Christian sacred architecture of Late Antique Romuliana (IV-VII c.) Desacralization of an imperial memorial palace

Abstract

This paper deals primarily with Christian sacred buildings which played a key role in the process of desacralization of the palace of Romuliana as the focus of Roman imperial cult. The old aula palatina was transformed into a three-aisled basilica already by the end of fourth or the beginning of fifth century, together with some other representative rooms of emperor 's residence which shared a similar fate. The settlement formed inside the fortress existed from the end of fourth to the end of sixth or; more likely, to the beginning of the seventh century, when the Byzantine Empire finally lost the central Balkans.