The Praetorium, the Roman Governor's Palace of Upper Germania, Cologne
Buried governor's palace of Roman Lower Germania, rebuilt across four centuries beneath the city hall square.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Praetorium in Cologne begins with foundations older than the city's official founding in the year fifty: a house belonging to the Roman commander Germanicus that grew into the residence of the governor of Lower Germania. You'll hear about a stone inscription from around the year one hundred eighty, carved by a governor named Quintilius Tarquitius Catulus, boasting that he restored a ruined palace without ever saying what went wrong. The guide follows four centuries of rebuilding, including an octagonal domed hall bolted onto rooms already three hundred years old.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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