He then went on to build the Colosseum on top of the artificial lake which Nero had built inside his palace walls.īuried under Colle Oppio, the Golden Palace was nearly lost – but it is now possible to visit the excavation site.īut because there are ongoing excavations taking place, you are going to need a tour (I went with Through Eternity tours) and a hard hat. Vespasian, the emperor who succeeded Nero, had the palace filled with dirt and destroyed. Most of it lies under Colle Oppio park, looking out at the Colosseum. The Domus Aurea covered somewhere between 100 and 300 acres, reaching from the touching the slopes of the Palatine, Esquiline, Oppian and Caelian hills. To say that his palace was massive is a bit of an understatement. It was probably this lavish display that cemented Nero’s unpopularity. After the embers died down, he used the “new” space left empty by the inferno to build his Domus Aurea – Nero’s Golden Palace. It’s not clear if he really celebrated the destruction of the city in real time, but he certainly took advantage of the fire. The emperor supposedly played the fiddle while Rome burned. There are few figures in Roman history as well known and reviled as Nero.
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