Livia's dinning room

Today I spent more than four hours at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, where the national collection of antiquities is housed. It would be impossible for me to list everything that impressed me, because in effect it all did. There are a few pieces which particularly stand out in my memory still. The statue of a Niobid on the ground floor, and the two bronzes of a boxer at rest and a prince in the room beside it. There was a very good Roman copy of Myron’s discobolus on the first floor, and in the same room there were two other very beautiful statues, one of a girl holding a dish, possibly performing some religious rite, and the other was of a crouching Aphrodite. In the room of the deities, I was most impressed by a seated Thetis, and a satyr playing a flute.

The next room held some very amazing bronzes, that came from the two palace ships found in lake Nemi. According to literary sources Caligula had built two “floating palaces” which had sunk in lake Nemi close to an imperial villa. Since the time of the renaissance, the ships were searched for in vain, to the point that the “ships of lake Nemi” sort of became the Italian version of the Loch Ness monster. But guess what, Mussolini had the lake partially drained and the remains of two huge hulls were found in 1932. They were placed in a specially built museum by the lake, but sadly, the retreating Nazi forces decided to set fire to the place, and nothing remains except the bronzes kept in this room.

The same floor had two very impressive sarcophagi, one depicting a battle between Romans and barbarians, the other a procession of senators, with a very bewildered looking boy at the head of the procession.

The second floor is completely devoted to mosaics and frescos. If your husband was the most powerful and richest man in the world, in fact, if he ruled the world, and you could have absolutely anything material you could ever desire, how would you decorate your dinning room? These questions were running through my head as I stepped into Livia’s triclinium. First impressions are such a precious thing. I can’t describe what a masterpiece this room is, or the feelings and sensations it evoked. I also felt like I was getting a very private insight of the first Roman Empress.