Domus Albicans

The **Domus Albicans** (Latina: *Glittering-White House*) aka *Domus Ciceronis* (Latina: *House of Cicero*) is the semi-palatial city home of the Gens Tullia. Its address on the Palatine is *Via Iustitia* Num. 57. It was built by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio with the help of Decimus Iunius Pera in 58 BC. It is considered the earliest and most extensive example of a private building with Memoriae contained in its structure, the only public one with a similar level of engraved text being the Timekeeper's Palace.

## Name

The house has its name from the fact that it is built near-exclusively out of white Carrara marble, causing it to glitter in the sun. Originally simply called the house of Cicero, it quickly gained the unusual nickname. Allegedly both Marcus Tullius Cicero and his daughter Caesia preferred the nickname, as it characterised the house better.

## History and Construction

In 58 BC, the demagogue Publius Clodius Pulcher, the tribune of the plebs, introduced a law threatening exile to anyone who executed a Roman citizen without a trial. Cicero the Great, having executed members of the Catiline conspiracy four years before without formal trial, and having had a public falling-out with Clodius, was clearly the intended target of the law. Cicero argued that the *senatus consultum ultimum* indemnified him from punishment, and he attempted to gain the support of the senators and consuls, especially of Pompey. When help was not forthcoming, Cicero went into exile, but not before handing over his properties to his daughter and heiress Caesia, who was serving in the military, thus preventing Clodius from his planned confiscation of Tullian properties. Both her sister Tullia and her mother Terentia also protested the exile publicly. They wore their hair unkempt and put on black mourning clothes, as exile from Rome was equal to death. In this fashion they visited the houses of their friends in Rome in order to gain sympathy and support for Cicero's return. Enraged at the legal evasion, Pulcher had a bill passed which forbade Cicero approaching within 400 miles (640 km) of Italy and incited a mob to destroy the original (brick) villa of Cicero on the Palatine. Notably, while the mob managed to burn down the house, they did not manage to destroy the library or harm its inhabitants, as Caesia evacuated it.

After the house was destroyed, Caesia literally pitched her tent in the ruins of the house the next morning in defiance and chose to wear full armour even in town. Her mother Terentia took refuge in the house of the Vestal Virgins, and spent the entire duration of Cicero's exile living with Fabia and the Vestals.

Meanwhile, as Caesia had effectively taken over as head of the family, and having made a fortune months earlier serving under Caesar, the centurion began building a new house in the place of the old, this time made near-completely from white Lunesian marble. She hired the architect **Marcus Vitruvius Pollio**, who was the military engineer of the XII Legion, to construct a "perfect" home to her design. The architect thus constructed the house with the help of **Decimus Iunius Pera**, who performed the enchantments on the building. Thanks to the mages participating in the construction, the house was finished by the end of July.

Caesia had a very peculiar sense of aesthetics, and disliked wall paintings; instead, she had nearly all the walls engraved with the writings and speeches of her father, enchanting them to become a giant memoria library. The few walls that were instead decorated with pictures were thusly covered in mosaics, most notably in the fall/winter *triclinium*, where the artists placed portraits of the family. She also spent a fortune on the floors, having them covered in mosaics whenever possible (which also aided in enchanting the house).

As Caesia had to leave for war with her legion – Caesar had moved against Ariovistus, king of the Suebi and requested the help of the 12th – it fell to her mother to finish designing the interior of the house. Given Terentia's pragmatic nature, it is thus not surprising she furnished the house rather modestly.

## The Domus Albicans today

The domus remained until the modern age the city home of the Tullia Cicero. However, due to being a massive memoria library, an Imperial-Class historical site of the Empire as well as a World Heritage Site, the Gens Tullia regularly opens its doors to the public for sightseeing tours. It is also the site of the annual Lawyers' Dinner (*Convivium iuristae*), an exclusive dinner of the Law College of the Sapientia University of Rome for its most accomplished graduates of the year that reflects a historical convivium of Cicero the Great.