Felix Romuliana - Gamzigrad

Abstract

The imperial palace Felix Romuliana is one of the best preserved Roman monuments in Serbia and at the same time one of the most apparent examples of the concept and symbolism of the architectural designs at the beginning of the Late Roman period. The remains of the structure are situated near the village Gamzigrad in the Crna Reka region in eastern Serbia. This is mostly the volcanic landscape surrounded by the hills of volcanic masses, most frequently of green-gray andesite. The natural resources including ores, minerals and thermal springs, as well as fact that the region was open to lower Danube Basin, made possible for culture to develop in this area already in the early periods of prehistory. However, this cultural evolution was not straightforward, first of all because of the waves of ethnic migrations. In the period between the 18th and 13th century BC the population of this region, engaged in cattle-breeding, farming and metallurgy, cherished distinct forms of material and religious life recognized as the specific Gamzigrad culture of the Bronze Age period. But, such cultural development was interrupted by the arrival of new ethnic groups, which, during the Iron Age and through the complex processes of the ethnogenesis, would profile in the ancient Balkan tribe of the Triballi. The Triballi had been displaced from these regions in the 4th century BC by the Celts, who ruled unmitigatedly in Pannonia, middle Danube basin and parts of the central Balkans until the arrival of the Romans.