Felix Romuliana

**Sarmatian** · 04-08-2012, 17:16

Since I know a lot of you guys are excited about Roman history just as I am, I'm gonna share some photos from my visit to Felix Romuliana.

It's located in southeastern Serbia and was a palace of a Roman emperor Galerius who reigned 305-311 AD during the tetrarchy. Excavations have been going on since 1953. I've shot them with my mobile phone so the quality's poor but I hope you'll be able to appreciate them anyway.

This is the western entrance, now the main tourist entrance.

You guys can note two imposing octagonal towers right by the entrance. In fact, the entire complex is surrounded by them and that is the reason archeologists thought at first it was just another Roman fortification and not an imperial residence. Galerius wasn't in good relations with other emperors, especially Constantine later and this, coupled with the fact the limes was only 40km away, was the reason for such strong fortification.

This is the eastern entrance, shot from the inside the complex.

This was probably the main entrance back when Galerius lived. It's not such a great quality, but you can see two square towers on the inside - those are a part of older fortification, before it was additionally reinforced by Galerius with those octagonal towers on the outside.

This is the entrance to the Small Temple, one of the two pagan temples in the complex. The entire complex is divided in two sections, one part war Galerius and the other was for his mother, a pagan priestess Romula, hence the name of the complex - Felix Romuliana.

This is the picture of text explanation near the Small Temple. You won't be able to see the text but I shot so that you can see the position of the Small Temple (red dot) within the complex and the floor plan of the entire complex.

You can see just how many of those octagonal towers there were on the outside, and also some older, squared ones, that were on the inside of the walls.

This is the Big Temple, probably devoted to Jupiter and Hercules.

Text and position of the Big Temple within the complex (red dot again).

These are the public baths, the only part of the palace that was open to the general public in Galerius time. They're found in the southeastern-most part of the complex.

Again, text and position of the public baths within the complex (red dot),

This is the palace of Galerius, or the remnants of it. On the left of it is the previously mentioned Romula's part of the complex and the Small Temple. On the right of it is the Big Temple.

This is the model of the entire complex. It is not properly proportioned, the open area is missing, as well as the older fortifications which are only represented by the two squared towers on the inside of the complex

Odds are 99% of you guys won't ever come to Serbia and even if you do, this is around 300km from Belgrade, just about in the middle of nowhere, so you won't be able to see this treasure for us history buffs. I hope I managed to give you at least a decent impression of this magnificent complex, not so well known still.

If you need some additional explanations, like positions and such (yes, I know the quality of the photos is bad), I can offer some help, maybe edit some photos in paint or something.

**CountArach** · 04-10-2012, 02:45

Those are some great shots, thanks for sharing them. The inclusion of all those towers truly shows the changing mindset that the Romans had adopted - they were no longer looking outwards towards ever-expanding borders, but they were looking inwards towards self-defence. Such a stark statement of intent from a Tetrach is really interesting.