Talk:Domus Aurea

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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)

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[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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) --

[edit] Paintings need more coverage

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