MICA AUREA
a street, district or building on the Caelian in
Region II
(Not. Cur.). According to St. Jerome (Chron. ad a. Abr. 2105; Cassiod.
Chron. (Chron.
Min. ii. 140); cf. i. 146, n. 4) a mica aurea was constructed
by Domitian in 94-95 A.D., and in Chron. (p. 146) micam auream is
probably to be supplied in the list of Domitian's buildings. If these all
refer to the same mica aurea, it was clearly a building. In Martial's
epigram (ii. 59) :
Mica vocor: quid sim cernis, cenatio parva; / ex me
Caesareum prospicis ecce tholum. / frange toros, pete vina, rosas cape,
tingere nardo; / ipse iubet mortis te meminisse deus, the reference is to
some kind of small pleasure-house or dining-hall, which might naturally
be identified with the mica aurea of Domitian.
1 But the tholos can hardly
be anything else than the mausoleum of Augustus in the northern part
of the campus Martius, a building that could hardly be seen at all from
such a cenatio on the Caelian, where the mica aurea of Not. was situated.
Either Martial's mica was not the mica aurea of the chroniclers, or the
tholos must refer to some other sepulchral monument that we cannot
identify (HJ 252 ;
Jord. ii. 32, 35; Friedlander ad
Mart. ii. 59; Pr. Reg.
122), or to a dome in the imperial palace (Burn, Rome, 223).
