The result of Weege’s more scientific investigation was the working out of a new plan. The western half of the complex (Fig. 7.11) proved to be conventional, with the rooms grouped about a peristyle with garden and fountain. Rooms 37 and 43 have alcoves: it is easy to imagine them as the Imperial bedchambers of Nero and his beautiful red-haired wife Poppaea. In Nero’s bedchamber were hung the 1808 gold crowns he won in athletic competitions in Greece, if competitions they can be called, when all the prizes were awarded to Nero in advance, and armed guards drove off all would-be rivals. The eastern wing (Fig. 7.12) is more unorthodox in plan, and more interesting. The main approach opened into Room 60, the Hall of the Gilded Vault, so called from the ornate painted stucco ceiling, divided into round and rectangular fields in gilt, green, red and blue, depicting mythological and erotic scenes, very different in tone from the restraint of the subterranean basilica. Hippolytus, off to the hunt, receives a letter containing incestuous proposals from his stepmother Phaedra. Satyrs rape nymphs, Venus languishes in the arms of Mars, Cupid rides in a chariot drawn by panthers. And yet we are told that the painting in this pleasure dome was done by the solemn dean of Roman artists, Fabullus himself, the John Singer Sargent of his day, who always painted in full dress, wearing his toga. [Illustration: FIG. 7.11 Rome, Golden House, west wing. (G. Lugli, _Roma antica_, p. 358)] [Illustration: FIG. 7.12 Rome, Golden House, east wing. (G. Lugli, _op. cit._, p. 359)] Room 70 is a vaulted corridor 227 feet long, with sixteen windows opening to the north in the impost of the vault, which is painted sky-blue as a _trompe d’oeil_. Seabeasts, candelabra, and arabesques, sphinxes with shrubs growing out of their backs, griffins, centaurs, acanthus-leaves, Cupids, gorgons’ heads, lions’ heads with rings in their mouths, dolphins holding horns of plenty, winged horses, eagles, tritons, swags of flowers make up the riotous décor. In recesses in the walls landscapes and seascapes, impressionistically painted, attempt the illusion of the out-of-doors. Halfway down the corridor the vault is lowered. Here it supported a ramp which led to the gardens above. Room 84 is octagonal, lighted by a hole in the roof, anticipating, as we shall see, Hadrian’s Pantheon. Perhaps this was the state dining room, described by ancient sources as hung on an axis and revolving like the world. Its ivory ceilings slid back and dropped flowers and perfumes on Nero’s guests.