The theater where Emperor Nero liked to exhibit himself came to light thanks to excavations that managed to prove for the first time the location of what was a luxurious building from the imperial era, located a few meters from the Vatican and of which there was only evidence in texts. ancient, the archaeologists of the capital announced today.
The discovery was made after the start of the works for the construction of the car park of the new hotel in the courtyard of the Palazzo de la Rovere, a Renaissance building built in the 15th century on top of medieval constructions and on part of the Theater of Nero itself, which was buried for more than a thousand years.
“With this excavation we were able to propose an identification proposal that is based on a series of archaeological clues that are very consistent with each other and that lead us to identify this space as the ancient Theater of Nero“, explained one of the archaeologists from the city council of Rome Alessio de Cristofaro.
the theater was built by the roman emperor in the area dominated by what is known as “Horti de Agrippina la Mayor”mother of Caligula, a large property of the imperial family Julio Claudia, where a huge circus for horse racing was built.
The texts of ancient authors such as Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus commented on the existence of the theater in the area now occupied by the Vatican and its adjoining streets, but the large number of buildings that rise in this Roman neighborhood, many of them of high artistic and cultural value, made it difficult to start excavations to prove the location.