Five marble architectural fragments
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
These highly elaborate fragments are believed to belong to the palace that the emperor Domitian had built on the Palatine hill between A.D. 81 and 92, in succession to the imperial residences that had been established there by Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero. The palace was designed by the architect Rabirius, who made much use of imported colored marble, pools, and fountains in the decoration of the vast complex. Another striking feature was the height of the various state rooms. The Aula Regia (the main audience chamber), for example, had an interior façade of three stories and a ceiling some one hundred feet above the floor. The grand suite of halls was where the emperor greeted and sometimes entertained well-to-do members of Roman society, ambassadors from the provinces, and foreign princes. Little now survives of the grandeur of the imperial palace, although it remained in use well into later Roman times and underwent numerous alterations and additions during the intervening period. In the Middle Ages, it became a ready source for marble, and later, the site for several Italian villas and gardens. The five pieces comprise different elements of the entablature, which decorated the upper part of the building: 06.970a Cornice block with dentils and egg-and-dart motifs 06.970b Architrave lintel block from between two columns 06.970c Fragment of a frieze depicting a sphinx 06.970d Cornice block with palmettes 06.970e Fragment of a frieze with a bucranium supporting swags
Greek and Roman Art
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.