Roman Sites in Greece: Explore Public Courts, Imperial Buildings and Cisterns

Roman sites in Greece include public buildings added to older Greek cities, imperial architecture at Thessaloniki, performance spaces and substantial water-storage installations. Mosaic floors preserve the decoration of smaller residences alongside those larger structures. The collection extends from the mainland to Crete and Kefalonia.

Many places contain several ancient building phases. Corinth’s Roman forum lies beside a much older temple, while Thessaloniki’s Rotunda was adapted for Christian worship after its imperial foundation. The examples below identify the particular rooms, courts and surviving structures that belong to these changing settings.

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Public courts at Athens and Corinth

Hadrian’s Library in Athens enclosed a large courtyard behind a marble entrance façade. A colonnaded walk surrounded an ornamental pool, and rooms occupied the eastern side. Niches in the central room probably held cupboards for scrolls and documents; adjoining spaces have been interpreted as reading or teaching rooms, although their exact functions remain uncertain.

The surviving western wall and Corinthian columns preserve the scale of the entrance. Later churches occupied the court, adding religious buildings within the earlier Roman enclosure. Their remains belong to the subsequent use of the complex rather than its original library arrangement.

At Ancient Corinth, the Roman forum contained a raised ceremonial platform, the Bema, used for public addresses and official proceedings. Nearby, Roman rebuilding gave the older Peirene Fountain an architectural façade and enclosed courtyard. Chambers and collection basins connected to channels beneath the town. The standing Doric columns of Apollo’s temple predate these Roman works by several centuries.

Galerius’s palace and Thessaloniki’s Rotunda

The Palace of Galerius in Thessaloniki preserves courtyards, mosaic fragments, bathing structures and the plan of a large octagonal hall. Niches opened from the hall’s interior, and an entrance vestibule had apses at both ends. Marble paving replaced an earlier mosaic floor. Its precise function is debated, with an audience room and formal dining hall among the interpretations.

The Rotunda belonged to the wider imperial complex. Thick brick walls, deep internal niches and a high dome enclose its circular interior. Conversion into a church enlarged an eastern niche into a sanctuary and introduced a new entrance arrangement. The surviving Christian mosaics belong to that religious phase, while much of the great circular shell derives from the Roman building.

Patras’s odeon and stage building

The Roman Odeon at Patras preserves a semicircular performance space supported by radiating walls and vaulted galleries. Stairs connected these passages with the seating and orchestra, while entrances and niches articulated the high stage wall. Marble and mosaic fragments record parts of the building’s former finish.

The stage wall, seating and orchestra have undergone extensive restoration and partial reconstruction. Their present arrangement helps explain movement through the building, from the supporting galleries to the audience levels, while the ancient masonry and reconstructed surfaces remain different parts of its fabric.

Aptera’s cisterns and bathing complexes

At Aptera on Crete, two large public cisterns supplied baths farther down the slope. One has three internal aisles; the other bends into an L-shaped plan. Waterproof mortar lined their walls, and exterior buttresses resisted the pressure of stored water. Smaller channels and cisterns connected with the wider supply system.

The cisterns include earlier construction as well as Roman-period use. The surviving stone vaults of the three-aisled reservoir belong to later rebuilding associated with the medieval monastery; its original brick roofing was lost. The large chambers nevertheless preserve the storage capacity and layout required by the ancient city’s bathing establishments.

Figured mosaics at the Roman villa of Skala

The Roman villa at Skala on Kefalonia preserves decorated room floors with geometric borders and strongly defined central scenes. One represents Envy as a young man attacked by animals. Another shows a boar, bull and ram prepared for sacrifice.

These pavements belong to a residence founded in the Roman period and later destroyed by fire.

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