In reality when the fire broke out it seems that he was not even in Rome and indeed opened his private gardens to shelter the displaced. These are the effects of the Damnatio memoriae which struck him, giving him the label of crazy megalomaniac dedicated to every sort of pleasure and perversion; the latest studies have partly revised its negative legend.

Nero is famous for the Domus Aurea, full of gold, which was destroyed and buried immediately after his death, with the baths of Titus and Trajan being built on top of it. Tacitus and Suetonius describe it in a malignant tone, to underline the emperor's megalomania.
Tacitus hands down the names of Severus and Celere, the architects and engineers who designed it: "they had the ingenuity and audacity to challenge even Nature's vetoes with the force of art, and to squander the prince's patrimony". (Tacitus, Annales, XV, 42)

The Domus Aurea was surrounded by an enormous park with meadows, woods and vineyards, had porticoes and buildings that went from the Oppio hill to the Palatine.
 It even had an artificial lake in the place where the Colosseum would later be built, which takes its name from the Colossus of Nero, a 35 meter high gilded bronze statue that depicted him as the Sun god, Neos Helios, another sign of megalomania.

Suetonius says that «in the rest of the building everything was covered in gold and covered with precious stones, shells and pearls; the ceilings of the dining rooms were made of movable ivory tablets." (Suetonius, Nero, 31). The fresco with golden columns decorated with precious stones in the Villa di Poppea in Oplontis, wich was built at the same time, give an idea of ​​its appearance.

Suetonius also writes that «The ceiling of the dining room was circular and had a revolving dome which, like in the sky, alternated day and night».
Archaeologists have been trying to identify it for centuries and the choice has always fallen on the Octagonal Hall, which is covered by a domed vault. According to the most recent hypotheses, a revolving wooden structure could have been fixed to the dome, with curtains decorated with gold and precious stones.

The current exhibition in the Domus Aurea «The Beloved of Isis» highlights Nero's relationship with the Egyptian goddess and has recreated the waterfall that descended from above into the Nymphaeum on the north side of the Octagonal Hall.
Unfortunately the oculus of the dome was closed, but until a few years ago light could enter and illuminations could be seen which indicate that the building was astronomically oriented. In fact, the Sun illuminated the Nymphaeum on the north side of the Octagonal Hall, with a circle of light similar to that of the Pantheon only in the circles of the Equinox, and illuminated the floor on the Summer Solstice.