Emperor Nero’s Rotating Dining Room Is A Masterpiece Of Ancient Roman Empire

The Ancient Roman Empire is too vast and glorious to be associated with one particular ruler, era, demagogue, or architecture. But the Spinning Dining Room of Roman Emperor Nero discovered in 2009 is one of the most glamorous and advanced architectural masterpieces from that period of history.

According to the historians, Nero used the expertise of Roman architectural engineers, Severus and Celer, to create this astonishing palace called the Domus Aurea, which was adorned with 300 rooms tiled with polished marble. All of the rooms were decorated using precious stones, ivory veneers, and frescoed wall.

The best portion of this structure was the revolving dining room. It was so perfect and impressive that this 2,000 years old structure can put even the modern day architecture to shame.

The room can be considered as a marvel of creative engineering, which used mechanisms underneath the dome that spin the roof. Bronze spheres were added to act as ball bearings under several wooden floors, and the mechanism was powered by water channeled system of gears.

The roof also had embedded hoses to emit rose perfume and petals over the guests, making it a truly romantic setting.

According to a historian Suetonius;

“Its vestibule was large enough to contain a colossal statue of the emperor a hundred and twenty feet high, and it was so extensive that it had a triple colonnade a mile long. There was a pond too, like a sea, surrounded with buildings to represent cities, besides tracts of country, varied by tilled fields, vineyards, pastures and woods, with great numbers of wild and domestic animals. In the rest of the house, all parts were overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of-pearl.There were dining-rooms with fretted ceils of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes.”

“The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens. He had baths supplied with seawater and sulfur water. When the edifice was finished in this style and he dedicated it, he deigned to say nothing more in the way of approval than that he was at last beginning to be housed like a human being.”

Watch the video below to find out more about the design and structure of this wonder.

 

What are your thoughts on this architectural gem? Comment below!