The Temple of Claudius ( Lat. ''Templum Claudii'') or Temple of the Deified Claudius (Lat. ''Templum Divi Claudii'') was a large ''octastyle''

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

built in

Camulodunum Camulodunum (; la, ), the Ancient Roman name for what is now Colchester in Essex, was an important castrum and city in Roman Britain, and the first capital of the province. A temporary "strapline" in the 1960s identifying it as the "oldest re ...

, the modern

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

.Crummy, Philip (1997) ''City of Victory; the story of Colchester - Britain's first Roman town''. Published by Colchester Archaeological Trust () The main building was constructed between 49 and 60 AD, although additions were built throughout the Roman-era.Faulkner, Neil. (1994) Late Roman Colchester, In Oxford Journal of Archaeology 13(1) Today it forms the base of the Norman

Colchester Castle Colchester Castle is a Norman castle in Colchester, Essex, England, dating from the second half of the eleventh century. The keep of the castle is mostly intact and is the largest example of its kind anywhere in Europe, due to its being buil ...

.Wilson, Roger J.A. (2002) A Guide to the Roman Remains in Britain (Fourth Edition). Published by Constable. () It is one of at least eight Roman-era pagan temples in Colchester, and was the largest temple of its kind in

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...

; its current remains potentially represent the earliest existing Roman stonework in the country.

History

After the

Roman conquest of Britain The Roman conquest of Britain refers to the conquest of the island of Britain by occupying Roman forces. It began in earnest in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, and was largely completed in the southern half of Britain by 87 when the Stan ...

led in person by the Emperor

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor ...

in 43 AD, a legionary fortress was established at ''Camulodunon'', the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

capital of the Trinovantes and

Catuvellauni The Catuvellauni (Common Brittonic: *''Catu-wellaunī'', "war-chiefs") were a Celtic tribe or state of southeastern Britain before the Roman conquest, attested by inscriptions into the 4th century. The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and their ...

tribes. This fortress was later converted into a town for retired soldiers in 49 AD, and was renamed ''Camulodunum'', a Latin rendition of the Celtic name of the site. The town was the capital of the new province of Britannia, and had several public buildings befitting its status. These included a theatre, a ''curia'' (council chamber), forum and a large classical-style temple. The temple's construction began during Claudius' reign, and it was dedicated to him after his death in 54 AD, with the official name of the town becoming ''Colonia Claudia Victricensis'' ('the City of Claudius' Victory') and the temple becoming the ''Templum Divi Claudii'' ('the Temple of the Deified Claudius'). The temple was the centre for the

imperial cult An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may ...

in the province, as is mentioned in Seneca's 1st-century book the '' Apocolocyntosis'', which mocks both the deceased

and the Britons for their supposed piety towards him.

Construction

The podium of the temple was constructed by pouring a mix of mortar and stone into trenches cut into the ground. This base still survives today, and from the position of its load-bearing walls can be made out the superstructures layout. This appears to conform to the plans of

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...

in his ''

De Architectura (''On architecture'', published as ''Ten Books on Architecture'') is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect and military engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide ...

'' for a classical ''octastyle'' temple. retrieved 27/07/2014 The podium is rectangular, aligned north-south. The main chamber of the temple, the ''

cella A cella (from Latin for small chamber) or naos (from the Greek ναός, "temple") is the inner chamber of an ancient Greek or Roman temple in classical antiquity. Its enclosure within walls has given rise to extended meanings, of a hermit's or ...

'', was positioned at the back of the podium, and would have been a rectangular room (its length based on the position of the podium's vaults, would have been one and a quarter its width, in keeping with Vitruvian design) and was also aligned north-south, with a southern entrance. It would have had no windows and, based on Vitruvian geometry and analogies from elsewhere combined with the knowledge from the existing dimensions of the podium, would have been about high. The ''cella''s back wall was against the back of the podium. Ten columns would have run along the east and west exterior sides of the temple, with none around the back of the chamber ('' peripteral'' style). Eight columns would have run across the front of the ''cella'' (hence "octastyle"). The ''

pronaos A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

'' in front of the ''cella'' would have had six columns along its sides. The temple was ''

eustyle In architecture, intercolumniation is the proportional spacing between columns in a colonnade, often expressed as a multiple of the column diameter as measured at the bottom of the shaft. In Classical, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture, in ...

'', meaning that the space between each column was two and a quarter times the diameter of the column, except for the two central columns at the front of the temple portico, which were three diameters apart. The temple is constructed from '' septaria'' obtained from the

coast, possibly from near Walton-on-the-Naze, and large flint nodules, whilst the roof would have been of ''imbrex'' and ''tegula''. The columns are made from a core of curved

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

, with the exterior and capitals rendered in plaster. Polished marble, including

Purbeck marble Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology St ...

and rare ''giallo antico'' from

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

, and stone (including

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of water in unheated rivers or lakes. Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less porous) carbonate deposits, which are known as travertin ...

from the

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

coast) would have faced the temple, large fragments of which have been found nearby. Pieces of inscriptions on marble and large bronzed letters have been found around the site. An altar stood in front of the podium of the temple. The temple stood in the centre of a large precinct (''temenos''), parts of the wall of which are still visible beneath the later Norman castle bailey earthen bank. In 2014 columns from the monumental façade of the precinct were discovered behind the High Street, with plans to make them visible to the public. The entranceway to the precinct took the form of a tufa-faced wide monumental arch flanked by a columned arcade screen. Further excavations showed that the precinct was adorned with arcades and about long.

Boudican revolt and aftermath

In 60/1 AD the

Iceni The Iceni ( , ) or Eceni were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era. Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the we ...

rebelled against the Romans, joined by the Trinovantes who were native to the area around Camulodunum. As the symbol of Roman rule in Britain, the colonia of Camulodunum was the first target of the rebels, with its Temple seen in British eyes as the "''arx aeternae dominationis''" ("stronghold of everlasting domination") according to Tacitus. The town was destroyed, with survivors taking refuge in the ''cella'' of the Temple, whose large bronze doors and strong, windowless chamber provided a safe haven. However, the rebels laid siege to the Temple, which was stormed after two days. Tacitus wrote:

In the attack everything was broken down and burnt. The temple where the soldiers had congregated was besieged for two days and then sacked.

The decapitated bronze head of a statue was found in the River Alde in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

, and has been interpreted as having been taken from the Temple of Claudius by the Iceni. It has come to be identified as a bust of the Emperor Nero, who ruled during Boudica's rebellion. The town and temple were rebuilt in the years after the attack, with the ''colonia'' reaching a peak of population in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. The temple was one of the main public buildings in the town, and its façade and precinct were added to and enlarged over time.

The temple in the Late Roman town

In contrast to the scaling down of private buildings in the town during the 4th century, there was an increase in the size and grandeur of public buildings in the period 275-400 AD. The Temple of Claudius and its associated ''temenos'' buildings were reconstructed in the early 4th century, along with the possible forum-basilica building to the south of it. The temple appears to have had a large apsidal hall built across the front of the podium steps, with numismatic dating evidence taking the date of the building up to at least 395 AD. The changes to the temple in the 4th century may have been the result of the temple being converted to Christian use, as several Christian sites have been identified in the town from the Late Roman period,Crummy, Nina; Crummy, Philip; and Crossan, Carl (1993) Colchester Archaeological Report 9: Excavations of Roman and later cemeteries, churches and monastic sites in Colchester, 1971-88. Published by Colchester Archaeological Trust () and a Roman potsherd inscribed with a ''

Chi Rho The Chi Rho (☧, English pronunciation ; also known as ''chrismon'') is one of the earliest forms of Christogram, formed by superimposing the first two (capital) letters—chi and rho (ΧΡ)—of the Greek word ( Christos) in such a way that ...

'' symbol was found at the site.

Saxon and Norman periods

Large amounts of the superstructure of the temple were standing throughout the Saxon period, when the temple was known as King Coel's Palace. The medieval ''Colchester Chronicle'' states that the Norman architects of

built the structure on the remains of this "palace" in the years 1070-1080, with archaeological evidence showing that the base of the temple was used as the foundations of the castle. Evidence has been uncovered from excavations in 2014 shows that the columns of the temple precinct entrance may also have been demolished in the Norman period to allow the building of the castle's bailey. The podium was rediscovered in the 17th century when the underside of the temple's base was grubbed out, creating "vaults" under the castle. The underside of the castle was not identified as the podium of the temple until archaeologist

Mortimer Wheeler Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...

examined it in the early 20th century and found that the Norman builders had clasped the castle's walls to the Roman concrete podium. Today the 17th-century "vaults" are open to visitors, showing the underside of the temple.

References

External links

Colchester Temples
at Roman-Britain.co.uk
The Annals of Tacitus. Book 14, Chapter 31
{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple Of Claudius, Colchester Roman Colchester Roman religious sites in England

Buildings and structures completed in the 1st century 1st-century establishments in Roman Britain Roman religious sites in the United Kingdom Roman sites in England Roman archaeology Paganism in Europe Buildings and structures in Colchester (town) Claudius