It is clear from the sources that under some emperors, the Roman imperial court could be a social space characterized by violence. This chapter offers a general framework for understanding the key dimensions of court violence – its aetiology, its impact on the court’s image, and the institutions and ideologies restraining it. Drawing on insights into human violence offered by evolutionary psychology, the chapter argues that the latent human capacity for violence was triggered by a court environment with high levels of physical danger, status consciousness, and competition for resources. But in almost all societies, culture and institutions serve to restrain interpersonal violence, to a greater or lesser degree. The second part of the chapter therefore examines the limits placed on court violence by the emperor’s guard forces (the praetorians, the Germani corporis custodes, and the equites singulares), by Roman legal culture, and by Graeco-Roman political theory and ideology.

This chapter examines the impact of the Severan transformation of Rome in Caelian noting its implications for Constatine's later choice of this site for his Lateran Basilica.Septimius Severus dramatically increased the presence of soldiers in Rome and his reign is associated with several major military building projects.The best documented of these is the construction of the Castra Nova for his horse guards (equites singulares), a project that fundamentally reshaped the Caelian. Extensive elements of the fort survive beneath the Basilica of St John Lateran.This chapter explores the evidence for the building and subsequent use of the fort, placing the site in its broader topographical context.Following Constantine's victory at the battle of the Milvian Bridge the equites singulares were destroyed/disbanded and the Castra Nova site was used for the construction of the Lateran Basilica.The paper raises questions about the degree to which the history of the site's use may have impacted on the location and appearence of Constantine's church.