Although little is known of the palace itself, some conclusions can be drawn as to the type of person the owner had been. Only a person of great wealth and success, who had been a great ally of the Romans, could have built this palace. The most likely candidate at that time was Cogidubnus (AD 45-80).
His name incorporates the Celtic word dubno or dumno, meaning powerful or deep, which signifies that he was a native to Britain . Cogidubnus was a member of the family, who ruled the Atrebates tribe, which was later renamed the Regnenses or ‘People of the Kingdom’ after the Roman invasion. He was appointed king of the tribe in AD 43 and dominated the Chichester region for over 30 years after the invasion.
It was believed that he was granted all of the privileges of a Roman citizen and allowed to add the Emperor’s name onto his own to become Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus as a ‘client king’, due to the support he and his tribe provided to the Romans. The most substantial piece of evidence found was a Roman inscription of the dedication of a temple at Chichester stating:
To Neptune and Minerva this temple [is dedicated with prayers] for the welfare of the divine house, by the authority of Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus, king and imperial legate in Britain [rex et legatus Augusti in Britannia], by the guild smiths and its members, at their own expenses; Clemens, son of Prudentinus, presented this site.
This inscription provides important confirmation of a passage from a famous Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus , who wrote ‘he maintained his unswerving loyalty to our own times’ and that he was granted with estates. It was very rare at the time for native kings to be given such a high ranking in Roman aristocracy of legatus Augusti, so it can be inferred that Cogidubnus was indeed a man of great prestige. It is believed that he may even have been brought to Rome as a child and educated there. Some scholars believe that Cogidubnus died prior to the construction of the palace, but the belief that the palace was built as a reward to Cogidubnus for all that he had done for the Romans is widely accepted.
