For a long time, the Romans believed that spirits, ghosts and even deities live in the ancient palaces of the city. And there, in the palace dungeons, as if countless treasures, treasures and magical artifacts are kept. However, it is possible to take possession of them only with the help of magic - otherwise, trouble is for those who dare to touch them, or at least dream about it.
A number of legends are associated with the Golden Palace, built by Emperor Nero on the Esquiline Hill. The emperor ordered to place baths with sea, fresh, mineral and sulfur water and a hydraulic organ there. The premises of the palace were distinguished by magnificent decoration, and in the main banquet hall there was a mechanically rotating dome. For the construction and equipping of the building, the latest achievements of architectural technology were used. The plan of the underground tunnels of the Golden Palace was kept secret: their location was known only to Nero himself and several of his trusted servants. Shortly before his death, the dictator announced that he had hidden as many as nine treasures in underground caches under the Golden Palace, but for two thousand years no one could find them.
After Nero died (the Senate sentenced him to death, and to avoid shame, the emperor ordered his own secretary to stab himself with a dagger), the palace was searched, but no underground treasures were found. However, no one dared to go deep underground: after all, no one had a scheme of the dungeons, and traveling through the labyrinths was unsafe.
The legend about the golden ring of Nero, which was allegedly stolen, traveled around the world for a long time, and was finally presented by the magician to one of the khans of the Golden Horde, is also connected with this palace. They say that in the second half of the 18th century, Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin bought it from some Bukhara merchant. Once the famous Count Cagliostro saw the ring. The sorcerer immediately advised the prince to remove the ring, explaining that there was "a lot of blood" on it and it brings misfortune. The magician summoned the spirit of the first owner of the jewelry. So the prince and the sorcerer learned that Nero himself once owned the ring. The spirit of the emperor announced that the ring must be returned to Rome and placed in the basement of the palace on Calle del Condotti. The prince sent to Rome one of the musicians of his orchestra, originally from Italy. However, he did not return to Petersburg and disappeared without a trace.
Another "magic" palace was erected in the 15th or 16th century in the east of Rome, not far from the place where the Tiburtine city gates were located in ancient times. Experts said that he was standing in a "cursed" place, right above the entrance to the Saturn dungeon, where worshipers of this cruel deity, who devoured his own children, erected an altar in his honor. Once the Romans highly revered Saturn, but then the belief in him was replaced by the cult of the kinder god Jupiter. It was then at the Tiburtin Gate that strange things began to happen.
Here is a legend dating back to around the 3rd-5th centuries AD. One night, it says, one of the guards guarding the gate saw a glowing cloud above the place where, according to rumors, there was an abandoned altar of Saturn. Then the guard heard the voice of Saturn himself. The evil god said that he would leave Rome only when he would take revenge on its inhabitants in full for the fact that they had forgotten about reverence for him. Since then, for many centuries, a luminous cloud has been seen there from time to time and a voice has been heard. People began to talk that a curse gravitates over this place. For a long time they were afraid to plant or build something here.
In the 19th century, a certain countess who was fond of the occult became the owner of the palace. She studied secret books and bought various magical items all over the world, as a result of which the commoners considered her a sorceress. It was said that by arranging magical objects in a certain order, she could make a person who found herself in her house either quickly grow old or die. But she was able to rejuvenate people with the help of miraculous means. The Countess herself also looked young for many years. An important role in magic rituals was played by an emerald bowl from Egypt, which the mistress of the palace filled with water. The activities of the countess, apparently, did not like the inhabitant of the palace dungeon - the god Saturn, and he called for evil spirits - lemurs for revenge.
Saturn commanded the lemurs to quietly pour the blood of a black rooster into the countess's emerald bowl, and rearrange the magic items used by the sorceress in a different order. The Countess did not notice anything - and the witchcraft of the spirits aged her for decades. Before her death, she managed to hide all her valuables, including the attributes of magic, all in the same dungeon of Saturn. They were searched, but not found. Although the ill-fated emerald bowl seems to have been seen after the Second World War in the collection of an American collector.
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Irina Shlionskaya