Starting in 40 B.C., Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, the famous patron of artists and poets in the Augustan Age, promoted a project for radically rearranging the Esquiline hill. On the side of the hill east of today’s Via Merulana, once occupied by tombs and little orchards, Maecenas created a park that, at his death, became the property of Augustus, and was later to become a favorite dwelling place of many emperors, among them Tiberius.
Here stood the tower from which Nero watched the great fire sweeping through Rome. It was very likely only one of numerous structures scattered over the huge estate. Excavations conducted in the 19th century brought to light, in fact, another of the pavilions in this park, the so-called Auditorium of Maecenas, actually a hall for summer banquets.
