Christian sacred architecture of late antique Romuliana (IV-VII c.): Desacralization of an imperial memorial palace

Abstract

At the very end of the third century AD, the emperor Galerius (293-311) built a memorial complex Felix Romuliana in order to commemorate the place of his birth and he dedicated it to his mother Romula. Shortly after his death in Serdica in 311, he was buried in the mausoleum built on the hill Magura, at about 1 km distance from his memorial palace. It was also the place of his consecration and apotheosis. Considering the fact that the imperial cult was the most prominent and the most widespread cult in the Roman Empire, the imperial palace was treated as the focus of the cultic activities. By the end of the fourth century Romuliana lost its strictly memorial character and became, most probably, a refugee for the local inhabitants trying to find a place safe from the attacks of the tribes living north of the limes. At the same time the first church was built. According to the up to date information from the archeological investigations that are still carried on the site, eight churches were discovered in or near the fortress of Romuliana, five of which inside the fortified walls. Unfortunately, four of them were only partially discovered and are still waiting to be fully published. The remaining four were created by the transformation of the original rooms of the imperial residence, so called Palace I. The oldest church, dated to the end of fourth or the very beginning of the fifth century, is the three-aisled Basilica I embedded into the room D, the old aula palatina of the original Palace I. Although the original room had an apse on its eastern end, the builders of the basilica built new apse on the distance of 13.10 m west of the original apse, maybe deliberately neglecting the old one as the focus of the cult of the Roman emperor. The transformation of the aula palatina into the Christian church marked the beginning of the process of desacralization of the tetrarchic imperial palace. Basilica I was probably used until the sixth century, when the new church was raised on the same spot. In the second half of the fifth century, room R of the Palace I was transformed into the small single-nave church by building the new apse on its eastern end. It was connected with the small room M, which was transformed into the baptistery by building the small cross-shaped piscina. By the beginning of the sixth century the small room M was added an apse in the east, so it was also transformed into the church. Basilica I was destroyed and the new church was built in the same place most probably by the middle of the sixth century, presumably at the time of the restoration of the fortresses along the limes and in the hinterland during the reign of Justinian I (527-565). Procopius informs us that Romuliana was among the renovated fortresses and that it fell under the jurisdiction of the Episcopal see in Aquis. The newly built three-aisled Basilica II was wider than the older one and had a quatrefoil baptistery at its south-western side. Geographically and chronologically, closest parallels for this architectural type of baptistery would be the quatrefoils baptisteries in Stobi and Caričin grad (Iustiniana Prima). The existence of the baptistery, made some researchers connect Romuliana with the episcopate of Meridio or define settlement as an Episcopal see of the sixth century, but the available archeological data do not permit any precise hypothesis referring its place in church organization. Despite the lack of the information in the written sources, the number of Christian sacred temples on the site of Late Antique Romuliana testify of the size of its Christian community in the first three centuries of the official Christianity.