Domus Aurea, Rugby Practice, and two temples

Today started off with a visit to the emperor Nero's Domus Aurea (Golden House). Following a massive fire in 64 CE, more than half of Rome was destroyed, including a large portion of the downtown area. Nero seized upon this as an opportunity to build a palace for himself that he felt would be worthy of the most important and powerful man in the world. When Nero was declared a public enemy and chased from Rome less than five years later, much of the Domus Aurea was torn down. A significant part of it, on the Esquiline Hill, remained. It was later covered over and filled with dirt to serve as the foundation for Trajan's bath complex.

 

During the Renaissance, artists rediscovered the remains of the Domus Aurea under the ruins of Trajan's baths. They lowered themselves into caverns or grottos, as they called them, and tried to copy the artwork they found by torchlight. This leads to the school of art known as "grotesque" from the word grotto.

This is the oculus of a circular dining room in the Domus Aurea. 

The dining room was built with a water feature, shown here.

Following our tour of the Domus Aurea, the group headed to the Circus Maximus, the great chariot racing venue of Ancient Rome. While the track remains, most of the surrounding structures have long since been "harvested" for building materials. The Circus Maximus held 250,000 spectators--more than four times what the Colosseum could seat. The Romans were crazy about chariot racing.  

While in the Circus Maximus, we took advantage of having open space to teach the boys about rugby, since we are going to the match tomorrow. Here, Richard, our guide, is explaining some of the basic rules.

We organized the lads into formation for a "line out" which is how the ball is put back into play after going out of bounds.

Here, Richard is organizing them into a "scrum."

After a fun time learning about rugby and running around, we headed to the Temple of Hercules.  In honor of Hercules, the boys flexed, saying, "Sun's out, guns out."

Right next to the Temple of Hercules is the Temple of Portunus, the god of ports. This was one of the main market areas of Rome, and the port facilities on the Tiber River were close by.

Tonight, we head to Trastevere, the "hip" neighborhood of Rome for dinner.  Tomorrow will take us to St. Peter's basilica and later to the rugby as our trip comes to a close.