Talk:Domus Aurea

Contradictions

When visiting the place, the tour guide kept insisting on this same canard you see here in the article: "The Golden House was designed as a place of entertainment, as shown by the presence of 300 rooms without any sleeping quarters. No kitchens or latrines have been discovered. Contemporary conveniences such as heating pipes have also not been discovered." NOW, exactly how is a place designed for entertainment and pleasure where there are no amenities for visitors: no heating, no toilets, no food, no nothing?? Even museums have toilets and some resting/snack places! Basic human needs cannot be compromised, particularly in such a huge area with 300 rooms!! So no one ate anything, no one went to the toilets, no one could sleep, not could do nothing: but the place was "pleasure/entertainment" place! Yeah, right.

Untitled

Since I know the Fire was in 64 CE not 64 BCE, I'm not confused. How's everyone else doing without any tags, I wonder? Wetman 01:13, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wrong picture

I don't recognize the picture but it does not look like the Domus Aurea I visited. It was underground in the park of the Oppian Hill. --Error 20:00, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

That is a picture of the Domus Aurea's above-ground area on that hill (the Baths of Trajan), taken in Rome in May of this year. Did you take any pictures? See [1] for the archeological plan, and [2] for a photo essay. -- RyanFreisling @ 20:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I see, so it is not the Domus Aurea but the ground above it. I have relabeled. --Error 23:55, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

It's been my experience that the area (not just the underground section) is referred to as the Domus Aurea by those who live in the neighborhood (Narone), but technically the building itself is the Baths of Trajan. Thanks for the clarified caption. -- RyanFreisling @ 03:07, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

The Colossus of Nero was not a statue of Apollo. All the early sources seem to indicate that it was originally a statue of Nero himself, which was then transformed into a statue of Sol by Vespasian and later emperors. Apollo is not the same as Sol, please see the entry on Sol Invictus.

the graffito

"Rome will become a dwelling house; to Veii flit apace, Quirites, lest this house, before ye come, take up the place"

- the translator has done well to make the lines rhyme, but perhaps at the expense of meaning. As a layman, the quote, with its peculiar syntax, is v difficult to make sense of. I suggest a brief explanatory paragraph immediately afterwards.

Theres's a Notes section. Why not make a note, using <ref></ref>?

I've read a Robert Graves translation that gives the lines as:

"The Palace is spreading and swallowing Rome! "Let us all flee to Veii and make it our home. "Yet the Palace is growing so damanably fast That it threatens to gobble up Veii at last."

I think that might suffice?

No. In fact, I think this cutesy rhyme destroys both content and meaning by rewriting the text using a significantly different verb and substantial tense and person changes. A literal translation of the first line is: "Rome becomes/is made into a house:move your home to Veii citizens of Rome." (Here "move your home" is a translation of the imperative migrate, which has essentially the same meaning as in English only without the cyclical/seasonal connotations. This is intended to convey permanency. "Citizens of Rome" the intended meaning of quirites, which has a military origin. See the article for more info.) The second line is "If that house isn't also occupying Veii." (Occupat in this usage has all the modern military connotations of the English word "occupy." It's meaning encompasses seizing, taking possession, attacking, etc.) Commentary on Graves' translation above: First half: The Latin doesn't say that the palace is spreading. Rather it says that it is being appropriated. Furthermore, it uses a strong, direct imperative command, not the softer subjunctive suggestion in Graves' translation. Second half: Again, there is no mention or sense of a growth in the Latin, as there wasn't in actual events. Nero didn't appropriate the land bit by bit over the course of the complex's consrtuction as he though of new additions, rather he claimed the valley and hillsides shortly after the fire and told all the Roman elite who had homes there to get out. Furthermore, Grave's translation makes speculation on the future extent of the palace, harking back to his misinterpretation of growth, while the original Latin implies that palace may currently occupy Veii (using the present tense prefaced by "if not also." The original was simply a bit of graffito, not a poem. There is no reason to change the simple foreboding doom of the original to a cute but sad nursery rhyme. It was prose to begin with and should remain as such. —WAvegetarian (talk) 21:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyediting

I hid the following section... I'm not motherlanguage in English, I think it should be placed properly and better introduced with explaining WHY and/or WHERE those graffiti are found

Romans excelled at the subversive art of graffiti. An example of the wall writes is the following:

ROMA DOMUS FIET: VEIOS MIGRATE QUIRITES

SI NON ET VEIOS OCCUPAT ISTA DOMUS

"The whole of Rome will become a home - quirites,

"Move house to Veii before that house swallows up Veii too."

I removed this bit too because without the above paragraphs, the following paragraph makes no sense.

Beneath the wit, the idea that the genii loci, the Quirites of the Quirinal hill, would have to abandon Rome gave a Roman reader of the graffito a chill sense of foreboding.

---Anton

==Nero and the Great Fire==

"It has long been rumored that Nero himself may have secretly ordered the fire started to make way for his Golden House." This is not the rumor, which is discussed at Great Fire of Rome. --Error 01:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC) --

Paintings need more coverage

There is actually very little on them Johnbod 00:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Esquiline Hill NOT Palatine

The Domus Aurea is located just southeast of the Colosseo on the southern spur of the Esquiline Hill often called the Oppian Hill (although it's part of the Esquiline when referring to the Seven Hills of Rome). It is positively NOT located on the Palatine. I think that is a glaring error with this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siglaw1893 (talk • contribs) 22:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

The frescoes depicted Tabby, Molly and Elly, the three Goddesses of Beauty dancing around a tree.

Please can anybody clarify this line:

The frescoes depicted Tabby, Molly and Elly, the three Goddesses of Beauty dancing around a tree.

I can find no references to "Tabby, Molly and Elly" anywhere.... Maffyou (talk) 13:33, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Just some old vandalism. Sorry your edit was removed - you were right to point it out though, thanks! Adam Bishop (talk) 20:33, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Contradictory

At the very end under External Links, it has:

.

Preceded by Domus Augustana

Domus Aurea

Succeeded by Domus Transitoria

.

Whereas the text has the Golden House replacing the Domus Transitoria, the latter destroyed in the great fire of 64 A.D.

The page on the Domus Augustana indicates it was built around 92 A.D. well after the Golden House.

Claverhouse (talk) 03:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)