Lush and fanciful! A graceful peristyle of Porta Santa columns here surrounds a large pool in the form of an octagonal maze at the center of which water flows and splashes gently from a fountain, cooling the air and delighting the ear. This was Domitian's favorite place to stroll and relax, but as he became increasingly afraid of attack, he had the walls of the colonnade lined with a highly translucent stone whose mirror-like surface enabled him to see anyone around him. Such precautions didn't prevent him from being assassinated at the age of 45 in his grand palace only four years after it was completed.
The ancient biographer Suetonius records a strange occurrence that he cites as proof of the unpopularity of Domitian:
Ante paucos quam occideretur menses cornix in Capitolino elocuta est: "ESTAI PANTA KALOS," nec defuit qui ostentum sic interpretaretur:
Nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix, "est bene" non potuit dicere, dixit: "erit."
A few months before Domitian's death, a crow spoke out on the Capitoline hill: "All things will be well" [the original quote is in Greek--this is an educated crow!], and there was a street poet who interpreted the omen in this way:
Recently a crow who sat on the Tarpeian rock said
"It will be well" because he could not say "It is well."
Triclinium