109 nero il pazzo

And here's what I did last Wednesday. I know, I'm always playing a little catchup.

Today I tried to visit the Domus Aurea, the 130 room palace that nutty Nero built on the Esquiline hill. Literally, it means "gold house".

In case you need a refresher, or never knew, Nero is one of those bad Roman emperors. You always hear these rumors about him - mainly sleeping with his mother and then killing his mother, but also things like calling himself an actor, fiddling while Rome burnt, inviting animals to parties, etc. When I checked out the Wiki page, though, it seems that Nero's bad rep has been augmented through the generations, and maybe he's not such a bad guy after all.

Oh, I also found this interesting article comparing him to George Bush .

So, back to the story. I hike up the Equiline Hill behind the Colosseum to find that the Domus Aurea was closed for restoration. It was still an interesting site, though... Nero was widely hated as an emperor, and when he was succeeded by Trajan, his palace was filled with rubble and dirt. Trajan built his baths right on top of Nero's house, and as a result, it was lost to history until rediscovered accidentally during the Renaissance. The high ground level remains, so I was able to walk around in the ruins of the baths literally on top of Nero's enormous house.

The most innoventive and famous part of the house is the Octagon Room that sat on a mechanism that slowly rotated the room 360 degrees while Nero ate. This room has been restored to its original height, so it pops out of the hill as a parapet wall.