- published: 25 Mar 2015
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The Domus Aurea (Latin, "Golden House") was a large landscaped portico villa. Designed to take advantage of artificially created landscapes, Domus Aurea was built by the Emperor Nero in the heart of ancient Rome, after the great fire in 64 AD had cleared away the aristocratic dwellings on the slopes of the Palatine Hill.
Built of brick and concrete in the few years between the fire and Nero's suicide in 68, the extensive gold leaf that gave the villa its name was not the only extravagant element of its decor: stuccoed ceilings were applied with semi-precious stones and ivory veneers, while the walls were frescoed, coordinating the decoration into different themes in each major group of rooms.Pliny the Elder watched it being built and mentions it in his Naturalis Historia.
Suetonius claims this of Nero and the Domus Aurea:
Though the Domus Aurea complex covered parts of the slopes of the Palatine, Esquiline and Caelian hills, with a man-made lake in the marshy bottomlands, the estimated size of the Domus Aurea is an approximation, as much of it has not been excavated. Some scholars place it at over 300 acres (1.2 km2), while others estimate its size to have been under 100 acres (0.40 km2). Suetonius describes the complex as "ruinously prodigal" as it included groves of trees, pastures with flocks, vineyards and an artificial lake— rus in urbe, "countryside in the city".
The rain falls up and off the street
The clocks turn back in retreat
Footsteps fall off of our feet
I see the tears crawling off your cheeks
Turn back to pink
The slap got pulled right off of it
We all fall back into bed again
When you see what you've done
You want to take back
To take it back
You can't, you can't
And it's killing you
Doctor comes off the street
Stitch gets pulled out audibly
Mothers fall down in their seat
I can see time's arrow turning back to me
Children getting light
Disappear into a sign