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Flavian Palace
The Flavian Palace, normally known as the Domus Flavia, is part of the vast Palace of Domitian on the Palatine Hill in Rome. It was completed in 92 AD by Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus, and attributed to his master architect, Rabirius.
The term Domus Flavia is a modern name for the northwestern section of the Palace where the bulk of the large "public" rooms for official business, entertaining and ceremony are concentrated. Domitian was the last of the Flavian dynasty, but the palace continued to be used by emperors with small modifications until the end of the empire.
It is connected to the domestic wing to the southeast, the Domus Augustana, a name which in antiquity may have applied to the whole of the palace.
The Domus Flavia is built mainly around a large peristyle courtyard which was surrounded by many elaborate rooms of impressive height, of which only a few 3 m thick walls remain of 16 m height, half the original. It was built upon Nero's earlier palace (Domus Transitoria and Domus Aurea) and followed some of its layout, as excavations have shown. On the northeastern side, the huge aula regia (royal hall) was the central and largest room, flanked by smaller reception rooms, the so-called Basilica and Lararium.
The northern exterior of these three rooms had a portico that continued from the west side and which formed the main entrance to the palace facing those coming up on the road from the forum.
This was an enormous rectangular hall used as an audience chamber, to host important receptions and embassies. An apse is built into the short south wall, where the emperor would have been seated to hold his audiences; on either side of the apse are doorways opening right onto the peristyle. On the north side the Aula opened on to a monumental portico with Carystian marble columns, overlooking the palace forecourt and from where the emperor received the salutatio, the traditional morning ceremony.
The poet Statius, a contemporary of Domitian, described the splendour of the Flavian Palace, particularly the Aula Regia, in Silvae, IV, 2:
Awesome and vast is the edifice, distinguished not by a hundred columns but by as many as could shoulder the gods and the sky if Atlas were let off. The Thunderer’s palace next door gapes at it and the gods rejoice that you are lodged in a like abode […]: so great extends the structure and the sweep of the far-flung hall, more expansive than that of an open plain, embracing much enclosed sky and lesser only than its master.
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Flavian Palace AI simulator
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Flavian Palace
The Flavian Palace, normally known as the Domus Flavia, is part of the vast Palace of Domitian on the Palatine Hill in Rome. It was completed in 92 AD by Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus, and attributed to his master architect, Rabirius.
The term Domus Flavia is a modern name for the northwestern section of the Palace where the bulk of the large "public" rooms for official business, entertaining and ceremony are concentrated. Domitian was the last of the Flavian dynasty, but the palace continued to be used by emperors with small modifications until the end of the empire.
It is connected to the domestic wing to the southeast, the Domus Augustana, a name which in antiquity may have applied to the whole of the palace.
The Domus Flavia is built mainly around a large peristyle courtyard which was surrounded by many elaborate rooms of impressive height, of which only a few 3 m thick walls remain of 16 m height, half the original. It was built upon Nero's earlier palace (Domus Transitoria and Domus Aurea) and followed some of its layout, as excavations have shown. On the northeastern side, the huge aula regia (royal hall) was the central and largest room, flanked by smaller reception rooms, the so-called Basilica and Lararium.
The northern exterior of these three rooms had a portico that continued from the west side and which formed the main entrance to the palace facing those coming up on the road from the forum.
This was an enormous rectangular hall used as an audience chamber, to host important receptions and embassies. An apse is built into the short south wall, where the emperor would have been seated to hold his audiences; on either side of the apse are doorways opening right onto the peristyle. On the north side the Aula opened on to a monumental portico with Carystian marble columns, overlooking the palace forecourt and from where the emperor received the salutatio, the traditional morning ceremony.
The poet Statius, a contemporary of Domitian, described the splendour of the Flavian Palace, particularly the Aula Regia, in Silvae, IV, 2:
Awesome and vast is the edifice, distinguished not by a hundred columns but by as many as could shoulder the gods and the sky if Atlas were let off. The Thunderer’s palace next door gapes at it and the gods rejoice that you are lodged in a like abode […]: so great extends the structure and the sweep of the far-flung hall, more expansive than that of an open plain, embracing much enclosed sky and lesser only than its master.