cation of the slanted, oblique wall at 5, and the symmetry between the rooms 1-2 and 3-4. It is possible that the octagonal room was created to be the axis point for two five-sided courts, one of which was either never created or destroyed by Trajan. If this is true, then the oblique wall, which is not accessible today, would have been the northwest boundary to a second polygonal court very similar, if not a duplicate, to number 6. The symmetry between the rooms 1-2 and 3-4 further prove that two parallel five-sided courts may once have existed, together creating a wing more than three hundred meters long. Since the two courts would not have been completely parallel to each other, it is likely that the octagonal room and its dependencies were built first and the rest of the palace was designed to centralize around that particular focal point instead of the five-sided court to the west. The plan of the Esquiline wing itself as we have it is peculiar and haphazard looking, while at the same time orderly and clearly outlined. At first glance, many of the rooms seem to have been put together nonchalantly and without much attention to detail, but once the plan is broken down and looked at more closely, four major groups of space are evident, each defined by a localized, self-contained symmetry created from the axis of a principal polygon or rectangle. Three of these spaces have axes running north-south (through numbers 6, 7, and 8), while the fourth is aligned east and west (through numbers 9 and 10). By designing the plan in this way, Severus managed to attain straightforward equality of right and left. He also added curves in each room and set them all on axes, and increased the usage of symmetrical, balanced spaces. The center of each symmetrical group was planned with a main focal point: a larger, barrel-vaulted room or rooms, opened to the main space with wider windows and doors. Severus used this approach to draw the viewers ...
