Felix Romuliana
About Felix Romuliana
Felix Romuliana is an imperial palace located near Gamzigrad, in eastern Serbia, about 11 kilometers from Zaječar. This site is one of the best preserved Roman monuments in Serbia.
The palace was built at the beginning of the fourth century AD, in the era of the tetrarchy, that is, the four powers, a system according to which the Roman Empire was ruled by four rulers, two Augustus and two Caesars. One of those august Caesars was the builder of Felix Romuliana, Gall Valerius Maximilian Galerius, the son of a barbarian woman who escaped from persecution across the Danube and an ordinary Roman herdsman, which is why he got the nickname – Armenatarius. (herdsman). He named this palace after his mother Romula, whom he greatly valued.
The palace complex is surrounded by a unique defense system: a double rampart is formed from the remains of an older fortification, integrated into a younger one, with twenty defense towers, on an area of 6.5 hectares. The entire complex was supposed to be completed by the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Galerius’ reign and his voluntary abdication in 313, but the emperor’s illness diverted the course of construction from the secular civic core inside the ramparts to the sacred one on Magura. On this hill are the graves of Galerius and his mother Romula, the so-called tumuli, symbols of the elevation of deceased members of the imperial family to gods.
The iconography of the decoration of the Gamzigrad Palace is the most impressive visual expression of the ideological and political conception of the tetrarchy. The floors of the palace were decorated with impressive mosaics, the walls with lavish frescoes and panels of precious stone, niches filled with sculptures made of rare and hard-to-work stone, such as red porphyry. Along with Hercules, the mythical hero with whom he identified, Galerius paid special attention to Dionysus, using the myth about him as a weft for the myth about himself and his divine mother. The entire decoration of Romuliana is a sign of this eternally young god, who resurrects again and again.
Although magnificent in appearance and beauty, the palace did not have an illustrious history. Shortly after the death of Galerius in 311, it became the target of barbarian attacks, it was restored by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the 4th century, but soon fell into oblivion again. The first investigations of Felix Romuliana began in the 19th century, but its exact identity was only established in 1984, when an archivolt with the inscription Felix Romuliana was found, which established the true location of the palace. After this first revolutionary discovery, further excavations revealed a large part of the imperial buildings, temples and walls. In addition to the mosaics, which are among the most beautiful from the Late Antiquity period, works of art from Felix Romuliana can be viewed in the National Museum in Zaječar, which houses the Gallery head made of expensive and rare porphyry stone, as well as the famous Labyrinth and Dionysus mosaics.
Restoration project
Felix Romuliana is the only ancient site from the territory of Serbia that was inscribed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List in 2007. Through the “EU for Cultural Heritage and Tourism” project, financed by the European Union and the Government of Germany, a Visitor Center was built and equipped, designed as an accompanying service part of the Romuliana archaeological site. The project also includes the construction of the infrastructure that connects the center with accommodation facilities and workshops, the construction of which is planned in stages. About 4 million euros were invested in the construction of this Center. From the budget of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, through the projects of the Ministry of Tourism and Youth and the Ministry of Culture, an additional 24 million dinars will be allocated for the interior equipment of the Center and the implementation of the exhibition.