=249. The Triclinium and Throne Room of Domitian.=--As for some of the special areas and chambers, they justify the praises of the servile court poets: “Olympian” is the mildest word which they can use. Take, for example, the porticoes of Domitian. On the inner side of their vast length, they are lined throughout with marble so highly polished that it shines like mirrors. What matter if the original cause for their use was the desire of the suspicious tyrant to have a promenade wherein nobody could glide upon him without warning from behind. The result is indescribably brilliant. But let us go rather into the “House of Domitian” itself, and inspect the great banqueting hall, the Triclinium. “The gods themselves might quaff their nectar there!” cried the enraptured Martial. This magnificent apartment leads off from a marvelous peristyle-court of more than 10,000 square feet in area. The chamber itself is not huge, but is arranged so that three tables (each for nine guests) can be placed laterally along the walls, with the third, opposite the door of entry, for the Emperor and his chief guests. Twenty-seven dignitaries thus can dine together. On each side of the hall five large windows are separated by massive columns of red granite. As the guests of majesty repose on their silken cushions they can see between the columns still another court where water is softly gushing from a fountain, and purling in a small cascade over steps of marble, verdure, and flowers. The ornamentation may be grievously overdone; the taste of some of the reliefs and wall pictures is questionable, but the effect of the sheen from the many colored marbles, the gilding, and the heavy fretwork around the lofty dome undeniably justifies all the enthusiasm of the verse-mongers. Equally striking is the Throne Room built by Domitian. It is called the tablinum as in humbler dwellings, but it is actually used for great state audiences. It is a hall of imposing size. You enter past the guards, and directly across the broad area is a niche where sits “Cæsar Augustus” upon a gilded dais and curule-chair, every whit as truly a throne as that of the Great King of Parthia. The walls of the room are covered with extraordinarily costly marbles, and around the circuit rise twenty-eight Corinthian columns of intricate workmanship. Eight large niches contain as many colossal statues wrought of adamantine basalt, and a Hercules and a Bacchus are particularly noteworthy. The entrance door is flanked by two enormous columns of _giallo antico_, deep yellow marble flushed with pink, imported from Numidia. The threshold is a single immense slab of a whiter marble brought from Greece.