Fishbourne Roman Palace, in
the village of Fishbourne
in West
Sussex
, England
is an
important Roman archaeological site in Roman Britain. The large
palace was built in the 1st century AD, around thirty
years after the
Roman conquest
of Britain on the site of a Roman army supply base established
at the
Claudian invasion in 43 AD. The
rectangular palace surrounded formal gardens, the northern half of
which have been reconstructed. There were extensive alterations in
the second and third centuries, with many of the original black and
white mosaics being overlaid with more sophisticated coloured work,
including the perfectly preserved dolphin mosaic in the north wing.
More alterations were in progress when the palace burnt down in
around 270 AD, after which it was abandoned.
History
Although local people had known of the existence of Roman remains
in the area it was not until 1960 that the
archaeologist Barry
Cunliffe first systematically excavated the site, which had
been accidentally uncovered by workmen when a water main was being
laid. The
Roman villa excavated by
Cunliffe's team was so large that it became known as Fishbourne
Roman Palace, and a museum was erected to protect and preserve some
of the remains
in situ. This is administered by the
Sussex Archaeological
Society.
The final phase palace comprised four large wings with
colonnaded fronts, forming a square around a
formal garden. The north and east
wings consisted of suites of rooms built around courtyards, with a
monumental entrance in the middle of the east wing. In the
north-east corner was an aisled assembly hall. The west wing
contained state rooms, a large ceremonial reception room, and a
gallery. The south wing contained the owner's private apartments.
The palace also included as many as 50
mosaic
floors,
under-floor central heating and an
integral bathhouse.
In size,
it is approximately equivalent to Nero's
Golden
House
in Rome
or to the
Roman villa at Piazza Armerina
in Sicily, and in plan it
mirrors the basic organisation of the Domus
Flavia on the Palatine
Hill
in Rome.
Fishbourne is by far the largest Roman residence known north of the
Alps.
At about 500 feet (150 m) square, it is
larger in size than Buckingham Palace
.
A modern museum has been built, incorporating most of the visible
remains including one wing of the palace. The gardens have been
re-planted using authentic plants from the
Roman period. A team of volunteers and
professional archaeologists are involved in a continuing research
archaeological excavation
on the site of nearby, possibly military, buildings. The last dig
was in 2002.
The first buildings on the site were
granaries, apparently a supply base for the
Roman army, constructed in the early part of the
conquest in 43 AD. Later,
two timber-frame buildings were constructed, one with clay and
mortar floors and plaster walls which appears to have been a
dwelling house of some comfort. These buildings were demolished in
the 60s and replaced by a substantial stone-walled house, which
included a courtyard garden with colonnades and a bath suite. The
palace itself, incorporating the previous house in its south-east
corner, was possibly begun ca. 73 AD, although a reinterpretation
of the ground plan and finds by Dr Miles Russell of Bournemouth
University has suggested that it may more plausibly date to after
AD 92.
The dolphin mosaic
The more usually accepted theory, first proposed by Professor
Cunliffe, is that the early phase of the palace was the residence
of
Tiberius Claudius
Cogidubnus a pro-Roman local chieftain who was installed as
king of a number of territories following the first stage of the
conquest.
Cogidubnus is known from a reference to his
loyalty in Tacitus's Agricola, and from an inscribed altar
found in nearby Chichester
. Another theory is that it was built for
Sallustius Lucullus, a
Roman governor of Britain of the late 1st
century who may have been the son of the British prince
Adminius. Two inscriptions recording the presence
of Lucullus have been found in nearby Chichester and the redating,
by Miles Russell, of the palace to the early AD 90s, would fit more
securely with such an interpretation.
Additional
theories suggest that Verica, a British
client
king of the Roman Empire in the
years preceding the Claudian
invasion was owner of the palace, where one of his signet rings was recently
discovered.
The palace outlasted the original owner (Cogidubnus / Lucullus) and
was extensively re-planned early in the 2nd century, being
subdivided up into a series of lesser apartments. Further
redevelopment was begun in the late 3rd century, but these
alterations were incomplete when the north wing was destroyed in a
fire c.270 AD. The damage was too great to repair, and the palace
was abandoned and later dismantled. It is not known whether the
fire was accidental or set by coastal raiders.
References
- Peter Clayton (ed) (1980), A Companion to Roman
Britain
- John Morris (1982), Londinium: London in the Roman
Empire
- Keith Brannigan (1980), Roman Britain: Life in an Imperial
Province
- Miles Russell (2006), "Roman Britain's Lost Governor",
Current Archaeology 204, pp. 630-635
- Miles Russell (2006), Roman Sussex, Tempus,
Stroud.
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