During the time of the Roman republic
the Palatine Hill was the preferred
quarter for the ruling elite and this
tradition continued when the Roman
emperors built their palaces on the hill.
Eventually, imperial palaces covered the
entire hill. And the ruins of the
palaces of Augustus (63 – 14BCE),
Tiberius (42 – 37BCE) and Domitian
(51 – 96) can still be seen.
Photo: Ancient Art & Architecture
Collection Ltd

It can be a monarch's residence or a cinema; a bishop's seat or a casino; an archaeological wonder or a modern-day dive. It can be made of anything from stone to wood to ice. And the name can be found attached to anything from a football club to a theatre, a seaside amusements arcade or a museum. From Buckingham Palace to Caesar's Palace, from picture palaces to people's palaces, the word 'palace' is applied to a gamut of locations – and still manages to hang onto the sense of glamour and splendour associated with its first useage as the home of kings.

Or, more precisely, as the home of emperors. This is because the word 'palace' originates from ancient Rome and the Latin palatium. This derives from the Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills on which Rome was built and where the first Roman emperor, Augustus, had his residence.

Augustus's home was deliberately modest, but his successors had no such qualms about using their position for their own aggrandisement. By the time of Nero and his Golden House, the emperor's residence had expanded to take over virtually the whole of the Palatine Hill and the word palatium, which originally referred to the area as a whole, came to mean the residence itself.

Of course the Romans did not give us the idea of a palace as a grand and stately residence of rulers, only the word. Indeed, many of the most famous archaeological excavations have involved 'palaces' that long pre-date the Roman era, from Knossos on Crete to the palace of Nebuchadnezzar in ancient Babylon or modern Iraq (see Archaeology and Palaces).