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00:05The city of Rome in the year AD 37, the year the Emperor Nero was born.
00:13In his short life, Nero would seize the whole centre of this imperial capital
00:18and build the most extravagant palace Rome would ever see,
00:2330 times the area of the Colosseum, the Domus Aurea, the Golden House.
00:31The Colosseum is a symbol of Rome, but had it not been for Nero's Golden House,
00:36it might never have been built.
00:38And today, what little remains of the Golden House lies alongside it,
00:43barely noticed, buried underground.
00:48After a 30-year renovation, these remains have reopened to the public.
00:56Much has been lost, deliberately destroyed.
01:04But using historical research and recent archaeological evidence,
01:08for the first time since Nero himself walked through these corridors,
01:14time-watch has reconstructed the entire site.
01:34The question is, what can a study of the Golden House tell us about Nero?
01:39Does it reveal that he is perhaps the most misrepresented man in history?
01:47Nero's Golden House was legendary in its own time,
01:50and indeed it was legendary as a palace that went one step too far.
01:55It was too magnificent to be tolerable.
01:58For us, what's so extraordinary about it is simply that it survives.
02:03There were so many imperial palaces, but Nero's was buried.
02:09In certain ways, you could say that the Golden House of Nero
02:13is the most outrageous Roman building ever built.
02:17Largely, I think, because of its location and its size,
02:21and the sheer effrontery it took
02:25to impose such a self-indulgent complex of buildings
02:31right in the heart of Rome.
02:33The thing is about the Golden House
02:35is it's the only way we can actually get in touch with Nero himself.
02:39I mean, Nero is a cultural icon.
02:41Everybody's heard of Nero.
02:43So the Golden House is the only thing we've got left of him
02:47that actually has traces of Nero's taste,
02:50something he touched, something he lived in,
02:52something he planned and designed.
03:17Rome, sweet Rome,
03:20Oh, we're feeling quite at home
03:22It's a lot of fun for me and you
03:25to do just as the Romans do.
03:28Rome and the Roman Empire
03:29have maintained a grip on the public imagination for centuries.
03:33Rome, the city of gladiatorial combats.
03:36Rome, the home of all conquering Caesars.
03:41Rome, the great imperial capital
03:43that others since have tried to emulate.
03:48But in the first century AD,
03:50what was the reality?
03:53The Rome in which Nero grows up
03:55is an incredibly crowded city,
03:58an incredibly busy city.
03:59It's the great city of opportunity
04:01for the whole Roman Empire.
04:04It's a city of squalor.
04:05It's a city of misery.
04:07But it's a city of success.
04:09And it's where all adventurers come to make their fortune.
04:14Whoever obtained a good night's sleep in this city,
04:17but with the coming and going of wagons in the narrow winding streets
04:21and the yells of the herdsmen.
04:24Juvenile.
04:26What noise!
04:27The grunts of the gymnast as he swung his dumbbells.
04:31The yelps of the man who is having his armpits plucked.
04:34Seneca.
04:35One man digs an elbow into me.
04:38Another a pole.
04:39One bangs a beam against my head.
04:41Another a wine cask.
04:43Juvenile.
04:44We have people like Juvenile
04:46who go on and on
04:48about how disgusting it is
04:50for a poor but honest writer
04:53to have to live in these conditions.
04:57It was a city of narrow streets,
05:01of smells.
05:05A million reasons bring people to Rome.
05:09Rome, as a physical structure,
05:11then has to cope with this enormous population.
05:14Rome is where they first develop tenement blocks
05:18that go up to five or six stories without difficulty.
05:23We would have enormous apartment buildings
05:27that were falling down
05:28and which were perpetually having to be patched up
05:30or falling down on their poor tenant's head.
05:33The city is propped up by planks,
05:35for that's how the landlord patches up old walls.
05:39Juvenile.
05:41You shudder at every sound your house makes.
05:44The slightest creak makes you shrink in terror.
05:47Seneca.
05:49In such an environment,
05:51the most feared danger was fire.
05:58On the 18th of July, 64 AD,
06:03started the worst fire which Rome had ever experienced.
06:07Fanned by the wind,
06:08the fire swept violently
06:09through the ancient city's narrow winding streets.
06:13Three quarters of the city was ruined.
06:16Tacitus.
06:22The popular myth is that Nero burnt down Rome
06:26and fiddled while the fire raged.
06:28Well, in fact, most experts believe he didn't.
06:32What emperor burns down his own city?
06:34And his own palace.
06:37Nero wasn't even in Rome when the fire broke out.
06:39And when he heard about the disaster,
06:41he rushed back to help with emergency housing and food.
06:46But while Nero didn't burn down his city,
06:49he did seek to profit from the fire.
07:01Yes, yes.
07:02These will be the imperial gardens
07:04where the cattle market now stands.
07:07Yes, divinity.
07:08Each palace rising out of its own lake
07:10surfaced with waterfowl of the rarest plumage.
07:13No longer will the stench of pig and oxen
07:16rise up the slopes of the Palatine.
07:18No, it shall be landscaped with Damascene roses.
07:20You are an architect who could have laid the plans of Olympus.
07:24The entire centre of Rome was not to be restored,
07:27but completely redesigned.
07:29The 26-year-old planned a huge complex of palaces,
07:32pavilions, fountains, temples, a lake and parkland.
07:37Imagine after the Second World War,
07:39the entire centre of London being bulldozed
07:42to build a bigger, more luxurious Buckingham Palace.
07:45Today, Buckingham Palace and Gardens total 40 acres.
07:48Nero's project was 200 acres.
07:52It was unprecedented and unequalled.
07:55And to understand it,
07:57one has to understand Nero himself.
08:03Here is history's evil genius.
08:08He was a drunkard and a sensualist,
08:11full of changing desires,
08:13swollen with fat and crying.
08:16So has history described him.
08:23Nero was a king, you know,
08:25many, many years ago.
08:27Nero loved his music so,
08:29bought a fiddle and a bow.
08:31Rome did nothing, Nero.
08:34No, he never was a hero.
08:36Rome was burned to zero.
08:37Still he fiddled away.
08:39The Hollywood version is a myth.
08:42The building of the Golden House
08:44wasn't the irrational act of a drunken megalomaniac,
08:47but the calculating attempt of a young man
08:49desperate to hold on to power.
08:52Ultimately, he failed.
08:54And history is most often written by the winners.
08:58The stories you read in the biographies of emperors
09:02are based on what circulated at the time.
09:05You should think of the imperial court
09:07as a great rumour-making machine.
09:10You know, people are trying to get through to the emperor.
09:15They're trying to get benefits.
09:16They're trying to anticipate which way he's going to jump.
09:20And they're gossiping all the time.
09:22Gossip is the currency of a court.
09:25And you gossip about the emperor's private life.
09:28Of course you do.
09:29And that gossip machine generates
09:33things that are completely untrue.
09:37So what's the evidence?
09:39What do we know?
09:41By the time Nero comes to power,
09:43Rome is 800 years old.
09:45During the Republic, it had conquered the Mediterranean.
09:48And wealth had brought civil war.
09:51And civil war had brought the emperors.
09:55The first, only 80 years earlier, had been Augustus.
09:58He created a dynasty from which came his successors
10:01Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius.
10:05Then, after Claudius' mysterious death,
10:08the fifth emperor, Nero.
10:11His mother, Agrippina, had ensured his accession.
10:14For he was still a teenager,
10:16with no political experience and no military achievements to his name.
10:21This is the inherent danger with all dynasties,
10:24the lack of someone suitable to succeed.
10:30It's very difficult to tell whether he realised when he was so young, 17,
10:38that it would be difficult for him to fulfil his artistic aspirations as emperor.
10:43He had this domineering mother
10:44who was steering him into this position from his earliest years,
10:49so I imagine he took it for granted that if it fell into his lap, he had to do it.
10:54And initially, he was quite docile and tried to do it the way his advisers told him to.
11:00But there were certain things he was immovable on.
11:02He was absolutely determined to be interested in poetry and music and painting,
11:07and less in the arts of speaking politically that they wanted him to practise.
11:13His problem, partly, is youth and inexperience.
11:17I mean, the first emperors could justify their position
11:21in the very traditional Roman way by having won military victories.
11:25And I think with Nero, people didn't know what to think when he came to the throne.
11:32A carefully supervised young emperor
11:35was sensibly deferential to Rome's governing body, the Senate,
11:39but nevertheless was determined to pursue his musical, sporting and artistic interests,
11:44a determination that would lead to the Golden House.
11:49The sophistication of this building
11:52gives us a different picture of Nero
11:55to the common one that we have from films,
11:58which show him really rather stupid, rather boorish,
12:02and just, you know, a lad about town out to enjoy himself at every opportunity.
12:07It's quite clear that he was extremely well-educated, well-cultured.
12:12He was a lyre player, a musician,
12:15fancied himself as an artist.
12:18We don't really know how good he was,
12:20but he certainly did all the professional things you were supposed to do.
12:24And as a charioteer, he ate dung and water for his muscles.
12:29As a singer, he had heavy chest plates on to improve his breathing,
12:35lived on a diet of oil and chives,
12:37which must have been horrible for his nearest and dearest.
12:39But he did take it very seriously,
12:41and we're told at the end of every performance,
12:43so, I mean, he was really covered with sweat.
12:46Nero's playing his job in a way
12:49to hang on to power desperately, at all costs,
12:53to preserve the power of a dynasty,
12:56to preserve the power of a small group of people,
12:59when there are loads of other people out there who want the power.
13:04And therefore, he uses techniques to try to dazzle.
13:09And that is, of course, what the Golden House is about.
13:12The site when Nero set to work was not quite smoking ruins,
13:17but it was all ruins.
13:20So, the first thing that actually took place
13:23as Nero starts to build the Golden House
13:26would have been an extraordinary earth-moving operation.
13:31Rome for decades had been a hub of building activity.
13:35Above all, the wealthy, busily commissioning
13:38impressive public amenities to gain popularity.
13:41And Nero, in his first ten years as emperor,
13:44had followed suit.
13:45A market, a theatre, and baths.
13:50Such contracts attracted the Roman Empire's best architects.
13:54For the Golden House, Nero hired two of them.
13:58The architects Severus and Keller
14:01did not balk at effects
14:02which nature herself had ruled out as impossible.
14:05Nero was a lover of the incredible Tacitus.
14:10There are hurrying mules and porters.
14:13A huge machine hoists first a block of stone,
14:17then a wooden beam.
14:19Horus.
14:28I think it's something that impresses anyone
14:31who tries to build nowadays,
14:33how swiftly the Romans built.
14:39The Romans built fast, and they built big.
14:43The nearest comparison today is Las Vegas,
14:46where a billion-dollar, 6,000-room hotel
14:48can go up in 18 months.
14:52So too with the Golden House.
14:54Not the decades it took to build a pyramid,
14:57but less than four years.
14:59Rome was an empire built not on cut stone,
15:02but on a recently improved building material.
15:06Concrete.
15:08The Golden House is a really interesting development
15:11of Roman concrete architecture.
15:15It's a bit hard for us to get excited
15:18about the use of concrete,
15:19which is such a dismal aspect of our own world.
15:23And yet, the modern use of concrete
15:26has enabled architects to do quite extraordinary things
15:29that weren't possible 100 years ago.
15:31Similarly, for the Romans,
15:33it's developing the use of a specific kind of concrete,
15:38of putting together lime,
15:41which is always used in building,
15:43with a particular type of sand,
15:45the sand that, the volcanic sand,
15:48that comes initially from Pozzuoli,
15:50which is on the Bay of Naples.
15:52And it sets in a particularly effective way,
15:55it bonds.
15:56It's both light and strong.
16:00Concrete is the technological secret of this building.
16:06The Romans pioneered a new form of building with concrete,
16:10two parallel rows of brick filled with concrete in between.
16:15So effective was this technique
16:17that these walls have survived 2,000 years.
16:20This revolution in civil engineering
16:22allowed Nero to fulfil his dream project.
16:27You look at the brick-faced concrete,
16:29this is archetypically the Roman type of construction.
16:32It's very much their signature.
16:36There's the whole sort of size of this space,
16:40particularly its verticality.
16:43It's something that one associates very much
16:47with all Roman buildings.
16:49Their temples were set up on high places,
16:53their public buildings,
16:55the most public of their private buildings,
16:57like palaces, like this one,
16:59have this very strong vertical element.
17:02And what it tends to do to you
17:04is to make you feel small and insignificant.
17:11Small and insignificant
17:12was exactly what Nero wanted guests to feel.
17:16Being so young, only 27,
17:18meant there was no shortage of rivals.
17:21And an increasing tendency to demonstrate publicly
17:24his love of music, poetry, and charioteering
17:27meant no shortage of critics either.
17:30The Golden House was his answer,
17:33a demonstration that he and he alone
17:35could and should be emperor.
17:41But it needed more than architecture
17:43to secure his position.
17:46He had his own mother killed.
17:49Adversaries and advisors alike met similar fates.
17:53Rome was brutal.
17:55Few of its emperors survived without being ruthless.
18:01But popularity mattered too.
18:04A construction project on this scale
18:06earned Nero the gratitude of many thousands
18:08of otherwise unemployed men,
18:11equally at home in a mob as on a building site.
18:19In order to have a roof over your head,
18:22to keep a family, to keep clothed,
18:25then the poor of Rome needed extra work.
18:28And building projects, as well as work on the docks,
18:31the two major areas that they could get labour.
18:36We know that a lot of men worked as day labourers.
18:40We know that a lot of men worked as day labourers.
18:40That is, they could sign-on simply for a day,
18:42in which case they were given a fairly low wage,
18:45plus quite often food.
18:47So that's a great benefit.
18:49We can imagine the impact on local housing,
18:54that people would have been renting rooms nearby,
18:58or putting up some sort of temporary accommodation.
19:01What was the park like?
19:03Nero's beautiful park.
19:05Was it full of shacks in which the workmen lived temporarily?
19:29All together in this building,
19:32there were probably something like between, say,
19:35six and ten million pieces of brick.
19:37And that's not just a lot of brick to make,
19:40it's also a lot of brick to lay.
19:42But we could perhaps imagine at least a thousand men
19:46simply laying bricks each day.
19:54In this, the one building that survives
19:57of the Golden House complex,
19:59nearly 200 rooms have been excavated.
20:02And it's clear that Nero had originally hired
20:05the best craftsmen to decorate them.
20:11Nero's successors built over this part of the Golden House.
20:11Famillus was serious and dignified,
20:14but at the same time a most colourful artist.
20:17The domicilia was the prison of his art.
20:20He used to paint a few hours a day
20:22and always wore his toga,
20:25even on the scaffolding.
20:27Pliny the Elder.
20:29Within a few years of its completion,
20:31Nero's successors built over this part of the Golden House,
20:36and the ground floor rooms were filled in
20:38with hundreds of tons of compacted soil and rubble
20:41from the floor above.
20:43As time passed,
20:45those newer buildings were also destroyed.
20:48In 1488, by chance,
20:51under what had become woodland and vineyards,
20:54this small part of the Golden House was rediscovered.
21:02Slow excavations down through tunnels
21:05revealed that the rooms had been stripped
21:06before being filled in and built over.
21:10But the frescoes,
21:12mythological scenes,
21:14miniature designs,
21:16and architectural illusion
21:17were still intact.
21:20Copies were made and circulated,
21:23and the excavations became hugely popular.
21:34You have to crawl through a hole in the ground to get to it.
21:37You take your candle down to see this thing.
21:39You illuminate it,
21:41something that hasn't been seen for 1,500 years or so.
21:44The impact is phenomenal.
21:51At the end of the 15th century,
21:53Europe is in the middle of the greatest cultural revival
21:55of the previous 2,000 years,
21:57the Renaissance.
21:58And this is all predicated on the idea of classicism.
22:01But the examples of classical buildings
22:04and classical art
22:05are fairly small scale.
22:07I mean, there's a lot of ruins,
22:08but there's very little specific graphic art,
22:10particularly in terms of painting.
22:12And one of the things
22:13that the discovery of Nero's Golden House does
22:14is give artists
22:15a wonderful, dramatic, visual example
22:18that they can study.
22:30The discovery of the Golden House
22:31must have been one of the most exciting moments ever,
22:35really like tumbling straight into Aladdin's cave.
22:38And we have to imagine
22:40that the painting was not faded
22:42and worn as it is now,
22:44but it had all its colors intact.
22:46And the first torches would have seen
22:49these extraordinary colors,
22:51amazing paintings.
22:53It must have been wonderful.
22:55I think it's the sort of thing
22:56that all archaeologists dream of.
23:09There are three great Renaissance artists,
23:12according to the Italian artist
23:13or in Giorgio Vasari,
23:14Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael.
23:16And Raphael is at the pinnacle
23:17of that achievement.
23:19Raphael's own artistic language
23:21is coming to maturity
23:22just at the moment
23:24when he goes down
23:25into the darkness
23:26with his torch
23:27and sees the splendors
23:29of Nero's Golden House.
23:31And so its impact
23:32on the history of Western art
23:34is monumental.
23:37But at the time of Nero,
23:39it wasn't the frescoes
23:40that impressed so much
23:41as the marbles.
23:43As the guests,
23:44ambassadors,
23:45military officials,
23:46senators,
23:47were escorted
23:48through this building
23:49to their assigned meeting
23:50or dining room,
23:51so the frescoes decreased
23:53and the marbles increased.
23:56The more important the guest,
23:58the more marble in their room,
24:00all of which had been
24:02carefully collected
24:02from throughout
24:03this vast empire.
24:06Yellow marble, I think,
24:07comes from Africa,
24:08from Nubidia.
24:09The green marble
24:10comes from the southern part
24:12of Greece,
24:13namely Sparta
24:14in the Peloponnese.
24:15And porphyry, I think,
24:17is usually said
24:18to come from Egypt
24:19and around there.
24:20And of course,
24:22one of the points
24:23of doing this, I think,
24:24is not just
24:25the intrinsic beauty of it,
24:27but also the feeling
24:29of lavishness and expense
24:31of bringing it that far.
24:34And some people think
24:35that it also has significant
24:37in demonstrating
24:37the scale, extent,
24:39and power
24:40of the Roman Empire.
24:41Marbles were
24:43an incredibly important
24:45imperial resource
24:46in order to produce
24:48those hundreds of columns
24:49that must have decorated
24:50the facades.
24:51You're not only quarrying it,
24:52but you're having
24:53to transport it.
24:54You're having to move
24:55marble columns
24:5630 Roman feet high
24:59over vast distances
25:01and over land.
25:13This is what Roman
25:15military organisation
25:16is about.
25:17You can't conquer
25:18an empire without
25:19getting organisation
25:21really effective.
25:23And they applied
25:24the same standards
25:25of organisation
25:26to the building trade
25:27and could do it
25:28really swiftly
25:29and really efficiently.
25:37across the whole
25:38building site,
25:39craftsmen were finishing
25:40the frescoes
25:41and attaching
25:42the final marble.
25:43But that wasn't
25:44enough for Nero.
25:46There was another way
25:47he wanted to show
25:48his power over the empire.
25:53Staff were dispatched
25:54to acquire,
25:55by whatever means possible,
25:57hundreds of artworks.
26:02the golden house
26:03became the biggest
26:04private gallery
26:05in the world.
26:07By the violence
26:08of Nero,
26:09the most celebrated
26:10artworks were conveyed
26:11to Rome
26:12and arranged in the rooms
26:14of the golden house.
26:15Pliny the Elder.
26:19It was fated that Delphi
26:21was to suffer
26:22from the universal
26:23irreverence of Nero,
26:25who stole
26:26500 statues.
26:29Balsinaeus.
26:32You have marble
26:33on the floor,
26:34you have marble
26:34on the wall,
26:35different colours,
26:35different panels,
26:36you have extraordinary
26:38paintings above the marble
26:39and your ceilings
26:40are painted.
26:40It's not Nero's fault.
26:43He's not going
26:44more than a step
26:45beyond what was current.
26:47It's just that
26:48we're used to thinking
26:48of classical antiquity
26:50as something rather pure
26:50and clean and white
26:51and it wasn't.
26:52I think that Las Vegas
26:54is a brilliant comparison
26:55because it's simply
26:57over the top.
27:17The Golden House
27:19will have consumed
27:20the fortunes
27:21of hundreds
27:22of rich men,
27:24let's say,
27:25maybe thousands.
27:26Emperors just have
27:28levels of wealth
27:29unimaginable
27:30but all you need
27:31to think about
27:32is the extent
27:33of the empire itself.
27:35The extent
27:36of the whole Mediterranean
27:37and you're looking
27:38at North Africa
27:39as well as
27:41the East,
27:42Turkey
27:43and the Europe
27:45we think of.
27:46Put the revenues
27:47of that area together
27:48and what you're getting
27:49is some of the surplus
27:52being creamed off
27:53by the guy in charge
27:55to build something
27:56nobody else
27:57could have dreamed of
27:58affording.
27:59Here once shone
28:01the hated hall
28:02of the cruel king.
28:04One house
28:05took up the whole
28:06of Rome.
28:08Marshall.
28:11What about the gold?
28:13Why was it called
28:14the Golden House?
28:15Why does the poet
28:16Marshall say
28:17that it shone?
28:19Well, some people
28:20think that the whole
28:21facade of it
28:22was covered in gold,
28:24sort of glass gold
28:25mosaic tiles
28:26and since the thing
28:27was oriented
28:28north-south,
28:29I mean,
28:29it would have been
28:29pretty well blinding
28:31if that was the case.
28:33All the house
28:34was adorned with gems
28:35and mother-of-pearl
28:37and overlaid with gold.
28:40Suetonius.
28:42Nero's house
28:43was indeed golden,
28:44pliny the elder.
28:48Nero depends on the spectacular
28:50and the spectacular
28:52is what attracts
28:54the public gaze,
28:55it's what people look at,
28:56what impresses people.
28:59After a decade
29:00as emperor,
29:01Nero's political position
29:03essentially remained secure.
29:06Accusations of matricide,
29:08sexual perversions,
29:09failure to consult the Senate
29:11were damaging
29:12but had not yet prompted
29:14serious rebellion.
29:17The empire was strong.
29:19A revolt by Boudicca in Britain
29:21and a war in the east
29:22had been dealt with.
29:23The legions were still
29:24loyal to the dynasty.
29:26Domestically,
29:27Nero maintained his grip
29:29and the golden house
29:31played its role.
29:32As with aristocratic
29:35Romans before him,
29:37both all the emperors
29:39and looking back
29:41before that
29:41into the Republic,
29:43entertaining,
29:44particularly dining,
29:45is one of the key ways
29:47of organising
29:48social relationships,
29:50of both returning
29:52favours given to you
29:54and putting other people
29:56in your debt.
29:57And that is, of course,
29:58what the golden house
30:00is about.
30:00It's the right
30:02sort of backdrop
30:03in which you can
30:04meet people
30:05and do your business,
30:06hold your ceremonials,
30:08hold your discussions,
30:10entertain and impress.
30:15Finally,
30:16after all the build-up,
30:17the carefully orchestrated
30:19succession of rooms
30:20with ever-increasing
30:21amounts of marble,
30:23ever-finer statues,
30:24the guests reached
30:26the climax of their visit,
30:28a meeting with the emperor.
30:31And it was likely
30:32to have been here,
30:33the most impressive room
30:34in the one building
30:35that remains
30:35of the golden house complex,
30:38the octagonal room,
30:40recently reopened
30:41to the public.
30:47Architecturally,
30:47this is a phenomenal space.
30:49It's a real jaw-dropper.
30:51It's one of the very few
30:53surviving Roman domes.
30:54It's one of the earliest
30:55and it's certainly
30:56one of the most sophisticated.
30:59The main dining room
31:01was circular
31:01and its roof revolved
31:03day and night
31:04in time with the sky.
31:07Suetonius.
31:11Whether the roof
31:12revolved or not,
31:14this room
31:15was an architectural wonder.
31:39Each of the four alcoves
31:41on either side
31:42were set up
31:44couches
31:44on which the guests reclined,
31:46or look it inwards
31:47towards this central space
31:49which could have been used
31:50for presentation.
31:52And a presentation
31:53that can be
31:53the presentation of food,
31:55the carving of a grand boar
31:57or a swan,
31:58whatever you had,
31:59or entertainment.
32:07As a background
32:08to all of it,
32:09you have the water fountain.
32:11A cascade of water
32:12coming down
32:13from an aqueduct,
32:14bringing the water
32:15down from the hill
32:16behind
32:16and rushing down,
32:19no doubt
32:19over a marble staircase,
32:21a typical Roman conceit,
32:23to provide a background
32:25of sound
32:26but also
32:27a type of air conditioning
32:29to keep this place cool.
32:38so you can't
32:59so you can think
33:00so it shouldn't
33:00be used to
33:00from which he could shower his guests with perfume and flowers.
33:04So you have to imagine an air that is heavy with scents.
33:10And if you add to that incense,
33:12the smell of oil lamps burning in the evening,
33:15perfumed oil is there as well,
33:18as well as the aromas of the food.
33:20And remember that Romans use a lot of spices in their cooking.
33:27I think you can be sure that there are hundreds of guests
33:30behind the scenes there will be hundreds of servants of slaves
33:34preparing stuff and bringing it on.
34:09And I think you should imagine acrobats and performers and jugglers
34:14and fire breathers and so on circulating among the guests
34:18and putting on their little performances
34:20and a sort of procession comes through of entertainments.
34:29The notion that these dinners were drunken orgies is yet another myth.
34:36Here, while actors read and musicians played,
34:38Nero conducted as much business as revelry.
34:45This was a man who ruled an empire from Spain to Syria,
34:49northern Germany to North Africa,
34:52who sent an expedition to find the source of the Nile,
34:55who rushed emergency aid to earthquake-hit towns,
34:58who presided over a flowering of poetry,
35:01and who ordered opponents killed.
35:06Thus it was to be emperor.
35:18This was a man of English.
35:20he officially led.
35:26He was called the hatechdotus.
35:48upon the dedication of this magnificent house after it was finished all he said in approval
35:54of it was now at last i can live like a man suetonius the whole palace covered a huge part
36:08of central rome
36:09over three of the city's low hills the pavilion on the oppian hill contained the dining rooms and
36:17the art galleries at the center was a huge man-made lake on the calian hill to the south sat
36:28a gigantic
36:29terrace with fountains and formal gardens the main palatial buildings the contents of which we can
36:36only guess at were on the prestigious palatine hill two main roads continued to cross this artificial
36:43landscape allowing all to wander through much of the 200 acres gaping at the new buildings
36:52to those who lived in the tenements of rome as well as the swarms of tourists making special journeys
36:58these buildings were extraordinary proof again that an emperor's power seemed limitless
37:13so
37:22however it wasn't only the buildings that amazed everyone
37:27one of the ancient authors tells us quite specifically that it really isn't the gold the
37:32jewels the fancy decoration that is extravagant it's actually extravagant because of the space it takes up
37:43a large and cheaper and thewed two is not the real at the same as the golden house
37:45in the你的 the colonial palace of its dimensions and furniture it may be sufficient to say this much
37:51the space included and it was so ample that it had a lake like a sea surrounded with buildings
37:59within its area were cornfields vineyards pastures and woods containing a vast number of
38:05animals, both wild and tame. Suetonius. I think what we can get a glimpse of is the
38:12way that a bit of countryside is installed in the heart of the city. That's the most
38:18remarkable thing. But in a sense, that is what many royal palaces subsequently have
38:25tried to do, if you think of St. James's Park. It's one of the great delights of a
38:29city, if you can get a green lung into it. And maybe that's just what Nero was trying
38:34to do for Rome. No one had done this before. The centre of the imperial capital had been
38:45radically changed. And it was finished off with something that Nero hoped would further
38:51ensure his immortality. There also stood in it a colossal statue of himself, 120 feet in
39:03height, Suetonius.
39:06Xenodorus was summoned to Rome by Nero, and there made a colossus, 120 feet in height,
39:13intended to represent that emperor. In his studio, we used to admire not only the remarkable
39:20likeness of the clay model, but also to marvel at the frame of quite small timbers which formed
39:26the first stage of the work. Nero was quite prepared to provide gold and silver, but the statue is bronze,
39:35Pliny the Elder.
39:38Whatever Nero's intentions, this behaviour was too egocentric and self-serving to silence his rivals
39:45within the upper class. His public performances, singing, playing the lyre, chariot racing, were seen as embarrassing.
39:55His lavishness was outrageous, the ignoring of the senate unforgivable.
40:00Emperors before and emperors after were more conscious of the need to keep in, not just with
40:07the ordinary people of Rome who were interested, like we are in Buckingham Palace, in anything to go
40:13and gorp at and try to imagine what it was like if they lived there. But most emperors were actually
40:19willing to at least, to some extent, try and keep in with the elite, out of which, after all, they
40:27arose.
40:32I think one has to understand what went wrong, and part of it certainly is his upbringing,
40:39seeing all sorts of people killed and put out of the way on the way to the succession, having this
40:44very
40:44bullying, ambitious mother who wants to share his power. It's possible, of course, for someone to
40:52overcome all that, if you have by nature a good character and a very high intelligence. I think
40:59he wasn't really intelligent enough to understand how to rule that empire, because the political
41:05system requires a certain amount of play-acting, and though he fancied himself as an actor, he didn't
41:11understand, really, the political game, where you have to conceal your power, you have to pretend that
41:17you're an equal. If there was one thing that Nero did not do, it was conceal his power.
41:24The general population may have been impressed, but his opponents were inflamed. Despite his efforts,
41:31the Golden House had failed him.
41:35One plotter cried out, let him be killed in that detested palace he's plundered his people to build,
41:42Tacitus.
41:45Gossip spread that Nero had deliberately started the great fire so that he could build this new palace.
41:56To suppress the rumour, Nero fabricated scapegoats and punished with every refinement the notorious
42:03depraved Christians. Dressed in animal skins, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified,
42:11or made into torches to be ignited after dark. Tacitus.
42:17For the Christians, this first big persecution, heinous though it was, created martyrs and attracted
42:24sympathy. For the Emperor, it solved nothing. While most ordinary people still backed him,
42:33the opposition within his own class became overt and overwhelming.
42:39Nero became increasingly frightened. The whole of Rome was put in custody.
42:44Troops manned the walls and blockaded the city. Line after line of chained men
42:49were dragged to Nero's gardens for fierce interrogation. Tacitus.
43:00At the palace, even the caretakers had absconded with the bed linen. Nero fled, and outside of Rome,
43:07aged thirty, he snapped himself in the throat, muttering through his tears,
43:12dead, and so great an artist. Some rejoiced. Others, however, used to lay flowers on his grave for a long
43:23time.
43:23Suetonius.
43:34The general population, having enjoyed Nero's employment,
43:39his games, his amenities, and his golden house, mourned his death.
43:48Nero had a status in his own time that was pretty close to that of Elvis. People adored him, and
43:53he is, like Elvis, somebody who was seen after his death on numerous occasions.
43:59He went on for twenty years making appearances.
44:07Rome's first dynasty died with the death of Nero, its fifth emperor. Shortly after, a new dynasty,
44:15the Flavians came to power. Nero's successors had to go one better. First, by condemning his memory,
44:23circulating ever more extreme accounts of his behaviour. Secondly, by building something even
44:29more magnificent, more popular than the Golden House. The whole area was gradually reconstructed.
44:36New temples, new baths. Above all, the lake was drained, covered with concrete, and used as the site
44:44for the most popular building that Rome would ever see, exploiting the base appeal of gladiatorial
44:49combat. The Colosseum. Nero was a king, you know, many, many years ago. Nero loved his music so.
44:58I do think that it's one of the things that ancient emperors are concerned about,
45:03is their memory, not just now, but into a far distant future. They have an awareness
45:11of Roman history as something that's long. They remember the heroes of their past, and they want
45:18to be among those who are remembered into the future, and leaving what they called a monument.
45:24They called buildings monument, and the word monument means a memory, something to remind future
45:31generations that I was there.
45:35And that's the final irony. Rome's great symbol, the Colosseum, isn't known as the Flavian Amphitheatre,
45:43but takes its name from the statue that once stood nearby, Nero's Colossus.
45:55Nero's dream that the Golden House would bring him immortality turned out to be just that,
46:00a dream.
46:30Let's go.
46:33On with the order.