The Villa of Trajan was a palatial summer residence and hunting lodge of the ancient Roman Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 AD), dating from the beginning of his reign, and which he would have enjoyed when not on one of his many distant military campaigns. It is on high plateau at the foot of Monte Altuino (1271 m) in a splendid wooded landscape near the village of Arcinazzo. It is 2 km from the river Aniene which supplied Rome with water and on which Nero's villa at Subiaco is located about 12 km downstream. It occupies an area of ​​about 5 hectares, much of which has yet to be excavated. Many fine room decorations have been recovered here, despite the mass robbing of expensive marbles in previous centuries. Pliny the Younger, in a laudatory oration delivered in 100 AD in Trajan's honour, described the surrounding landscape of his villa and speaks of his interests, especially fishing and hunting there: Site The Villa was built on two large terraced platforms on the lower slopes of Monte Altuino, the lower terrace being the only one excavated to date. The lower terrace is the "public" wing, used for visitors and entertainment, while the upper terrace is considered to be the "private" or residential wing. Lower terrace The lower terrace is a long rectangle (100 x 40 m) supported by a wall with massive buttresses, the cladding of which is in opus mixtum of brick latticework. In the centre of the terrace is the garden, one of the focal points of the entire complex, surrounded by a peristyle and onto which face many rooms. At each end of the garden were two large semicircular basins with fountains and steps at the corners, entirely covered with slabs of white marble; both were flanked by a masonry base which perhaps supported a basin. To the west of the garden is the main building, the most imposing of the whole complex, and the one that has yielded the greatest number of finds of sumptuous stucco and marble decorations. The triclinium (summer dining room) (13 x 9 m) is in the centre, accessed by four doors spaced by large windows that open onto the side rooms. The entrance from the garden was framed by a pair of columns. On the back wall there is a nymphaeum consisting of three niches from which water poured into the pool below. The