Fishbourne Roman Palace or Fishbourne Villa is in the village of Fishbourne, near Chichester in West Sussex. The palace is the largest known Roman residence north of the Alps, and has an unusually early date of 75 AD, around thirty years after the Roman conquest of Britain.

Much of the palace has been excavated and is preserved, along with an on-site museum. The rectangular palace surrounded formal gardens, the northern parts of which have been reconstructed.

Extensive alterations were made in the second and third centuries AD, when many of the original black and white mosaics were 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.

Discovery and excavation

The site was accidentally discovered in 1805, during the construction of a new home on the grounds of the ancient Roman ruin.  Workers discovered pavement as well as fragments of columns. In the following years, additional remains of pottery fragments and portions of mosaic tiles were unearthed by local inhabitants who lived near the site. However, the locals were unable to conceive the fact that the findings were part of a larger unknown structure that remained below the surface. It wasn't until 1960, that Aubrey Barrett, an engineer working for the Portsmouth Water Company, discovered the foundations of a “masonry building” located north of the main road while digging a trench for a water main.

400px|thumb|Museum model (made in 1968) of how Fishbourne Roman Palace may have appeared

This rediscovery of the ancient structure caught the attention of the Sussex Archaeological Society and triggered the first series of excavations, directed by the archeologist Barry Cunliffe and his team in 1961. Cunliffe's findings provide the most significant portion of the information associated with the site.  Over the course of five years, Manley's team of archeologists discovered nearly twelve thousand artifacts, including flint tools that are believed to date back to the Mesolithic period (around 5000–4000 BC) and could indicate the presence of hunter gatherer settlements near the present-day location of Fishbourne palace. A research article written by David Tomalin, suggests that the Fishbourne palace may have possibly been designated as a "seat of lordship", which meant that it may have had greater financial and social authority as opposed to other palaces or villas in its vicinity. Furthermore, the palace's proximity to the Fishbourne channel, which provided ships with access to the sea, meant that it could have potentially had its own harbour that received trading ships at one point.

These buildings were demolished around 60 AD and replaced nearby with an elaborate and substantial stone-walled villa, or proto-palace, in about 65 AD which included a courtyard garden with colonnades and a bath suite, together with two other buildings, and using material taken from the earlier buildings. It was decorated with wall paintings, stucco mouldings and opus sectile marble polychrome panels. The life-size head of a young man carved in marble, found during excavations in May 1964, and identified as a likeness of Nero aged 13 created at, or shortly after, his formal adoption by the Emperor Claudius in 50 AD probably originated from the proto-palace. Foreign, probably Italian, craftsmen had to be employed at this early period. This building was not unique in this area as the villa at Angmering was similar in many respects and suggests a number of aristocrats living in the area who must have used the same workforce.

The full-size palace with four residential wings surrounding a formal courtyard garden of was built in around 75–80 AD and took around five years to complete, incorporating the proto-palace in its south-east corner. Massive levelling of the vast site reached up to in places. The gardens were surrounded by colonnades in the form of a peristyle.

thumb|left|Hypocaust

The north and east wings each 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 a huge aisled assembly hall. The west wing contained state rooms, a large ceremonial reception room, and a gallery. The south wing probably contained the owner's private apartments although the north wing has the most elaborate visible mosaics. The palace included as many as 50 excellent mosaic floors, under-floor central heating and an integral bathhouse. The garden was shown to contain elaborate plantings of shaped beds for hedges and trees with water supplies for fountains. In addition the south wing overlooked a vast artificial terrace laid out as a rectangular garden extending 300 ft towards the sea where there was a quay wall. This garden was planted as a "natural" landscape with trees and shrubs, and with a pond and stream. It also had colonnades on at least one side.

thumb|The Cupid on a Dolphin mosaic

The decoration of the palace was elaborate, including wall paintings, stucco mouldings and opus sectile, marble polychrome panels, examples of which are in the museum. As in the proto-palace, foreign craftsmen had to be employed at this early period. The palace outlasted the original owner and was extensively re-modelled early in the 2nd century, and maybe subdivided into two or more separate villas with the addition of a baths suite in the north wing. A remarkable new Medusa mosaic was also laid over an earlier one in the centre of the north wing in about 100 AD.

In the middle of the second century AD, further major redesign included demolition of the recent baths suite and the eastern end of the north wing, probably due to subsidence from underlying earlier infill. New baths were built in the garden and peristyle in front of the east wing and a wall across the garden enclosed the northern half. The north wing was also extensively altered in plan, with four new polychrome mosaics including the Cupid mosaic dating from about 160 AD. Further redevelopment was done at times in the late third century. The final alterations were incomplete when the north wing was destroyed in a fire .

Owner

The accepted theory, first proposed by Barry Cunliffe, is that the early phase of the palace was the residence of Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus (or Togidubnus), 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 inscription commemorating a temple dedicated to Neptune and Minerva found in nearby Chichester. Furthermore, around 60 AD, Cogidubnus was granted the prominent title of legatus Augusti, which normally restricted to the statesmen and aristocrats of Rome. Cunliffe correlates this event with the construction of a large masonry extension of the palace in 70 AD, which was fitting for an individual of such a high status in order to support his theory. Two inscriptions recording the presence of Lucullus have been found in Chichester and the re-dating, by Miles Russell, of the palace to the early 90s AD, would fit far more securely with such an interpretation. If the palace was designed for Lucullus, then it may have only been in use for a few years, for the Roman historian Suetonius records that Lucullus was executed by the Emperor Domitian in or shortly after 93 AD.

Additional theories suggest that owner of the palace was either Verica, a British client king of the Roman Empire in the years preceding the Claudian invasion, or even one Tiberius Claudius Catuarus, whose gold signet ring was discovered nearby in 1995.

Destruction and aftermath

There is overwhelming evidence that the north wing was completely destroyed in a fire around 270 AD. For instance, some of the rubble from the collapsed roof as well as its tiles and melted fittings were scattered on the ground floor, while some of the burnt doors remained standing. The museum incorporates most of the visible remains, including one wing of the palace. The gardens were re-planted using authentic plants from the Roman period, including roses, lilies, rosemary, various fruit trees and boxed hedges. The Fishbourne Roman Palace has since reopened to the public.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="140">

File:Formal garden.JPG|Re-planted garden using authentic plants

File:Stucco fragment fishbourne.jpg|Stucco fragment from Fishbourne

File:Fishbourneromanpalaceshellmosaic.jpg|Shell mosaic with dolphins

File:Mosaic room N7.jpg|Walled City mosaic, room N7

File:Dolphin mosaic middle.JPG|Dolphin mosaic

</gallery>

References

Further reading

  • Cunliffe, Barry (1998), Fishbourne Roman Palace. The History Press.
  • Russell, Miles (2006), Roman Sussex. The History Press.
  • Russell, Miles (2006), "Roman Britain's Lost Governor", Current Archaeology 204, pp.&nbsp;630–635
  • Fishbourne Roman Palace Museum