NERO'S GOLDEN HOUSE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1913, Page 3

NERO'S GOLDEN HOUSE

•IMPORTANT EXCAVATIONS IN ROME. , (.from Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 2?th December. Vcrv interesting excavations arc being mado'in Nero's "Golden House" by "the Italian Gbvcrntnent. .Erected after tho burning of Rome in 64, tho Golden Hoiiae, t jvfiich emended from the Palatine fa* up ih<s Esquilinc, and of which tho artistic Emperor complacently remarked that I ho frAs now lodged as a mah should be, Hvas converted by hi 6 successors into other edifices, according to the timeJionoiired fashion of Rome, and' while -.tho Cdlc-s-seum «n>se on the site, of the .JNeronmii Lake, the baths of Titua ahd of Twtjan respectively represent other fj6ftions f of tho Neronian Palace. . '. Immense and richly decoratful galleffios more thah half-filled up with earth, havo boon discovered, and tneir imoo'-tancc i» duo. to the fact that some of the famous paintings ahd dhiwingß of .the 16th Gentttry, when tho baths of Trajan xverc me** easily accessible, were copied, often errfttte* ously, frohi the beautiful' mural dbcofft» tions, which the removal of the ijccuhul* lated earth is now bringiqg 1 to light. » Dr. ffritz Wedge, Gksrman. at'chaologe-ist, has made a study or [the subject, and tho room marked 80, on, his bkn, is epccially interesting. It was m this room that the famous Laonoon is ttud to have been found in 1506. Duringfjthe last few days a marblo hand of tho «Mn» marble as the Laocoon was unearthed there, and it Was hoped that 'it might, prove to be part of the missing hmb of the statue. Of tho. mural paintings .the most. lnteresting is that ot ft warrior With hoddihg helmet, a. woman holding &• child (clearly visible in tho painting, and aramhm' Woman in tho background) where a' gate ahd battlements are also noticeable. ;Dr. Weegp identifies this painting with .U ho touching scene in the- "lliad"' .of. the,departure of Hector from Andromache. ( Tlir picture, copied from hero by Ca-vracci and the Kafloh, js to bo seeh (but without the child) ut Windsor, ahd has consequently been misdoscribod as "Coriolanus and his mother." Another scene is likewise i3rawn from HomeV"-Pans ahd Helen introduced to one ahother by Aphrodite and Ero«. Dr. Wcege infers accordingly that these Homeric tableaux were specially chosen in altusion to Nero's poem, the "Troica.*' ttientiorpd by Suetonius and Dion Cassiti* o-rtd satirised by Juvenal, an extract from which the Emperor recited while Rome Was burning. Thus, those discoveries en-a-ble.students of art to correct the designs copied from these walls and now in the collefcrtiohs of Windsor, Eton, and liolk» ham Hall. Besides the mural paintings, tho ofcca« vations have revealed a number of historic names, scratched, after the fashion of the Bank Holiday tourist, oh the walls tihd ceilings. Nearly 200 such names have been already noted down, beginning with tho year 1495. Most of thorn are Dutch ; but of' Britons there are Canteron, Buchan. And John Parker. One king lifts scrawled ins name— Gustavus Adolphus HI., of Sweden, with the dato 1784, eight years before his at<«assihatk>h.