looked like, and how far you could match up the literary descriptions with what remains on the ground.

 

And as usual there was a terrible temptation to equate what we can see with what the Romans wrote about.

 

I was always told that the "octagonal room" (in the picture) in the excavated area was what Suetonius was referring to. How exactly it rotated, or what rotated, is anyone's guess. But obviously that's been a bit massaged (or forgotten) in the new story.

 

I am actually a bit baffled by these recent archaeological discoveries. I have only looked at them briefly. But where exactly ARE they? And, honestly, does a big pillar really prove that we have got a rotating dining room... and what exactly rotated anyway?

 

I half suspect that no such thing as a rotating dining room existed. But even if it did, I still don't see why these remains really do reveal whatever it was that Suetonius was talking about.

 

More to the point, how far do we really understand Nero's 'Golden House'? I have away thought that the excavated area might actually all be the servants' wing (despite the big 'octagonal room') -- and all the plush, celebrity areas were elsewhere.

 

Maybe.. but if anyone can help with this 'discovery' (like where is it), please tell. I always suspect with this kind of thing that there is an over optimistic attempt to match up the extravagant literary account with what remains under the ground.

 

And I suspect that the PR department is somewhere near -- plugging the "Nero connection" for all it's worth.

[Maladict]

It takes a connection like that (whether real or imagined) to make the front pages.

Just saying you found a Roman pillar on the Palatine won't interest anyone.

If you want to know what it really is, you need to wait a few years (or decades) for the full archaeological report to appear.

By then, if it turns out it wasn't what was claimed, nobody cares, and if it turns out it was, it's not news.

[JGolomb]

It takes a connection like that (whether real or imagined) to make the front pages.

Just saying you found a Roman pillar on the Palatine won't interest anyone.

If you want to know what it really is, you need to wait a few years (or decades) for the full archaeological report to appear.

By then, if it turns out it wasn't what was claimed, nobody cares, and if it turns out it was, it's not news.

Maladict - I think you're right. Similar to the announcement of Vespasian's Villa a few months ago (although there seems to be more evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, tied to the Nero discovery).

 

Here's part of the thread on Vespansian's Villa on this very issue.

[caesar novus]

I thought a key piece of evidence were stone spheres which could be ball bearings for the rotating roof (or floor?). I got the impression these were found, although didn't notice them in the pictures.

 

P.S. on the burning of Rome in Nero's time, wasn't it during the anniversary of a sacking of Rome by the Gauls... an infamous kind of 9/11 date that a dissenting group might target? At first I connected this with the anniversary where they crucify dogs for not warning of the Gauls sneaking into Rome, but I guess the first was in July and the second was in August.

[caesar novus]

P.S. isn't the new Gerhard Baudy theory interesting, which presents circumstantial evidence that an extremest Christian sect really did set Rome ablaze, as Nero claimed? Not as likely as the accident or 3rd party theories, but equally as likely as Nero did it. How about petitioning the Pope to have Nero cannonized as a saint, to balance all these years of persecution

Thanks for the Baudy reference. I hadn't heard that before, but just spent a few minutes trying to find his theory on the web. The best I could come up with was the following from an old special on PBS: "He (Gaudy) has learned that in the poor districts of Rome, Christians were circulating vengeful texts predicting that a raging inferno would reduce the city to ashes. "In all of these oracles, the destruction of Rome by fire is prophesied," Baudy explains. "That is the constant theme: Rome must burn. This was the long-desired objective of all the people who felt subjugated by Rome."

I think the Baudy theory was more than idle observations, but was fully spelled out in his scholarly book (in German). Many academic assertions about Rome seem to not be supported by just doing a google search... analysis of the ancients seems have a low profile on the internet other than here. Well, some is showing up in the Google books project, but I find their format virtually unreadible (fuzzy light grey font).

 

So again, let's not overlook the cuddly side of Nero! I gather he was loved by a lot of lower classes because his antics basically made fun of upper class pretentions. I hear there were 3 pretenders to pop up that seriously claimed to be Nero and that his death had been misreported - at least one of which gathered support by army and other sympathizers before being proven a fraud. And wasn't it only later in Vespasian times when the upper class fully asserted their demonization of Nero and tore down his palace, whereas the previous 2 weak emperors pandered to the lower classes with praise of Nero and talk about completing the palace?

[sylla]

P.S. isn't the new Gerhard Baudy theory interesting, which presents circumstantial evidence that an extremest Christian sect really did set Rome ablaze, as Nero claimed? Not as likely as the accident or 3rd party theories, but equally as likely as Nero did it. How about petitioning the Pope to have Nero cannonized as a saint, to balance all these years of persecution

Thanks for the Baudy reference. I hadn't heard that before, but just spent a few minutes trying to find his theory on the web. The best I could come up with was the following from an old special on PBS: "He (Gaudy) has learned that in the poor districts of Rome, Christians were circulating vengeful texts predicting that a raging inferno would reduce the city to ashes. "In all of these oracles, the destruction of Rome by fire is prophesied," Baudy explains. "That is the constant theme: Rome must burn. This was the long-desired objective of all the people who felt subjugated by Rome."

I think the Baudy theory was more than idle observations, but was fully spelled out in his scholarly book (in German). Many academic assertions about Rome seem to not be supported by just doing a google search... analysis of the ancients seems have a low profile on the internet other than here. Well, some is showing up in the Google books project, but I find their format virtually unreadible (fuzzy light grey font).

 

So again, let's not overlook the cuddly side of Nero! I gather he was loved by a lot of lower classes because his antics basically made fun of upper class pretentions. I hear there were 3 pretenders to pop up that seriously claimed to be Nero and that his death had been misreported - at least one of which gathered support by army and other sympathizers before being proven a fraud. And wasn't it only later in Vespasian times when the upper class fully asserted their demonization of Nero and tore down his palace, whereas the previous 2 weak emperors pandered to the lower classes with praise of Nero and talk about completing the palace?

The Baudy theories are essentially a re-edition from previous proposals by Pascal and Hermann (early XX century); briefly, they pretend that from some kind of bizarre purportedly ancient Egyptian cosmological ideas involving Sirius, the first Christians would have found it perfectly logical to burn Rome. IMHO, qualifying them as "absurd" is probably an understatement; the survival of such kind of Da Vinci code-like theories can probably be best explained just by the progressive unpopularity of the Catholic Church.

 

As discussed on previous threads, I don't think we need to infer any particular explanation for the Great Fire of 64 AD; urban conflagrations were simply too common at the time, and pyromania was a standard literary accusation against tyrants.

As most deposed Roman Emperors, Nero was not overthrown by popular rebellion, but by a military coup; his popularity was therefore hardly an issue.

The evidence for Nero's popularity (at least in the East) seems undisputable; it was presumably related to Nero's trip to Greece and reinforced by the local Imperial Cults, but I don't think we can discard some contribution from pure charisma; after all, Nero seems to have been an above the average musical and rhetorical performer.

Edited October 4, 2009 by sylla

[Rompe]

In a couple hours from this post there will be a repeat of "rome: engineering an empire" on history intnl channel which shows a recreation of the palace at about the middle of it's two hour run.

 

Does anyone happen to have this online or know where to find this programm? I was unable to watch it on TV and would love to see it. Even if it is just this portion with Neros Palace in it.

[caesar novus]

Does anyone happen to have this online or know where to find this programm? I was unable to watch it on TV and would love to see it. Even if it is just this portion with Neros Palace in it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVvDTN_gLxk...feature=related seems to capture it. If that doesn't work for you there are many other versions if you search for "engineering an empire" without rome, or with rome at the end. It's kind of disappointing for it's overly melodramatic approach.

 

I was always puzzled why such an expensive palace would be destroyed rather than at least partly reused. But I gather from several sources that it was kind of a pointless non functional show palace. I'm thinking maybe like the more recent palace at Caserta near Naples, kind of a clone of Versailles but seeming monotonous and souless with a too obvious goal of just looking expensive and expansive.

[caesar novus]

Does anyone happen to have this online or know where to find this programm? I was unable to watch it on TV and would love to see it. Even if it is just this portion with Neros Palace in it.

Neros golden house is covered in the Roman Architecture video course from Yale (OYC series) at around lecture 11 (plus or minus 2 - check index). You can search it here or on google with the OYC tag... I have widely posted its various links in utube or .edu land.

 

Almost more interesting to me was the follow on to this villa which was by bad boy Domitian (the first to dare to return to decadent villas). While Nero's has been tragically closed to the public due to wetness right after a titanic effort and expenditure to restore it, Domitian's is easily wandered thru at the crest of the Palantine. The interior decoration is gone, but to me that is mostly fru-fru anyway. The OYC course will relate what you see to amazing innovative architecture that extends the principles of Nero's place using recreations of fountains, statuary, etc.

[Maladict]

Almost more interesting to me was the follow on to this villa which was by bad boy Domitian (the first to dare to return to decadent villas).

 

The first to build a new one, perhaps. But Vespasian resided mainly in the horti of Sallust, which were second only to the domus aurea in opulence.