SESSORIUM
a building of unknown origin, situated at the extreme south-
east of
Region V, adjoining the amphitheatrum Castrense. It was
earlier than the Aurelian wall which cut through it, but is not mentioned
before that time unless the emendation
Σεσσώριον for
Σηστέριον in
Plutarch, Galba 28, is admitted (Becker, de Romae veteris muris 120;
De Rossi, Roma sotterranea iii. 408). From the beginning of the sixth
century it appears as Sessorium in the Excerpta Valesiana 69 (Mommsen,
Chron. min. i. 324:
in palatio quod appellatur Sessorium), and in certain
scholia (Pseudoacron. in Hor. Epod. 5. 100;
Sat. i. 8. 11, 14; Comm. Cruq.
ad locc. citt.), where paupers and criminals are said to have been buried
outside the porta Esquilina or on the Esquiline in qua est Sessorium,
although this building was at least 1400 metres from the gate. That
part of the building which was outside the Aurelian wall was destroyed,
but the extensive inner section became an imperial residence by the
beginning of the fourth century, and Helena, the mother of Constantine,
lived here. Hence it was called palatium Sessorianum (LP. vit. Silves. 22;
LPD i. 179, 196, n. 75).
Constantine converted one of the halls of the palace
1into the church
of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, and placed in it the fragments of the true
cross which Helena brought from Jerusalem. This hall was 34.35 metres
long, 21.75 wide and 20 high, with five open arches on each side and
windows above, and resembled closely the so-called templum Sacrae
Urbis of Vespasian both in construction and scheme of decoration.
Constantine walled up the arches and added the apse at the east end,
but the columns were not set up until the eighth century. North of the
church are the remains of another hall of the Sessorium, consisting of
the apse with external buttresses, added almost immediately after its
construction, and the start of the nave, probably belonging to the time
of Maxentius (Ill. 49). This hall was intact down to the sixteenth century
and was erroneously called templum Veneris et Cupidinis (RA 147-152).
In 1887 further remains of a building of about 100 A.D. were found on
this spot (
NS 1887, 70, 108;
BC 1887, 100). For further description of
the Sessorium, see LR 399; Ann. d.
Inst. 1877, 371 ; Mon.
L. i. 490-492;
HJ 249-250;
LS iii. 163-164; Arm. 795-800; Becker Top. 556-557;
SR i. 248; HCh 243;
BC 1925, 278.
