Archaeological Area of ??the Sessoriano Palace

The archaeological area of the Sessoriano Palace (originally Sessorium) was a residential complex of the imperial era built by Septimius Severus and finished by Elagabalus within the Horti Variani, located at the southeast end of the Regio V Esquiliae of Rome at the Claudius Aqueduct .

The complex consisted of a palace, the thermal baths, the Castrense Amphitheater, the Variano Circus, gardens and other buildings whose destination is unknown to us by now.

The Historia Augusta shows Elagabalus at the end of 221 while he arranges, right at the Sessorium, the assassination of Alexander Severus (order that will provoke the insubordination of the Praetorian Guard) and how the order will cost him the throne and his life.

Between 271 and 275 the surrounding Aurelian walls incorporated most of the Sessorium, except for the track and the tiers of the circus, transforming the Castrense Amphitheater into a bastion.

At the beginning of the 4th century the complex became the residence of Elena, Constantine's mother. The empress renewed the baths, which thus took the name of Terme Eleniane. In the middle of the 4th century, judging by the construction techniques, a large rectangular room 36 meters long and 22 meters wide was transformed into a Christian Basilica (the Liber Pontificalis attributes the transformation directly to Constantine).

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Here, according to the Christian tradition, the relics that Helen had brought back from Jerusalem were kept in a chapel.

The basilica, definitively restored in the 18th century by Pope Benedict XIV, thus took the name of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and incorporated all the buildings of the Sessorium.

Map: Archaeological Area of ??the Sessoriano Palace