Early Empire Scholarly consensus holds that Tiberius built a splendid house as
princeps, which would form the base structure for a complex of buildings developed by his successors Caligula, Claudius and Nero. It's possible that Tiberius built his house on the site of his father's (
Tiberius Claudius Nero) house, and the place of his birth, since excavations have revealed an earlier Republican-era house built on a high podium beneath the western end of the
Tiberiana. The name
Domus Tiberiana first appears in the
Histories of
Tacitus in connection with the assassination of
Galba in 69 AD. However, earlier references to the houses of Caligula, Claudius and Nero on the Palatine by authors like
Suetonius and
Plutarch accord with the location of the
Domus Tiberiana, making it likely these were one and the same house. Anthony Barrett suggested that the name "may have been coined to define the original structure, to draw a distinction with the later period when the general term
palatium became associated specifically with the huge palace complex built over the area by Domitian." Suetonius mentions that Caligula expanded the palace out into the Forum, where he converted the
Temple of Castor and Pollux into an entry vestibule. Although only scant traces have been left of this extension, the remains of masonry and a large rectangular pool measuring 9m x 26m (30 feet x 85 feet) lying within a court can be discerned behind the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The cluster of buildings which evolved between the reigns of Tiberius and Nero were badly damaged in the
Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, after which Nero remodeled the palace and incorporated it into his
Domus Aurea, an immense network of buildings stretching from the
Esquiline Hill west to the Palatine, where it terminated at the Domus Tiberiana. Part of the rebuilding involved constructing a buttressed perimeter wall which enclosed the assorted houses for the first time. The Neronian building was badly damaged by another fire in 80 AD. Domitian undertook the grandest building program of any emperor on the Palatine, restoring and enlarging the Domus Tiberiana and incorporating it as an annex to his primary new residence, the
Palace of Domitian (known as the
Domus Augustana in antiquity). Domitian created a long
loggia with a marble parapet, carrying the building to the edge of the
Clivus Victoriae. He also rebuilt the vestibule behind the Temple of Castor and Pollux, changing its orientation. There was a huge entrance hall just behind the temple and on the same axis with it. Next to it, to the east, was a structure which has been identified as the guards quarters, later converted into the church of
Santa Maria Antiqua. The third component of the vestibule was a triple ramp leading up the hillside to the
Clivus Victoriae and the Domus Tiberiana above. Trajan and Hadrian made further alterations and extensions to the
Tiberiana. Under Hadrian, the substructures were expanded further over the northern slope of the hill, covering the Republican-era
Clivus Victoriae, a road which passed midway along the hillside, and reaching the
Via Nova, a Neronian road built alongside the
Via Sacra. The piers supported arcaded galleries, upon which rested the expanded main floor of the palace on the summit of the hill.
Later history The Domus Tiberiana was apparently favored by the
Antonine Emperors, who are mentioned in the sources as having resided there.
Coarelli suggested that it was used to house the designated-heir to the ruling emperor, since both
Lucius Verus and
Marcus Aurelius lived there after they were adopted by
Antoninus Pius. The ruling emperor would have lived in the
Augustana, thus the names
Tiberiana and
Augustana evoked Rome's first emperor and his designated heir. A library was housed in the
Tiberiana, which contained the imperial archives and probably served as the replacement for the libraries of Augustus's
Temple of Apollo, which burned in AD 80. The
Tiberiana was gutted in a major fire under
Commodus, which destroyed the archives of the library. It was restored again, and survived as an official residence after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, passing through the hands of the powers which occupied Rome successively from the 5th to the 8th centuries.
Pope John VII, whose father had been the curator of the imperial palaces on the Palatine, lived in the
Tiberiana in the 8th century. During the medieval era, the palace was abandoned and fell into ruins. It suffered severe material theft during the middle ages, and was being used as an orchard when Alessandro Farnese decided to convert the property to a grand formal garden, the first private
botanical garden in Europe. The first excavations were undertaken in 1728, which uncovered a great many architectural fragments.
Pietro Rosa undertook excavations in the 1860s which uncovered the substructures on the north side of the hill and the central peristyle of the
piano nobile. ==Art works==