The Temple of Claudius at Camulodunum (modern Colchester) was the largest classical-style temple known from Roman Britain, built in the colonia established around A.D. 49 and dedicated to the deified emperor Claudius, probably after his death in A.D. 54. It stood on a massive podium roughly 32 by 24 metres within a monumental precinct, hexastyle and pseudoperipteral in the Italic manner, and served as the focal cult centre of the imperial cult for the province.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As the seat of the provincial imperial cult, the temple was both a religious centre and a potent symbol of Roman domination, financed in part through obligations imposed on the British elite — a grievance explicitly cited by Tacitus (Annals XIV.31) as a cause of the Boudican revolt of A.D. 60/61, during which the temple was the last refuge of the Roman population of Colchester before being stormed and burnt after a two-day siege. Rebuilt after the revolt, it remained the principal sanctuary of the colonia and a model for provincial imperial cult architecture.
The massive concrete-and-tile vaulted podium survives largely intact beneath the Norman keep of Colchester Castle, which was deliberately built upon it around 1076, and the vaults are accessible today; the precinct's monumental arched entrance and altar foundations have been traced through excavations by Mortimer Wheeler (1920s) and Philip
The Temple of Claudius at Camulodunum (modern Colchester) was the largest classical-style temple known from Roman Britain, built in the colonia established around A.D. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a temple site from the Roman period in Britain.
Temple of Claudius is classified as a Roman temple — a religious site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Col. Camulodunum (0.1 km), Ad Ansam (0.2 km), SE corner of Roman town in Easthill House Gardens (0.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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