To put a figure on the houses, tenement buildings, and temples that were lost would be no easy matter. But religious buildings of the most time-honoured sanctity were burned down: the temple that Servius Tullius had consecrated to Luna; the Ara Maxima and sanctuary that the Arcadian Evander had consecrated to Hercules Praesens; the temple of Jupiter Stator promised in a vow by Romulus; the palace of Numa; and the shrine of Vesta holding the Penates of the Roman people. Other casualties were rich spoils taken through our many victories; fine specimens of Greek art; and antique and authentic works of literary genius. As a result, though surrounded by the great beauty of the city as it grew again, older people still remember many things that could not be replaced. There were those who observed that this fire started on 19 July, which was the date on which the Senones captured and burned the city. Others have taken their interest so far as to compute equal numbers of years, months, and days between the two fires.

In fact, Nero took advantage of the homeland’s destruction to build a palace. It was intended to inspire awe, not so much with precious stones and gold (long familiar and commonplace in the life of luxury) as with its fields, lakes, and woods that replicated the open countryside on one side, and open spaces and views on the other. The architects and engineers were Severus and Celer, who had the ingenuity and audacity to attempt to create by artifice what nature had denied, and to amuse themselves with the emperor’s resources. For they had undertaken to dig a navigable channel from Lake Avernus all the way to the mouths of the Tiber, taking it along the desolate shoreline or through the barrier of the hills. In fact, one comes across no aquifer here to provide a water supply. There are only the Pomptine marshes, all else being cliffs or arid ground—and even if forcing a way through this were possible, it would have involved an extreme and unjustifiable effort. But Nero was ever one to seek after the incredible. He attempted to dig out the heights next to Avernus, and traces of his futile hopes remain to this day.

As for space that remained in the city after Nero’s house-building, it was not built up in a random and haphazard manner, as after the burning by the Gauls. Instead, there were rows of streets properly surveyed, spacious thoroughfares, buildings with height limits and open areas. Porticoes were added, too, to protect the façade of the tenement buildings. These porticoes Nero undertook to erect from his own pocket, and he also undertook to return to their owners the building lots, cleared of debris. He added grants, pro-rated according to a person’s rank and domestic property, and established time limits within which houses or tenement buildings were to be completed for claimants to acquire the money.