“Auditorium Maecenatis”

“Auditorium of Maecenas” is the modern name for the sunken apsidal room accessed by a ramp built into the *Servian Wall S of the *Porta Esquilina within a large residential complex (s.v. *Domus: Horti Maecenatis [1]). It was a subterranean room which extended back into the *Agger. It is identified with the *Horti Maecenatis on the basis of water pipes inscribed with the name of C. Fronto, a subsequent owner (Häuber 15). The location confirms the long-established identification with Maecenas, for his Esquiline horti are known to have straddled the Agger. On the basis of walls in opus reticulatum and red-white mosaics from the first phase of the building, it is dated to the late Republic (Rizzo), perhaps c. 40 B.C. (de Vos 1983). Horace mentions the horti of Maecenas in the first book of his Satires, which appeared c. 35 B.C. In a second building phase, the floor was paved with marble in opus sectile and the walls decorated with Third-Style wall-painting; similarities with the villa of Agrippa Postumus near Pompeii, presumably dating from before his exile to Planasia in A.D. 8, provide a date in the first decade of the 1st c. A.D. (de Vos 1983). This work was perhaps undertaken by Tiberius who took up residence here in A.D. 2. On the basis of a Callimachus grafitto, it was first thought that the 7 rising concentric steps in the apse were part of an auditorium, a roofed theater for literary performances. Alternatively, the steps may have been used to display flower pots (viridarium), or perhaps they were part of a water feature (nymphaeum); the general ground-plan suggests a dining room (triclinium). It was probably a multi-functional space. For convenience, the traditional name is used here. There is no surviving trace of a roof, or of a drainage system in the floor which would have been required if the structure were exposed to the elements; we may perhaps assume a wooden roof (Häuber 62).