Domus Augustana
About
Private residential wing of Domitian's vast Flavian imperial palace on the Palatine, completed 92 CE by his architect Rabirius; from this point the main imperial residence of Rome through the 2nd century. In use as the emperor's palace in 117 CE (Trajan died in Cilicia, but Rome's imperial household still resided here).
What happened here
The public rooms are enormous and the private ones are not. A visitor is walked through an audience hall built to make him feel small, waits with everyone else, and is admitted in order of usefulness. Behind that front, the household runs on hundreds of slaves and freedmen with narrow specialities — one for the lamps, one for the silver, one who remembers names. The kitchens are far from the dining rooms, so food arrives warm at best. Business never stops: petitions from provincial towns, judicial appeals, dispatches read aloud while the emperor is being shaved. Gardens and fountains take up as much ground as the buildings, because being able to waste that much space in a crowded city is the point.
In ancient writing
- Statius, Silvae 4.2
A guest's account of dining in Domitian's new palace: a hall so high the eye tires before it reaches the ceiling, and columns that could hold up the sky.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →