![]() We are looking down, we've seen this one before, we are looking down at the Roman forum, the Coliseum in the uppermost part there, the Palatine Hill over here. I'm showing you a Google Earth image of the part of Rome in which this building found itself. The Domus Transitoria in Rome that was built some time before the fire, before AD 64, because it was very significantly destroyed in that fire of AD 64. The first of these, as you can see from the monument list, is the so-called Domus Transitoria, the less well-known one and less well-preserved one. Nero built two palaces in Rome, and I'd like to deal with those in consecutive order. Nero's architecture was intimately bound up with the vicissitudes of his life and his distinctive, if not warped, personality, as we shall see. And he used it to build his own villa, his own palace, in the center of Rome, the famous Domus Aurea or Golden House because it had a gilded facade. ![]() And after the fire raged through the city and caused incredible havoc and great destruction, what Nero did was, instead of rebuilding the land for the people of Rome, he just expropriated 300 to 350 acres of prime real estate in downtown Rome. He wasn't fiddling, actually, but he was participating in some sort of musical performance, we know that. He took advantage of that very famous fire in Rome, which took place in 64 AD to, legend has it that he fiddled while Rome burned. He interwove his life with his art in the same manner as Claudius did. He stole, when he traveled around Greece and Asia Minor, he stole, if he saw a work of art he liked, he stole it and he brought it back to Rome to display. Whenever he did that, they were always fixed in his favor. He traveled to Greece to participate in the Olympics. He had a passion for the arts which undoubtedly led to his devotion to building. His contribution to the development of Roman architecture is indeed extraordinary. I would call Nero a patron of architecture extraordinaire. And in 68, he was hunted down by his enemies and he was forced to commit suicide. He was adored by the populace, he was, however, hated by the aristocracy. It was a great show to watch Nero, and people liked seeing what he would do next. That said, despite his madness, he was absolutely adored by the populace. And his much touted madness, he was not unlike Caligula in some of the wild things that he did, his much touted madness began to appear. So by the age of 25, Nero had gotten rid of the two women who had dominated his youth. He also got rid of his wife Octavia, a beautiful young girl, whom he had murdered in 62. But Nero eventually paid his mother back by having her murdered in AD 59. We talked about the poison mushroom stories and the fact that when her son became emperor, she received, at least for a while, enhanced power in Rome. I mentioned already, or I gave you the sense that Agrippina was a quite aggressive woman who aggravated Claudius and Nero both. He was the adoptive son of Claudius, and as I've already mentioned, the real son of Claudius last wife, Agrippina the Elder. Nero was the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors. And an attempt to destroy his portraits and also his architectural monuments followed that damnatio memoriae. At his death, his murder, he was forced to commit suicide, actually, in 68, he suffered a damnatio memoriae, which was a condemnation by the senate of him, a damnation of his memory. As you can see here, Agrippina is certainly in the face of Nero on this coin, and she was, with regard to his life, dominating him in the very early years of his reign. ![]() This gives real meaning to being in your face. I mean, mother and son almost nose to nose. And this coin that you see on the left-hand side of the screen of the young Nero and Agrippina, I think says it all. We don't know if that's true or not, it may be just rumor mongering, but it's perfectly conceivable, because she certainly had a motive, and that is, she thought she would have more power if her teenage son, because he was only about 17 years old at the time, was on the throne of Rome instead of her older husband. Agrippina the Younger was the last wife of Claudius, and it was rumored that Agrippina the Younger murdered Claudius with a bowl of poisoned mushrooms. The mother of Nero was Agrippina the Younger. And you see a portrait of Nero here on the right-hand side of the screen. From Claudius I want to turn to the notorious Nero and his amazing architectural legacy.
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