The Praetorium, the Roman Governor's Palace of Upper Germania, Cologne

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.