sumptuous. Caligula was briefly buried at the site. The Horti Lamiani adjoined the Gardens of Maecenas and the Gardens of Maiani. Under Claudius (41–54) the Horti Lamiani and Maiani were united and administered by a special superintendent (procurator hortorum Lamianorum et Maianorum). The property survived until at least the Severan dynasty (193–235), when it became the emperor's private property as shown by a stamped lead water pipe. By the 4th c. the gardens were no longer in use as evidenced by the statuary found broken in pieces and used in the foundations of a number of spas. Excavations The first discoveries took place in the 16th century, and finds such as a copy of the Discobolus, the thirteen Medici Niobids (a variant of the Laocoön and His Sons), and the fresco Nozze Aldobrandini were unearthed, which are now located in museums. In the 19th century Rodolfo Lanciani noticed ancient remains in building works in the area and found beautiful sculptures in subsequent excavations that he organised. Decorations of the complex included frescoes, architectural elements in coloured marbles, and innumerable gilt-bronze sheets with inset gemstones. He reported: I saw a gallery seventy-nine metres long, the floor of which was made up of the rarest and most expensive varieties of alabaster and the ceiling supported by twenty-four fluted columns of antique yellow, resting on gilded bases; I saw another room, paved with slabs of peacock eyes, whose walls were covered with black slate plates, decorated with graceful arabesques executed in gold leaf; and finally I saw a third room, the floor of which was made up of alabaster segments, framed by glass pastegreens. In the walls of it were all around various jets of water one meter away from each other, which had to cross in various ways, with extraordinary light effect. All these things were discovered in November 1875. A collapse of land gave access to an underground chamber full of statues. The first to appear was a semi-colossal head of Bacchus, crowned with ivy and corymbs and eventually others appeared: the semi-extended body of Bacchus the busts of two Tritons on whose hair traces of gilding were preserved the magnificent bust of Commodus as Hercules bordered by tritons and the various parts of the complex allegory two statues of Muses the beautiful statue of Esquiline Venus preparing to enter the bathroom by tying a ribbon around her hair Parts of