Roman Imperial Palaces

The Roman Empire defined our perception of monarchy in a lot of ways. We've already talked a little about the emperor's attire in another video, so let's now discuss the imperial residence. The English word palace is in itself a Roman legacy. It comes from the name of the hill on which the villas of Roman emperors were located. Mons Palatinus, or the Palatine Hill, is the source of the words for palace not only in English, but in a lot of other languages as well. So what was so special about the Palatine that Roman emperors chose to live there? Out of the famous Seven Hills of Rome, the Palatine was the original. According to the legend, this was where Romulus started the city in opposition to his brother Remus, who wanted to build it on the Aventine Hill. Modern archaeological consensus states that Rome came into being as an aggregation of several small settlements, around the oldest and the largest of them, which was on the Palatine. The southwestern corner of the hill even had Rome's oldest historical site, the hut of Romulus. It was an ancient dwelling place, which the Romans believed to be the house of the city's founder. So for the ancient Romans, the Palatine Hill was the city's historical center. Apart from its historical prestige, it was also a geographical center of the city, and was a very convenient place to live for an influential Roman. The forum with all of its meeting places was on the neighboring Capitoline Hill, and the southern slope of the Palatine presented a perfect view of the Circus Maximus. If you had a house there, you could watch the chariot races and other prime Roman entertainment from your window. I don't know exactly which of these advantages was the most important to Octavian when he bought a big villa on the Palatine in 40 BC, but considering that he moved there from his house on the Roman Forum, I doubt it was the proximity to the Senate. Octavian's family already had a house next to this villa, so he adjoined his old familial estate with the newly purchased 3,000 square meters into a nice spacious private residence. This evidently didn't seem enough, so he bought an adjacent house from Quintus Catullus and formed an 8,500 square meters estate out of his purchases. Around 36 BC, a part of the complex was struck by lightning, so Augustus declared that part a public property and built a Temple of Apollo on the site. The adjoining structure was then rebuilt using public funds and expanded even further, making it a huge 22,000 square meters mansion. The complex was finished around 27 BC and divided into a public and a private section. Its door was adorned with a civic crown, symbolizing Augustus's restoration of the Republic, but there was actually quite a bit of grumbling in the Senate about how this luxurious estate was more of a royal palace of a Hellenistic king than a residence of a humble first citizen. Nevertheless, the authority of Augustus allowed him to get away with much more than that, and the fact that he gave the house to the state in his will also helped to ease those tensions. So, this House of Augustus, or Domus Augusti, was effectively Rome's first imperial palace, but it didn't remain the only one for long. Rome's second emperor, Tiberius, shunned the House of Augustus and chose to reside in the familial villa of his biological father. He ordered the building of a large complex around that spot on the eastern side of the Palatine, which included separate quarters for housing the Praetorian Guard. Tiberius lived in this palace on those occasions when he was actually in the city and not in his villa on Capri. Later, Caligula even expanded it into the Forum and built a bridge connecting the Palatine and Capitoline Hills. The Mad Emperor would appear there and receive divine honors next to the statues of Cluster and Pollux. After Caligula's death, Claudius removed the bridge. The original palace of Tiberius was damaged by fire multiple times, most notably in the Great Fire of 64 AD, during the reign of Nero. Nero had the structure rebuilt as a part of his grand project. His famous Golden House was never actually finished, but was going to encompass a huge area of 2.6 square kilometers, connecting the structures on the Palatine with his Domus Transitoria on the Opian Hill and extending all the way to the Aesculine. Under the Flavian dynasty, the palace building ambitions were scaled down. A better portion of the land that Nero appropriated for his Golden House was repurposed for public projects, the most famous of which was the Flavian Amphitheater, better known today as the Colosseum. The palace building, however, didn't stop altogether. The Flavians commissioned a further expansion of the complex on the Palatine, with Domus Flavia and Domus Augustana. These two structures plus the garden to the east of them formed the Palace of Domitian. They were designed by the architect Rabirius and finished during the reign of the last of the Flavians. Domus Flavia was the public wing of the palace, with large rooms for official meetings and ceremonies, while Domus Augustana was the private residential part. When someone says the Imperial Palace of Rome, they most likely refer to this complex, unless stated otherwise. In the age of the Antonines, the emperors for the most part lived in the Augustana, while the designated heirs resided in Domus Tiberiana. The exception was Hadrian, who preferred to live in his Greek-style villa in Tivoli. The final extension to the structure on the Palatine was added by Septimius Severus. Severus built a bath complex to the east of the palace gardens. This structure is now called Domus Siberiana. During the 3rd century crisis, the emperors had other problems to take care of, so there weren't many new developments on the palace building front. There are a couple of accounts pointing to the construction of an imperial palace in Antioch, during the reign of Gallienus, but not much beyond that. Gallienus also moved his court to Milan, signaling the shift of the focus of the imperial attention away from the city of Rome. The end of the 3rd century crisis started a period in Roman history when there were multiple centers of imperial power, and thus more than one functioning imperial palace at once. Emperor Maximian ruled the western part of the empire from Mediolanum, modern-day Milan. He had built a sprawling palace with a large circus and a bath complex called the Baths of Hercules. Unfortunately, this palace was completely destroyed during the Italian wars of the 6th century, so only sparse ruins remain of what used to be an impressive set of structures. Maximian's senior colleague Diocletian ruled the east from the city of Nicomedia, modern-day Izmit in Turkey. The remains of his imperial residence were discovered by accident in 2001, when the local construction workers were removing the debris from the earthquake. The site is now protected by the local museum and awaits a proper archaeological excavation to uncover the rest of Diocletian's residence. This wasn't the only palatial complex commissioned by Diocletian. He also ordered the construction of a retirement palace for himself, near his birthplace in modern-day Croatia. It was a heavily fortified compound on the Adriatic coast, which looked more like a fortress than a palace. Diocletian retired there after his abdication in 305. After his death, the palace didn't see much use, as emperors preferred more conveniently situated locations. The only sovereign who may have used it for some time was the penultimate western emperor Julius Nepos. He lived in this palace for around five years, after having been exiled from Rome. Much of the structure still survives to this day in the Croatian city of Split. In the previous decade, it's been used as a filming location for seasons 4 and 5 of the HBO TV series Game of Thrones. Other tetrarchs had their palaces in different locations. The ruins of the imperial palace of Galerius can be visited in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece. The Serbian city of Sremska Metrovica is a home to the remains of Sirmium imperial palace, which was a residence of several emperors from Marcus Aurelius to Theodosius, and in the German city of Trier you can still see the Aula Palatina, a basilica that was built when the city served as a capital of the Roman Gaul and housed the court of the Caesar of the West. The electoral palace of Trier is built on the spot of the imperial palace of Augusta Treverorum, next to the aforementioned basilica. All of these imperial residences, however, pale in comparison to the great palace of Constantinople. This magnificent set of structures deserves a video to itself, so I won't go into a lot of detail describing it here and will only touch on some key points. The first palace complex was built in 330 AD as an administrative center for Constantine the Great's new capital. Taking a page from the book of the first century emperors, Constantine built his palace with a view of the Hippodrome. Proximity to the Hippodrome seems to be an important advantage for a potential palace building spot. During the reign of Theodosius II, the Bucolian palace was built to the south of it, on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. Theodosius also built a stadium for playing polo inside the great palace, on the eastern side of it which was overlooking the Bosphorus. The Roman architects of the early 5th century copied a lot of ideas from the great palace for the residence of Emperor Honorius in Ravenna. The original structures of the great palace were severely damaged during the Nicariads and later rebuilt by Justinian with new grandeur. Justinian expanded both the palace itself and its infrastructure, adding a huge water reservoir called Cisterna Basilica. The great palace of Constantinople wasn't the only palace built by Constantine. He had also commissioned one in Nicaea called the Cenatus Palace. It became famous because it housed the first ecumenical council. Today, sadly, this palace is submerged in the waters of Lake Iznik, after suffering multiple earthquakes. There is, however, another Eastern Roman imperial palace in Anatolia, which has been preserved much better. The palace of Nymphaion was built in the 13th century by John III Vatazes as a winter residence for the emperors of Nicaea, the Eastern Roman government in exile. Today, its well-preserved remains can be found in the Turkish city of Kemalpasa. Since the empire was too poor to maintain the great palace in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Palaiologos emperors resided in the Vlaherni Palace, located on the other side of the city. Vlaherni was built in the northwestern section of Constantinople way back during the reign of Anastasius. The Eastern Roman emperors lived there more oftenly during the times of decline, when the great palace was in disrepair. It was also the residence of the last Roman emperor, Constantine XI. In the final days of the empire, the Vlaherni Palace served as the barracks for the Genoese mercenaries, who fought in the defense of Constantinople. Emperor Constantine chose to live in and coordinate the defense from the tent that was erected in between the city walls. Thus, the line of imperial residences that started with a nice villa on the Palatine Hill ended with the tent beneath the walls of Constantinople. And this concludes our brief review of the Roman imperial palaces. If I ever get enough good visual assets, I would love to make a video on the history of the great palace. It was a truly marvelous complex, if we can believe the ancient sources. But for now, that's all I have for you. I hope you enjoyed the video. If you have some palace-related questions, or think that I've missed something important, be sure to put it in the comments. Thanks a lot for watching till the end, and I will see you in the next one.