Roman Villas in Central Italy: A Social and Economic History

Roman Villas in Central Italy

Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition Editorial Board

William V. Harris (Editor) Eugene F. Rice, jr., Alan Cameron, Suzanne Said Kathy H. Eden, Gareth D. Williams

VOLUME 30

Roman Villas in Central Italy A Social and Economic History

By

Annalisa Marzano

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

Cover illustration: Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: lararium (photo: A. Marzano). This book is printed on acid-free paper.

ISSN 0166-1302 ISBN 978 90 04 16037 8 © Copyright 2007 by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York Published by Brill. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

To my Mother, Who did not live to see this work completed and Whose inner strength and wisdom I hope to have in part inherited

Sei tu ora come un gabbiano, che alto si libra nel cielo terso contemplando l’azzurra distesa del mare ammantata d’un gran brillio di sole

CONTENTS

Preface ......................................................................................... Abbreviations .............................................................................. List of Illustrations ......................................................................

ix xi xiii

Introduction ................................................................................

1

Chapter One. Villae Maritimae .................................................... The Villa Maritima in Ancient Literary Sources ..................... The Archaeological Evidence .................................................

13 15 33

Chapter Two. Villae Maritimae as Economic Enterprises ........... Fish-breeding and salinae ........................................................ Figlinae and Agriculture ........................................................... Real-Estate Speculation ..........................................................

47 47 63 75

Chapter Three. Villae Rusticae and the Ideological Realm ........ The Villa Rustica in Ancient Literary Sources ........................

82 85

Chapter Four. The Archaeology of Rural Villas ....................... Wool and Textile Production .................................................

102 121

Chapter Five. The “Villa Schiavistica” Model ............................. Reinterpreting the Archaeological Data ................................ “Ergastula” in Country Villas ..................................................

125 129 148

Chapter Six. Villa Topography: Infrastructure and Imperial Villas ............................................................................................ Villas and Infrastructure ......................................................... Villas and Imperial Properties ................................................

154 156 171

Chapter Seven. Villa Topography and Involvement with Neighbors ....................................................................................

176

Chapter Eight. The Chronology of Villas and the Second-century “Crisis” .............................................................

199

viii

contents

Conclusions .................................................................................

223

Catalogue .................................................................................... Introduction to the Catalogue ................................................ Latium ..................................................................................... Tuscany ................................................................................... Umbria .................................................................................... Index of Villa Sites ................................................................. List of Villa Plans ...................................................................

235 237 247 649 709 741 755

Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix

A. Chronology of Villa Sites ..................................... B. Data for Villa Sites in Latium .............................. C. Data for Villa Sites in Tuscany ............................ D. Data for Villa Sites in Umbria .............................

759 770 779 788

Bibliography ................................................................................

797

General Index .............................................................................

817

Index Locorum ...........................................................................

821

PREFACE

Villas, or elite residences combining residential and productive functions, were a distinctive feature of Roman society, and as such have been studied from a range of perspectives by modern scholars. From studies focusing on architecture or the cultural aspects of the otium practiced in villa, to those on the socio-historical conditions that allowed the emergence of a particular mode of exploitation of the land in Roman Italy (the villa-system) or on villas as an indicator of Romanization in the provinces, Roman villas have acquired a symbolic connotation in modern studies, perhaps as vivid as the symbolism attached to them in the ancient mentality and writings. This book aims at tracing the “villa-universe” in its social and economic manifestations, and the changes occurring over time through an interdisciplinary approach which brings together documentary sources and archaeological data. It focuses on Central Italy, which was the privileged area for the development and diffusion of the villa, and analyzes within an historical narrative the data available on a large number of sites, contrasting them with the ideological constructs of the literary sources. Although several monographs exist on individual villa-sites in this geographic area, or on economic trends and settlement patterns picked up by survey projects, a synthesis focusing on the role of villas in Roman society, contextualizing the abundant archaeological record with the aid of the documentary sources, has not previously been attempted. The present study aims at lling this gap. This book is based on a PhD dissertation completed at Columbia University, New York, as part of the program in Classical Studies. Many people have assisted me in the process, rst the completion of the dissertation and then its transformation into a book, offering critical advice and suggestions, and I wish to take this opportunity to thank them. William V. Harris offered his invaluable criticism and ideas as supervisor of the thesis, and I am also very grateful for his continued support since I left Columbia University. Natalie Kampen and Clemente Marconi always offered very useful comments and suggestions on the thesis in progress, and together with the remaining members of my examining committee, Alan Cameron and Michel Peachin, had many suggestions as to how the thesis might best be turned into a book.

x

preface

Since the time of the defense, I have beneted greatly from discussion with people who read parts of the manuscript and heard papers based upon it at conferences in the United States and Europe. The interaction with colleagues and graduate students here at Oxford University has been particularly stimulating during revision of the manuscript for publication. I especially wish to thank Andrew Wilson, for having the strength and will to read an earlier draft, and offering detailed comments and useful suggestions, after the long days of work spent in the eld during our excavation campaign in Benghazi. Last but not least, I wish to thank my husband, Mehmet Deniz Öz, for his support, encouragement, and for the many sleepless nights spent helping me in preparing the plans that accompany the catalogue: seni seviyorum. Annalisa Marzano Institute of Archaeology University of Oxford

ABBREVIATIONS

AE AJA AnalRom AnnÉconSocCiv AnnPerugia ANRW ArchCl ArchLaz ATTA ATTASup BABesch BAR BÉFAR BollArch BullCom CÉFR CIL CPhS DA EchCl Epigraphica I.I. ILS JRS LTUR MAAR MBAH MÉFRA NSc OJA PBSR Prospettiva QuadAEI RANarb

L’Année Épigraphique American Journal of Archaeology Analecta Romana Instituti Danici Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosoa, Università degli studi di Perugia H. Temporini (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Berlin 1972– Archeologia Classica Archeologia laziale. Incontri di Studio del Comitato per l’Archeologia laziale Atlante Tematico di Topograa dell’Italia Antica, series directed and edited by L. Quilici and S. Quilci Gigli. Rome Atlante Tematico di Topograa dell’Italia Antica. Supplementi. Rome Bulletin antieke beschaving. Annual Papers on Classical Archaeology British Archaeological Reports Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome Bollettino di Archeologia Bullettino della Commissione archeologica Comunale di Roma Collection de l’École française de Rome Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Cambridge Philological Society Dialoghi di archeologia Echos du monde classique. Classical Views Epigraphica. Rivista italiana di epigraa Inscriptiones Italiae. Academiae Italicae Consociatae H. Dessau (ed.), Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae Journal of Roman Studies Lexicon Topographicum Urbius Romae. Edited by E.M. Steinby. Rome 1993–1999 Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome Münstersche Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Antiquité Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità Oxford Journal of Archaeology Papers of the British School at Rome Prospettiva. Rivista d’arte antica e moderna Quaderni del Centro di studio per l’archeologia etrusco-italica Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise

xii RassArch RdA RendLinc RendPontAcc RIA RicognArch RM StEtr StClOr TAPA ZPE

abbreviations Rassegna di Archeologia Rivista di archeologia Atti dell’Accademia nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti Rendiconti della Ponticia Accademia romana di Archeologia Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte Ricognizioni Archeologiche. Gruppo Archeologico Romano Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung Studi Etruschi Studi classici e orientali Transactions of the American Philological Association Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 Figure 18 Figure 19

Prima Porta, Villa “Ad Gallinas Albas”, drawing showing a detail of the mosaic from the atrium (A. Wilkins) .............................................................. Fresco depicting a maritime villa. From Pompeii, House of M. Lucretius Fronto, now in Naples National Museum (Fototeca Unione-AAR) ............ Examples of shpond design .................................. Circeo, axonometric drawing of the so-called Fishpond of Lucullus (after Schmiedt 1972) .......... Torre Astura with harbor (after Schmiedt 1972) ... Distribution map of maritime villas equipped with shponds (A. Marzano) .................................. Torre Astura region, distribution of villas and farms (after Piccarreta 1977) .................................. S. Marinella, distribution of villas (after Gianfrotta 1972) ............................................ Villa dei Centroni, axonometric reconstruction of the natatio (after Cozza 1952) ............................. Granaraccio, olive presses and olive mill (after Faccenna 1957) .............................................. Orbetello, Via della Fattoria: wine presses (after Brun 2004) ..................................................... Viterbo, Asinello (after Broise and Jolivet 1995) .... Trino, Le Verne (after Robino 1999) ..................... Ansedonia, Settenestre: detail (after Carandini 1985a) ........................................... Castellammare di Stabia, plan of Villa Arianna and detail of the stables (Miniero 1987) ................ Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: detail (Sgubini Moretti 1998) ............................................ Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: lararium (photo: A. Marzano) ................................................ Alba Docilia, mansio (after Grassigli 1995) ............. Number of villas and attested chronology of occupation ...............................................................

24

28 39 42 49 57 69 71 96 105 105 117 132 134 135 140 141 147 200

xiv

list of illustrations

Figure 20 Figure 21 Figure 22

Start and end date of villa occupation .................. Length of villa occupation ...................................... “Dominus Iulius” mosaic. Late 4th century mosaic depicting villa life. Bardo Museum, Tunis (Koppermann, Neg. D-DAI Rome 1961.0532) ......

202 203

233

Figures and Maps in Catalogue & Appendices Figure 23 Figure 24 Figure 25

Number of Villa Sites by Region ........................... Villa-occupation in the three regions ..................... Villa-occupation in the three regions (in percentages) ........................................................ Figure 26 Number of villas and attested beginning of occupation for Latium, Tuscany and Umbria ....... Figure 27 Number of villas and attested end of occupation for Latium, Tuscany and Umbria .......................... Map 1

Map 2a Map 2b Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Central Italy: The Augustan regions with superimposition of modern borders (A. Marzano) ........................................................... Villa sites in Latium (A. Marzano) ......................... Overview of detailed maps for Latium (A. Marzano) ........................................................... Albano (A. Marzano) .............................................. Astura (A. Marzano) ............................................... Bassano di Sutri and Capranica (A. Marzano) ...... Blera (A. Marzano) ................................................. Castelporziano (Ager Laurentinus) (A. Marzano) ....... Circeo (A. Marzano) ............................................... Civitavecchia and S. Marinella (A. Marzano) ........ Fiano Romano (A. Marzano) ................................. Ladispoli (A. Marzano) ........................................... The Licenza Valley (A. Marzano) .......................... Pontine Islands (A. Marzano) ................................. Suburbium (A. Marzano) ........................................... Tivoli (A. Marzano) ................................................ Tusculum (A. Marzano) .......................................... Via Cassia (A. Marzano) ......................................... Viterbo (A. Marzano) ..............................................

241 242 243 244 245

240 248 249 252 273 284 286 312 332 352 364 388 390 428 464 566 590 636 644

list of illustrations Map 19 Map 20 Map 21 Map 22 Map 23 Map 24 Map 25 Map 26

xv

Villa sites in Tuscany (A. Marzano) ................... 648 Monte Argentario and Ansedonia (A. Marzano) ...................................................... 686 Populonia area (A. Marzano) ............................. 694 Villa sites in Umbria (A. Marzano) ................... 708 Umbria: distribution of villas (from Ville e Insediamenti 1983) ............................ 710 Villa sites of Latium by centuries (A. Marzano) ...................................................... 775–778 Villa sites in Tuscany by centuries (A. Marzano) ...................................................... 784–787 Villa sites in Umbria by centuries (A. Marzano) ...................................................... 793–796

INTRODUCTION

As usual, I am calling upon your expert advice on a matter of property. The estate adjoining my own is for sale; the land runs in and out of mine, and, though there are many attractions tempting me to buy, there are some no less important reasons why I should not. The primary attraction is the obvious amenity if the properties were joined, and after that the practical advantage as well as the pleasure of being able to visit the two together without making more than one journey. Both could be put under the same steward and practically the same foremen, and it would be necessary to maintain and furnish one house, so long as the other was kept in repair. [. . .] On the other hand, I am afraid it may be a rash to expose a property of such a size to the same uncertainties of weather and general risks, and it might be safer to meet the hazards of fortune by having estates in different localities; and then change of place and air is very enjoyable, and so is the actual traveling between one’s possessions.1

With these words, Pliny the Younger described to his friend Calvisius Rufus the advantages and disadvantages of buying a new estate adjacent to the one he already possessed in Tuscis, near the town of Tifernum Tiberinum. This passage touches on several of the important issues concerning villa-properties in the Roman world: the location of the estate, its relationship to other properties already owned by the same dominus, the practical considerations relating to its management and productivity, and the Roman elite’s habit of traveling often between the various villas they possessed. At once both elegant residences and units for production, villas were a typical feature of the Roman world. They were an expression not only of a particular lifestyle, but also of Roman society in general; villas were emblematic of membership to the upper class, or else of the aspiration to it. Roman villas, therefore, have been the focus of scholarship within various geographical and historical contexts, ranging from studies on the “economy of the villa”2 to works on its cultural aspects,

1 Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.19.1–5, (translation by B. Radice, Loeb edition), Cambridge-London 1969. 2 Carandini 1985a.

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introduction

such as the villa’s role as a seat for the cultivation of a particular type of Hellenized culture and lifestyle.3 The complex nature of the Roman villa is reected in the variety of formulations offered by scholars to dene the word “villa”. These denitions range from Percival’s culturally determined assertion that the villa is a specically Roman phenomenon,4 to Leveau’s proposition, that “la villa est un mode chronologiquement dénissable et historiquement évolutif de l’occupation et de la mise en valeur de la campagne.”5 In considering the role of villas within the development of Roman agriculture and types of land management, modern studies based on archaeological ndings have tended to view the spread of rural villas during the Republic as part of a complex process incorporating Roman territorial expansion, a decline in the number of small landholdings to the advantage of larger properties, the use of intensive slave labor and the great availability of slaves on the market, and the exportation outside Italy of agricultural produce, above all, wine.6 The proliferation of villas in Italy has thus been seen as indicative of a drastic transformation in the ancient economy, regarded as capitalistic in essence and analyzed from the point of view of class divisions by scholars of Marxist orientation.7 In the provinces, the presence of villas has been seen as an indicator of the level of Romanization and of the acceptance, by local elites, of architectural forms and social practices, the Roman ritual of dining and the drinking of wine for example, otherwise alien to areas such as Britain. As Terrenato has justly pointed out, however, the term “villa” is used in modern studies to refer to sites that differ widely in size, architecture, function, and date, so that the term itself is in need of comprehensive redenition.8 Not only can one observe a variation in the use of the term between different geographic areas—a site which would be labeled ‘villa’ by researchers working in, say, Germany, may be called ‘farm’ if it were to be found in Italy—but there is also a clear difference in usage

3

Zanker 1995. Percival 1976. 5 Leveau 1983: 923. 6 Terrenato 2001b. 7 For instance Carandini and Settis 1979; Carandini 1985a; 1989b; Giardina and Schiavone 1981. 8 Terrenato 2001a: 5. 4

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3

according to the type of study.9 If, indeed, social and economic historians use the term mostly to refer to establishments outside the urban context, engaged in a specic type of land management and marketoriented production, architectural historians emphasize the presence of a given architectural typology, while in eld survey projects, a villa is just a site which occupies a given area, determined a priori, with its surface scatter of building material, regardless of mode of production or other characteristics that survey investigation cannot pick up. Also in the case of the ancient writers it is clear that the term ‘villa’ indicated different things to different authors at different times. It is not by chance that Varro opens his dialogue Res Rusticae, signicantly set in the Villa Publica in Rome, with a discussion over the meaning of ‘villa’; no unanimous agreement is reached at the end, but the various issues addressed show the ranges in meaning covered by the term ‘villa’ at Varro’s time. By the fourth century a.d., with the profound transformations underwent by Roman society, the meaning of ‘villa’ appears to shift from ‘landed estate’ to something more ambiguous; the nal transformation can be seen in the writings of Gregory of Tours, who usually uses the term ‘villa’ to indicate a settlement and land held by several owners, in other words a village.10 The terminological aspect of the question is complicated by the fact that both in the ancient literary works and in modern analysis we need to come to terms with the ideological dimensions of the villa. In the earliest of the agricultural works that we have, Cato’s De agri cultura, we nd already the idealization of hard work, frugality and agriculture as the only worthy pursuits of the upper classes, which can be understood within the author’s political agenda. This is a theme which recurs in moralizing Latin literature, looking with nostalgia at the time when Romans were simple farmers, of equal social conditions, devoted to tilling the land and defending the Res publica.11 The fact that the medium-

9 P. Leveau, “Les incertitudes du terme villa et la question du vicus en Gaule Narbonnaise”, RANarb 35, 2002: 5–26. 10 Bowes and Gutteridge 2005: 410. 11 See for instance Plin., NH 18.4, who contrasts the productivity of the small estates of the Early and Middle Republic (“tilled by the hands of the very generals, the soil exulting beneath the plowshare crowed with wreaths of laurel and guided by a husbandman graced with triumphs . . .”, trans. from N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, Roman Civilization, vol. I, New York 1990: 243) with the lower yields of the estates of his time, tilled by slaves.

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sized farmstead, described in Cato’s work, which shows no concessions whatsoever to comfort and luxury, has no concrete archeological parallel has been pointed out recently.12 As Terrenato discusses in this same article, this point has direct bearing on the “question” of the origin and evolution of the villa, seen as a direct, linear descendant of the farms of old times. An equally politically charged ideology, this time in the context of Caesarian and Augustan propaganda in favor of land distribution, has been identied in Varro’s work, where the ideal villa is void of unproductiveness and extravagant luxus, and is linked to the praise of farming practiced by the ancestors.13 That the connection between the spread of villas and agricultural intensication occurred in the aftermath of the Hannibalic war is an axiom found in many modern works on villas and the Roman economy. In this case, the “ideal” villa we nd at work consists of architectural forms that reect directly the evolution of Roman society and the modes of agricultural production: large villas with slave quarters at the center of estates in the hands of fewer and increasingly absentee landlords. The conceptualization of the Roman villa that best embodies these aspects is the villa schiavistica model derived by Carandini’s work at Settenestre. The discussion delineated in Chapter 5, shows what great bearing this modern “idea” of villa, in part conditioned by modern historical phenomena such as US slavery and the plantation system, had in the interpretation of several important villa sites in Central Italy and in the reconstruction of the economic picture of Roman Italy. The impact of preconceived ideas, fostered by accounts in literary sources, on the interpretation of archaeological data emerges from an attentive reevaluation of the interpretation of the evidence offered by Settenestre and by other villas, such as Pennavecchia or Lugnano in Teverina.14 While archaeologists may read material culture as “texts”, in ways similar to the reading of historical texts, there are differences between material culture and written language, as Hodder has pointed out.15 Archaeologists use inductive methods to construct an understanding of historical meaning, but the extent to which their interpretations suc-

12 Terrenato 2001a: 24–25. But see Z. Mari, “La villa romana di età repubblicana nell’ager Tiburtinus e Sabinus in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005: 75–95 for discussion of the “Catonian type” villas attested archeologically in these areas. 13 Sirago 1995: 38. 14 Marzano 2005. 15 Hodder 1991: 191.

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ceed—as well as the universal validity of the results—ultimately depends on the richness of the data and on what the excavator is “looking for”. The long lasting endurance of this villa system model that, once it had established a connection between agricultural intensication for export and spread of villas, had also to posit a demise of villas when the exports ceased, can be seen as the other end of the thread of ideal conceptualizations of villas that started with Cato. It is precisely the Roman villa-universe that is the topic of this book, which focuses on the social and economic role of elite villas in Central Italy, an area corresponding to the modern regions of Latium, Tuscany and Umbria. This book aims at an interdisciplinary approach which brings together archaeological data and documentary sources. In order to account for villas as a phenomenon of social history, I have considered them in their different manifestations, approaching the subject from various angles: the economy, art, culture, the idealization and representation of villas, geographic distribution and topography. It is not the question of the “origin of the villa” that characterizes my research agenda, but rather I focus on villas as centers for social rituals and for economic production, and on how and to what degree these functions changed between Republic and Empire. Although the data on villa occupation collected for the entries in the Catalogue and discussed in Chapter 8 span from the second century b.c. to the fth century a.d., the discussion in the following chapters focuses mostly on the period between the rst century b.c., when elite villas were a well-established and wide-spread phenomenon, and the third century a.d. For this reason, although Cato’s work is taken into consideration, his treatise is not systematically analyzed and discussed in the chapters dealing with rural villas. This book has at its foundations some basic denitions that have become common ground among scholars of ancient society in recent years: foremost among them, the fact that, although Roman society was a pre-industrial society, it is characterized by a relatively sophisticated level of its economy when compared to other pre-industrial societies and that, because of the limitations of the ancient evidence, the structure, organization and manifestation of the ancient economy cannot be studied in isolation.16

16 On the general features of the Roman economy see R. W. Goldsmith, Premodern Financial Systems, Cambridge 1987: 34–59; P. Garnsey and R. Saller, The Roman Empire, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1987; Lo Cascio 1991; W. V. Harris, “Between Archaic and

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introduction

In antiquity activities such as agriculture or trade were complex and multilayered, going beyond the purely economic dimension, comprising social and ideological dimensions as well. The importance of this approach in studying the ancient economy has been long emphasized by the contribution of anthropological studies. As stated by Mauss: In the systems of the past we do not nd simple exchange of goods, wealth and produce through markets established among individuals. For it is groups and not individuals, which carry on exchange, make contracts, and are bound by obligations . . . what they exchange is not exclusively goods and wealth, real and personal property, and things of economic value. They exchange rather courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military assistance, women, children and feasts. . . .17

The works of Varro, Columella and other sources, such as Pliny the Younger, have been analyzed in Chapters 1 and 3 precisely for the ideological value that they have in respect to the economic mentality of the elite. The rst four chapters are built around the dialectic apparent in the ideological constructs of the literary texts on the one hand, and the evidence offered by the archaeological record on the other. As we will see, the tension created by this dialectic shapes the apparent “contradictions” we can at times observe between idealized “economic” behavior and common practice, as in the case of the idea of self-sufciency, apparently at odds with the pursuit of agricultural prot usually achieved through monoculture. This ideological opposition is the result of the tension present in the ancient elite mentality between what is morally acceptable and the desire of investing capital intelligently.18 Although the economic aspect of villas occupies a substantial part of my study, my aim in this book is not to quantify the economic output of the villas, or to analyze in detail Roman managerial and accounting practices.19 Various wider topics related to the ancient economy,20 such as

Modern: Problems in Roman Economic History” in Harris 1993: 11–29. R. DuncanJones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy, Cambridge 1990 treats the quantitative evidence for landholding patterns in the empire. 17 M. Mauss, The Gift, Argyll 1954: passage quoted in Morley 2004: 49. 18 See Andreau et al. 2004 for a discussion of some aspects of the economic mentality of the Roman elite. 19 For recent treatment of the use of writing in the management of economic activities, discussing also accounting see J. J. Aubert, “De l’usage de l’écriture dans la gestion d’entreprise a l’époque romaine” in Andreau et al. 2004: 127–147, with previous bibliography; see also in that same volume J. Maucourant, “Rationalité économique ou comportaments socio-économique”, 227–238. 20 Even if, according to a rigid approach, the term “economy” may result an anach-

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the nature of the ancient city and its relationship to the countryside, or the degree of monetization,21 that have been much debated in modern scholarship since the appearance of M. I. Finley’s famous study The Ancient Economy in 1973, are beyond the scope of this book. The debate that Finley’s work generated, between those favoring a “modernizing” approach to the ancient economy and the advocates of “primitivism”, has not been completely superseded yet, and recently ancient economic history has been undergoing a renewed interest with new approaches being continually put forward.22 As the reader will realize, my approach to the economic characterization of villas treated herein rests on several premises, which it is important to dene at the outset. First, that the Romans had a market economy, and that, although the distant parts of this economy were loosely connected, nonetheless they functioned as a comprehensive Mediterranean market. Temin has argued that this conceptualization brings the description of the Roman economy as a whole into accord with the fragmentary evidence we have about individual market transactions, and further advocated for the Roman economy being “an economy where most resources are allocated by prices that are free to move in response to changes in underlying conditions”.23 Second, that the economic mentality that guided the upper-class Romans in managing their wealth was, at its basis, concerned with prot—although often conditioned by moral, ideological, and social constrains—and with the generation of nancial return that would allow them to maintain the income necessary for their social standing and social obligations.24 In my view, the Roman landowners had

ronism, since the concepts it embodies are fully modern, (see Morley 2004: 33) it is currently used in historiographic works. 21 For the view that the use of money was widespread even in the countryside see for instance C. Howgego, “The Supply and Use of Money in the Roman World”, JRS 82, 1982: 1–31. For a general discussion on the importance of coinage to the Roman economy: K. W. Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, Baltimore and London 1996, 207–289. 22 For a synthetic and clear overview of the past and present historiographic debate and the various theoretical models adopted by historians see Morley 2004. 23 Temin 2001: 169; 170. 24 See Andreau et al. 2004 for discussion of investment strategies and management. See Kehoe 1997: 25 ff. for discussion of Pliny the Younger’s social and nancial obligations (with previous bibliography); also Kehoe 1988 and 1989 for discussion on risk and investment in the case of Pliny’s properties.

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introduction

sufcient knowledge about the Roman economy to make rational, long term economic planning.25 This is important in order to explain the choices of the elites in managing their villas/estates, and in investing their capital in order to maximize returns.26 As it has been noted, investment and prot are elusive terms in the Roman economy, given the restricted range of evidence available to the modern historian.27 In an agrarian economy with limited growth and restricted options for the investment of wealth, however, the choice of investing in a villa/estate should be considered as a long term investment, since an estate represented, as Kehoe put it: First and foremost an asset for enhancing nancial and social security, rather than an enterprise that could be evaluated among alternative potential investments in term of the likelihood of gain balanced against associated risks.28

For this reason, when discussing the capital investment in, or the enhancement of, production facilities and non-agricultural productive activities, which at times could be substantial, I refer to the expenditures necessary to make an estate produce an income, or to increase future production, without considering the initial cost involved in the purchase of the estate itself. The term “prot” has been used in this restricted sense to indicate the excess of revenues over outlays gained from the land and other non-agricultural productive activities discussed in the chapters in a given period of time, excluding depreciation and other non-cash expenses. Hence, an investment is deemed “protable” when an activity carried out, or a natural resource exploited, on the estate promoted a monetary benet to the proprietor once the expenses

25 M. I. Finley in The Ancient Economy, argued that Roman landowners did not possess sufcient knowledge of the economy to make such long-term economic planning; De Neeve 1985 and 1990, on the contrary, interpreted the behavior of upper-class landowners as capitalistic, distinguishing between capitalistic and peasant sectors of the Roman economy; Rathbone 1991 argued for rational long-term planning and the most remunerative use of the resources available to the estate managers in 3rd century Egypt. 26 On the elite’s interest in maximization of returns see Purcell 1995, esp. 163; Kehoe 1997 stressed mostly the elite’s desire to achieve a steady income, and that “the horizon for investing in such a way a to change substantially the revenues that an estate might be relied on to provide was severely restricted” (p. 101). 27 Kehoe 1997: 2. 28 Kehoe, Ibidem: 6.

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9

were deducted, but not necessarily a considerable annual return on the capital invested. Other important points need a clarication. In this study, the term villa has been taken to indicate elite mansions, either built in a rural setting or on the coast, which were simultaneously the seat of leisure retreats, hence the elegance and lavishness of their residential parts, and the seat of various kinds of economic activities, in most cases intended for the commercial market. These villas would have comprised estates of varying sizes, according to the geographic area, provided with ancillary buildings. In the range of these economic activities we nd instances not limited to agricultural production and those “subsidiary” activities mentioned in the works of the Latin agronomists, such as bricks and tiles production. Whatever worthy natural resource found on the estate could be exploited, as in the one known case of a villa connected with the exploitation of sulphur deposits.29 If in this latter case it is clear that the production did not physically occur “in the villa”, but on the estate, the construction and occupation of the villa can be, however, clearly related to the exploitation of the natural resource. Such cases of villas reect the desire to have a comfortable residence for the sojourns during which the owner would also check on the status of his/her business, while making a statement about the wealth of the proprietor, which in part derived from the economic activity that took place nearby. Recently, an invite to caution in seeing the emergence of all villas as a direct consequence of increasing agricultural intensication has been expressed, reminding us that in many instances villas were the expression of a certain fashion adopted by a moneyed elite that had acquired wealth elsewhere, a way of afrming the status of the owner.30 These statements rest on the fact that the great spread of villas in central Italy occurs in the rst century b.c. and rst century a.d., while the agricultural intensication shown by amphora production in the same areas precedes it by more than a century. As we will see at the end of this study, the peak in villa diffusion in all three regions is indeed the early rst century a.d.; however, while I wholly agree with Terrenato that villas had a symbolic value and were 29 Tor Caldara, north of Antium. See Chapter 2 and Catalogue L303; we may add the villas on Elba, connected with the exploitation of the iron mines. 30 Terrenato 2001a: 27.

10

introduction

sought after because of the image they evoked, I cannot completely subscribe to the statement that “we have very little direct indication that they (i.e., the villas) were what made the owners afuent.”31 The evidence, if one takes into account also other types of production and economic activities besides agriculture, seems to me to indicate that elite villas (here intended as the mansion proper plus the estate) were in most cases a source of wealth. The label “elite villa” adopted herein is also in need of clarication. With these terms, I do not intend to refer exclusively to proprietors of senatorial or equestrian status, but to indicate all those who had prominent status in society, either because of their social position—like senators, equites, and decuriones—or because of their economic power—like rich freedmen. I have not taken into consideration those residences built ex novo expressly for the emperor, like Domitian’s villa at Castelgandolfo or Trajan’s villa at Arcinazzo Romano, but only those Imperial villas at which previous phases existed before they became part of the Imperial property, as in the case of Tiberius’ villa in Sperlonga. In determining which sites fell into the category of “elite villas,” I was forced to abandon the application of strict quantitative criteria, such as computing the area occupied by the complex and comparing the areas of the residential quarters, of the gardens, and of the service quarters. In fact, the archaeological evidence is extremely fragmentary. Very few sites have been fully excavated; others have never been excavated at all and are known only by surface nds. In the case of sites identied only by eld survey, the criteria followed herein allowed the inclusion of all those sites which displayed signs of a certain level of décor (such as fragments of marble veneer or mosaic tesserae), or of a considerable size and monumentality, often apparent in the articial platform, the basis villae, on which most villas were built. Nonetheless, in trying to determine the overall economic picture and topographical distribution of villas, farms and farmsteads were considered as well, and, when relevant for the discussion, have been included in the catalogue. One may wonder why the geographic area object of this study was chosen. Several reasons led me to circumscribe it to Central Italy. As mentioned above, the regions of Central Mediterranean Italy, especially Latium, southern Tuscany and northern Campania, have been identied as the privileged area for the development and diffusion of the villa

31

Terrenato, ibidem.

introduction

11

structurally linked to a system of production based on slave labor for the commercial market. For coastal villas too, the coastline of Latium, together with Campania, is considered the area where the original development of maritime villas occurred.32 All this notwithstanding, a study focusing on gathering and analyzing within an historical narrative the data available on a large number of villas in these geographic areas is lacking. Although new discoveries in recent years demand an update of the seminal work by John D’Arms on the social history of villas in Campania,33 the lack of a more general synthesis is particularly felt for those regions where the archaeological and documentary evidence shows that many villas existed. For the regions of Central, Tyrrhenian Italy several monographs exist on individual villas or on economic trends and settlement patterns picked up by survey projects, but a synthesis focusing on the role of villas in Roman society and on its chronological development, interpreting and contextualizing the abundant archaeological record, was not attempted. Two reasons are probably behind this. The rst is the sheer quantity of the available archaeological data, especially for Latium, where hundreds and hundreds of sites are known. The second reason is the quality of the data, which is extremely uneven and fragmentary, showing a great disparity between sites documented more recently according to modern and scientic criteria, and those discovered, say, in the early twentieth century. Nonetheless, fruitful results can be reached, as I hope the following chapters will show. The interpretation of the material evidence in combination with literary sources, while highlighting the deep discrepancies between the two, particularly in the case of maritime villas, helps to explain the reasoning behind the literary texts’ idealization on the one hand, and the complexity and degree of variations attested for the “real” villas on the other. The business opportunities offered by coastal properties, for instance, notwithstanding the picture of conspicuous consumption found in the ancient texts, were even wider and more diverse than those offered by rural villas, and ranged from sh-breeding to quarrying and wine-making. In my view, these properties were much sought after not only for their recreational use and symbolic value, which was

32 33

Lafon 1981 and Lafon 2001. D’Arms 1970.

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introduction

undoubtedly a strong component of the appeal these properties had, but also for their potential protability. The sites included in the Catalogue constitute the basis of the discussion drawn in the following chapters. This discussion has been enriched and claried also with examples of villas from other geographic areas. The Catalogue, in spite of the great disparity in the quality of the evidence, gathers information on each villa, giving a description, the important nds, proposed dating, bibliography, and a plan when available. It is intended as a helpful resource for scholars working on villas in this geographic area in particular and in the Roman world in general, which gathers together information, otherwise scattered through journals and regional studies. However, precisely because of this distribution of the information the Catalogue has no pretension to be an exhaustive list of all the elite villas discovered in the area.34

34

See also the Introduction to the Catalogue for a more detailed discussion.

CHAPTER ONE

VILLAE MARITIMAE

Members of the Roman elite started relatively early to build elegant villas along the coasts of Italy, a phenomenon that by the late second century b.c. seems to have been rather widespread.1 The diffusion of these seaside establishments was particularly dense in key areas much sought after as leisure retreats. It was precisely because of the numerous villas dotting its coastline that Strabo described the crater delicatus, the Bay of Naples, as one large continuous city.2 This intense building activity was by no means limited to the Bay of Naples. Another popular recreational destination for the elite during the Republic and Empire was the Litus Laurentinum, a very convenient place to own a villa due to its closeness to Rome. In the second century a.d., Pliny the Younger, who owned a maritime villa in the area of Laurentum, described this part of the coast in these words: Litus ornant varietate gratissima nunc continua nunc intermissa tecta villarum, quae praestant multarum urbium faciem, sive mari sive ipso litore utare.3

When ancient authors refer to coastal villas, it is usually to lament their ostentatious luxury and the conspicuous consumption that took place in them. The villa maritima appears as a symbol of extravagance, even debauchery, in contrast to the villa rustica, which, with its involvement in agriculture, is represented as an appropriate economic enterprise for a member of the elite. In particular, this opposition is organically conceptualized in Varro’s De Re Rustica. Ancient sources do occasionally suggest that maritime villas could be good sources of

1

On the origin and diffusion of maritime villas see treatment in Lafon 2001, with previous bibliography. 2 Strab. 5.4.8:  ’   μ   μ   ,  μ ,

    μ   ,  μ       μ!  " #$ % .

3 Pliny Ep. 2.17.27: “the villas, built either in group or apart, beautify with their most pleasing variety the sea-front; from the sea or shore these look like a number of cities.” In the stretch of coast between Castel Fusano and Capo Cotta, Lauro and Claridge record fteen coastal villas. See Lauro 1998: 39 ff.

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revenue—by means of sheries, for example. But it must be noted that, when a writer like Varro mentions the revenue from sheries, it is not in the context of prots from the regular sale of sh on the market, but of property values, as piscinae increase the resale value of a villa. For instance, Varro reports that Hirrius was able to sell his villa for 4 million sesterces thanks to the “piscium multitudinem,”4 while Columella gives the example of Lucullus’ piscinae, sold by Cato, his guardian, for 400 thousand sesterces.5 Although Varro almost reluctantly admits the value of sheries, he stresses that they are really just an expensive and extravagant display of luxuria, because “the maritime sheries of the nobles are made to content the eyes rather than the purse, and they empty out the owner’s pockets rather than lling them.”6 Cicero supports this view when he observes that many people were anxious to buy agricultural estates ( fundi ) in the agro campano to support the expenses (sumptus) of the “Cumanorum et Puteolanorum praediorum.”7 The tendency to see in maritime villas only a privileged place for the display of wealth and the pursuit of otium prevailed for a long time in modern scholarship as well. Only relatively recently has the trend changed,8 and it is now recognized that maritime villas could have taken part in various types of economic enterprise, complementing the modes of production found at country villas. It is worth asking, then, how coastal villas differ from their country counterparts, and whether or not a specic typology for maritime villas in different areas of Italy can be identied. The picture that emerges, especially when comparing ancient sources with archaeological data, is quite striking. Maritime villas were much more complex than they might at rst appear. The economic possibilities exploited in such establishments were more numerous than those offered by country villas, ranging from sh-breeding and agriculture to pottery and the quarrying of stone, to mention just a few. Coastal estates combined their recreational amenities with the attractive prospect of rewarding economic investments and ease of distribution of goods

4 Varro Rust. 3.17.3: “abundant sh”; see also Pliny NH 9.168, who species that the villa was modest: Huius (i.e., C. Hirrius) villam infra quam modicam XL piscinae vendiderunt. 5 Columella Rust. 8.16.5. 6 Varro Rust. 3.17.2: Illae autem maritimae piscinae nobilum [. . .] magis ad oculos pertinent, quam ad vesicam, et potius marsippium domini exinaniunt, quam implent. 7 Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.78: “of the estates in Cumae and Puteoli”. 8 D’Arms 1977.

VILLAE MARITIMAE

15

(i.e., shipping by sea). Philostratos, in describing the coastal property of the sophist Damian, mentions harbor moles securing the anchorage for the coming and going of merchant ships.9 The value of maritime villas as economic enterprises as well as leisure retreats undoubtedly increased their appeal, which helps to explain their proliferation along the coasts of Italy and the provinces.

The Villa Maritima in Ancient Literary Sources As X. Lafon has pointed out,10 the term villa maritima is problematic in both usage and meaning. Some ancient sources and modern historians use the term to refer, starting from the second century b.c., to all coastal villas—regardless of their actual proximity to the shoreline—whose common characteristic was luxury, as compared with the frugality of villae rusticae. Other scholars, in particular archaeologists, feel the need to be more precise, and apply the term villa maritima only to those establishments built right on the waterfront, with attendant structures focused in one way or another on the sea itself, such as piscinae, harbors, or pavilions. It is this denition that is followed, for example, by F. Piccarreta, in the volume of Forma Italiae devoted to Astura: Denisco marittime solo le ville dotate di apprestamenti a mare, costiere tutte le altre comprese nella fascia litoranea, anche quando sono vicinissime al mare.11

Although this seems at rst a reasonable criterion in the construction of categories and terminology about maritime villas, has the potential to lead to some evident contradictions. For example, for those following this rigid distinction, villas built on a coastline with high cliffs—in other words, villas not making “physical” contact with the sea—would not be considered maritime villas at all. From this point of view, then, a villa such as the Villa Iovis on Capri would not fall into the category of villae maritimae.12 This seems to me too rigid an application of the

9

Philostr. VS 2.23, cited in Purcell 1987: 192, n. 18. Lafon 1981: 297 ff. See also Lafon 2001: 205 for an analysis of the use of the adjective maritimus in ancient texts. As noted also by Gros 2001: 266, the expression villa maritima appears only with Cornelius Nepos, but it does not occur in Cato, Cicero or Varro. 11 Piccarreta 1977: 17, n. 48. 12 See Mingazzini and Pster 1946: 41: “La villa Iovis invece esula da questo tipo perché situata troppo in alto per potersi considerare marittima”. 10

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principles of categorization, especially when we know that in Baiae and other areas, in the same time period, there were villas built on high cliffs and villas built right on the shoreline.13 In the following pages, therefore, the term villa maritima will be used in a more exible fashion, to refer to any villa located very near to the sea. I am using the word “maritime” as interchangeable with “coastal.” As we will see, the architectural typology of villas may vary according to their position with respect to the shoreline, but there are no major differences in the social function of villas located in coastal areas, whatever the distance that separates them from the sea. Literary sources do not offer as complete and detailed a record of maritime villas through the ages as we would like; in their accounts many aspects are taken for granted. Leaving aside passages dealing in a straightforward way with the architecture of maritime villas, what we nd in the sources is the “idea” of the coastal villa which was valid for members of the upper class. The association between maritime villas and the display of luxury and wealth appears early in the sources, at about the same time as the proliferation of the villas themselves. In particular, we nd moral condemnation of excessive display deviating from proper social behavior. Valerius Maximus recounts an episode in which the censor Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla issues a nota censoria against the augur M. Aemilius Lepidus Porcina in 125 b.c., because his villa—located in the territory of Alsium and so presumably maritime—“crimine nimis sublime extructae villae in Alsiensi agro.”14 The interest of the censor in this matter shows how excessive architectural display was felt to be “immoral” and could be prosecuted as such. It also shows how maritime villas were part of the elite struggle for personal prestige and political power: Porcina was an old enemy of both Cassius Longinus and his colleague in the censorship, Cn. Servilius Caepio.15 It has been suggested that the measure against Porcina was prompted by the necessity of avoiding confusion between

13

Pliny Ep. 9.7, passage quoted in n. 29. Val. Max. 8.1, Damn. 7: “(was prosecuted) on a charge of having erected a villa, located in the territory of Alsium, too splendidly (or, more precisely, “to an improper height”, as in Shackleton Bailey’s translation in the Loeb edition, 2000). According to Vell. Pat. 2.10.1, Porcina was also punished for renting a house for 6000 sesterces. 15 In 137 b.c., Lepidus as consul opposed the ballot law proposed by the tribunus plebis Cassius Ravilla (Broughton 1951, vol. I: 484). 14

VILLAE MARITIMAE

17

forms used in private and religious architecture.16 In my opinion, it is clear that Porcina was punished for trying to achieve too much power, both socially and politically, by means of lavish architecture. This incident also shows the symbolic value of maritime villas, in the same way that the houses of the elite in Rome had a strong symbolic value.17 The owner of a maritime villa could become the object of censure, particularly when it was felt that the money spent on these private estates ought instead to have been used for public building and to benet the community. Such is Varro’s opinion of the rich villas of Lucullus and Metellus, built pessimo publico;18 and the speech of Scipio Aemilianus reported by Aulus Gellius,19 which refers to maritime villas as expolitissimae extructae, follows this same trend. Indeed, the contrast between what, in the private sphere, is called luxuria, and in the public sphere, magnicentia,20 is a recurring theme in Roman political and moralizing writings in general. The works of Cicero, and in particular his letters, offer precious information on real estate, including maritime villas, owned by members of the elite.21 The political rivalry in Rome between the aristocratic nobilitas and the so-called homines novi expressed itself also in the geographical location of coastal villas. Senators tended to have villas in the same areas and, although information about landowners in the sources relates mostly to prominent gures and their circles, it seems that there was a tendency to try and exclude “lower” social groups (such as homines novi and freedmen) from certain fashionable areas. De facto, people outside the Roman nobility found ways of owning villas in “elite locations.” Cicero tells us in a very interesting passage in the De Legibus that Lucius Lucullus had a knight and a freedman for neighbors in Tusculum, a vacation spot long favored by the nobilitas. In the context of stressing the need for prominent men to set a good example for the whole of society, Cicero recalls the case of Lucullus, rebuked for the luxury of his villa in Tusculum. Although Lucullus replied that his neighbors had

16

Lafon 2001: 59: sanctuary built on terraces and maritime villas built on multiple terraces. 17 See Treggiari 1999. 18 Varro Rust. 1.13.7: villis pessimo publico aedicatis certent. 19 Gell. 2.20.4. 20 E.g., Cic. Mur. 76. 21 The fundamental study of villa owners in the Bay of Naples is D’Arms 1970. For studies of senatorial real estate in general, see Shatzman 1975 and Andermahr 1998.

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luxurious villas too, and that he thought he ought to have the same privileges as members of the lower orders, Cicero held him responsible in any case, for it was Lucullus’ example that stirred up the others’ desire for luxury.22 This passage points to another condition rendering grand architecture and luxurious villas morally reprehensible: the social status of the owner. In fact, in this case, the attacks on ostentatious building reect anxieties about the disruption of the established social hierarchy.23 In the same way that Tusculum was the location par excellence for the nobiles in the countryside, on the coast Cumae was “reserved” for the elite. Owning a villa there in the rst century b.c. was an index of social status; Cicero, for example, saw his villa at Cumae as giving him greater dignitas.24 The desire to own a villa in a specic place as a status symbol could result in overcrowding, as well as in heavy social obligations, making the ideal of a quiet retreat and relaxation impossible. It is again Cicero who offers testimony in this direction. In another letter to Atticus, he denes Cumae as a pusilla Roma, a little Rome, and his villa as a domus,25 while in Formiae he claims to possess a basilica, not a villa, judging by all the people who crowd into his mansion.26 Social interactions between members of the elite and their peers, friends, and clientes took place in maritime villas more or less regularly, depending on the villa-density in the area and the vicinity of towns. Dinner invitations were exchanged, political meetings convened, and invitations for a holiday sojourn extended to friends. Atticus’ wife and daughter spent their holidays at Cicero’s villa in Cumae, and Cicero also invited Brutus there, although he declined the invitation.27 Prominent gures

22 Cic. Leg. 3.13.30: L. Lucullus, ferebatur, quasi commodissime respondisset, cum esset obiecta magnicentia villae Tusculanae, duo se habere vicinos, superiorem equitem Romanum, inferiorem libertinum; quorum cum essent magnicae villae, concedi sibi oportere, quod iis, qui inferiosis ordinis essent, liceret. Non vides, Luculle, a te id ipsum natum, ut illi cuperent? On the “political” function of Lucullus’ villa, see also Cic. Sest. 93. 23 See Edwards 1993, Chapter 4. The animosity towards the rich and powerful freedmen of Claudius and their luxurious buildings is notorious. For instance, the building activity of Posides, one of Claudius’ favored freedmen (Suet. Claud. 28), becomes in passing a target for Juvenal (14.91). See also Pliny NH 31.2. 24 Cic. Att. 1.13. 25 Cic. Att. 5.2.2. A different picture of Cumae is given by Juvenal (3.2–3), who describes the area as “deserted” (vacuis (. . .) Cumis (. . .) unum civem donare Sibyllae). 26 The same kinds of considerations led Pliny to prefer his villa in Tuscis to those in Tusculum, Tibur, and Praeneste, because there: nulla necessitas togae; nemo arcessitor ex prossimo; placida omnia et quiescentia (Ep. 5.6). 27 Cic. Att. 12.36.

VILLAE MARITIMAE

19

had not only a number of villas and deversoria where they could stop for the night during their frequent travels, but also a network of friends whose hospitality they could count on.28 If we proceed to analyze the literary sources of the Empire which refer to maritime villas, we see that they place particular emphasis on the dominant feature of such establishments: the enjoyment of panoramic views of the sea and coastline. Since this aspect is emphasized, it is not surprising that in several instances we nd an equation between maritime villas and villas built on the shores of lakes or rivers: both have as focal point their relationship with water. Pliny the Younger does not hesitate to equate the villas he is building on the shores of Lake Como with his friend Romanus’ maritime villas, or to explain their architectural typology as following that of the maritime villas in Baiae.29 Nor was Pliny the only writer to make this kind of comparison. Seneca proposed the same equation in one of his letters to Lucilius, and the poet Martial considered the villas of the Alban hills to be “maritime” because of the view they had of the lake.30 But there is no systematic reference in the sources to maritime villas as a place for possible economic enterprises,31 comparable to what is detailed for the rural villa. This feature is constant from the Republic to the Empire. In Cicero’s writings, despite the frequency with which he mentions his own or his friends’ maritime villas, there is no mention of the involvement of their properties in any economic activity producing revenue for the owner. Considering Cicero’s connections with freedmen in Puteoli, one can infer complex commercial transactions that must also have involved maritime properties—villas were part of fundi—but this is never openly stated. Even though Varro includes pisciculture in the pastio villatica, and Columella dedicates several paragraphs to the proper construction of piscinae, nevertheless the focus of their work remains the countryside and agriculture, as evidenced by the title of their works. Varro and Columella might more or less reluctantly admit the commercial value of sh-breeding, but for them the villa maritima remains primarily a display of luxury compared to the productivity 28 See Cic. Att. 7.5.3, concerning the hospitality he expects to receive in the villas of various friends during his travels. See also Chevallier 1988. 29 Pliny Ep. 9.7: nam hoc quoque no dissimile, quod ad mare tu, ego ad Larium lacum (aedico villas); Altera (villa) imposita saxis, more baiano, lacum prospicit; altera, aeque more baiano, lacum tangit. 30 Sen. Ep. 89.21; Mart. 5.1. 31 On this subject see Chapter 2.

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of the villa rustica. In fact, the examples of productive pastio villatica in maritime villas discussed by Varro are not presented as typical of maritime villas, but rather as exceptions to the rule of such estates’ unproductiveness.32 It must be mentioned that Columella, listing the potentially good sites for a villa at the beginning of his treatise, does consider a villa built by the sea, specifying that it should be located on a high cliff and not on the beach.33 The letters of Pliny the Younger contain references to economic aspects of his rural properties, but the letter devoted to his Laurentinum,34 while it mentions g trees, mulberry trees, and milk production on the property, does not really convey the idea that these were economic enterprises; rather, it implies that these products were intended for consumption in the villa.35 A much later testimony, the mention and description in Rutilius Namatianus’ De Reditu Suo of the salterns annexed to Albinius’ villa at Vada Volterrana,36 is less ambiguous, especially given its context in a celebratory poem. The salt yielded by these salterns was clearly not intended for the villa itself. The reasons for downplaying the “economy” of maritime villas appear to be mainly ideological. The aristocratic idea that “proper” wealth came from land and agriculture led to a belief in the superiority of the villa rustica as an economic model. In particular, it is the ideal model of the villa in Sabina—a region renowned for its fertility—that can be traced in the sources from Cato onward. Reality was quite different from the ideal. The famous lex Claudia of 218 b.c., for example, which limits the extent to which senators can be involved in sea-trade, presupposes their already-regular involvement in it.37 Some of the senatorial properties of this time, from which the trade 32 Two cases: the villa on the beach near Ostia owned by the homo novus M. Seius, where wild boars, pigeons, bees, peacocks, etc. were raised, that the character of the Varronian dialogue Appius Pulcher wants to buy because of its protability, and that of M. Puppius Piso Frugi on the island of Planasia (Pianosa) (Varro Rust. 3.6.2). The case of Seius is discussed further in Chapter 3. 33 Columella Rust. 1.5: eademque semper mare recte conspicit cum pulsatur ac uctu respergitur; numquam ex ripa. 34 Pliny Ep. 2.17. 35 At Ep. 4.6, Pliny refers to the Laurentinum as the only property that gives him revenues, but he is referring to his intellectual production. On the unproductiveness of the ager Laurentinus as a literary topos, see Purcell 1998: 18 ff. 36 Rut. Namat. 1.475. The description of the salterns echoes Vitr. De Arch. 8.3.10 (see the commentary on De Reditu by E. Castorina, Firenze 1967). 37 The Lex, proposed by the tribune Q. Claudius and supported by the senator C. Flaminius, prohibited senators and their sons from owning ships with sea-going capacity and a cargo space above 300 amphorae.

VILLAE MARITIMAE

21

goods came, were very probably fundi maritimi,38 and the early appearance of maritime villas on the coasts of Terracina and Sperlonga may be connected to the exploitation of coastal fundi for the production of wine (caecubum).39 Still, this is not the aspect of coastal villas that prevails in the sources. Instead, the maritime villa acquired an ideological dimension of quite a different sort. By the rst century a.d., when a good part of the Italian coast had a complex and developed “architectural maritime façade”,40 the villa maritima had become a metaphor for human control over nature and a symbol of civilization in the natural landscape. If architecture can, as a general proposition, signify power in different ways,41 coastal villas went beyond the public proclamation of the owner’s status. Take, for instance, Statius’ poem celebrating Pollius’ maritime villa in Surrentum. The poet chose to celebrate Pollius by praising his villa, to the point that the owner, who built the villa, appears rst as a tamer of nature, then as its creator.42 Purcell has identied three stereotyped ways in which the “powerful” expressed control over nature by altering the landscape.43 The rst is to tamper with the sea: from the construction of harbors and pontoon bridges44 to promenade platforms right on the water and dining rooms, such as the one described by Pliny,45 exposed to salt spray. The second is to control rivers, creating canals and waterfalls; in domestic architecture, the garden is where these types of displays were typically set.46 The third is to create articial altitude. Into this category

38 See Cic. Verr. 2.5.46: Ne illud quidem quisquam poterat suspicari, te in Italia maritimum habere fundum et ad fructus deportandos onerariam navem comparare, where a direct connection is implied between the possession of a cargo ship and fundi maritimi. 39 Lafon 1981; 1991. 40 Term used by Ducellier in his study on coastal architecture in medieval Albania. A. Ducellier, La façade maritime de l’Albanie au Moyen Age: Durazzo et Valona du XI e au XV e siècle, Thessaloniki 1981. 41 Drerup 1966. 42 Stat. Silv. 2.2, in particular ll. 54 ff. On this poem and the metaphorical signicance of villa-celebration, see also Bergmann 1991. 43 Purcell 1987: 191 ff. 44 Caligula built such a bridge in the Bay of Naples (Baiae-Puteoli). See Suet. Calig. 19. 45 Pliny Ep. 2.17.5. See also Hor. Odes 2.18.20, 3.1.33 ff. and commentary by Nisbet and Hubbard 1978: 288 ff. on the denouncement of extravagance in building as a literary topos. 46 This medium as an expression of power was not peculiar only to the Roman world, but can be clearly traced through the ages. A beautiful example of the creation of ponds and waterfalls as a display of power comes to my mind from a much later age: the waterfalls and fountains of the magnicent Reggia di Caserta, the “hunting

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fall all those architectural features that constitute the open-front villa maritima type—the piling up of loose material to make articial banks, the sculpting of hillsides to suit the proprietors’ purposes, the creation of newly level surfaces or terraces through the construction of masonry substructures, and so on. Villas in general were also equated with cities on a symbolic level. There is a recurrent comparison in Latin texts between villas and cities; it appears in different literary genres and in different periods, and it can have either positive or negative connotations. Sallust, for example, mentions houses and villas built up like cities as a sign of moral corruption.47 In Statius, on the contrary, the comparison is purely eulogistic. Regardless of the authors’ own agendas, the fact that this equation appears constantly in Latin texts is signicant. In my opinion, this comparison not only celebrates implicitly the owner’s vast wealth, but also suggests the idea of control over space. The city has always represented civilization and the imposition of order over the wildness of nature. In fact, the very process of founding a city and laying down its grid requires the application of human rationalism and normalization to the variety of the natural landscape. If we turn to examine the physical layout of villas, we nd that it very often resembled that of cities, on a smaller scale. Not only were villas “crowned by monumental structures and towers rising high above ground or fronting (. . .) the sea in the manner of a Hellenistic harbor town”,48 but they would include typically urban buildings such as baths and small temples. In one case, the plan of a villa complex is oriented according to the cardinal points indicated by Vitruvius in his theory of the correct foundation of a city.49 In other cases, villas even imitated on purpose city walls and monumental city gates. The remains of several villas in the territory of Cosa present miniature turrets along the walls that enclose the gar-

house” of the Bourbon king of Naples, built by the architect Vanvitelli. In order to guarantee the water supply needed, many infrastructure works were realized, including the famous Ponte della Valle, inspired from Roman engineering design. The gardens of the Reggia were, indeed, an affront to the town, which constantly experienced difculties with the water supply. 47 Sall. Cat. 12.3. 48 Purcell 1987: 197. 49 The villa of Torre Gianola (Catalogue: L111), near Formia. For the observation that the complex layout followed Vitruvius’ instructions for the orientation of a city, see Ciccone 1990: 6–8.

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dens.50 These turrets have no clear defensive function;51 their purpose is to evoke the appearance of city walls through scenography, playing with the equation villa-city. Similarly, it is interesting to note that the series of towers that defended the city of Cosa itself were concentrated on the sea-side only, indicating that their main function was to serve as a deterrent and at the same time to be seen from the sea. The towers’ strategic purpose was clearly secondary, since only one side of the town was protected. The intentional “replication” of the city wall of Cosa in the wall with turrets at Le Colonne, one of the villas of the Ager Cosanus with this kind of retaining wall, has been noted by S. Dyson.52 Particularly suggestive in this context is his hypothesis that a collapsed arched-way discovered during excavation of Le Colonne replicated the city gate of Cosa. In this same context I would interpret mosaics found in villas (usually rural villas) depicting city-walls, such as the ones discovered in the villa at Castel di Guido and the villa of Livia at Prima Porta, as underlining the symbiosis between villas and cities.53 (Figure 1) The monumental architecture of maritime villas built on multiple terraces and levels, articulated by porticoes and pavilions, presented an impressive view for anybody navigating along the coast. The complex architecture of many maritime villas was clearly intended to be viewed as a landmark from the sea. In the case of villas that could be accessed only from the sea, like the ones built on islands, the importance of the sea-view is obvious. In some cases, the main entrance to a villa was on the ocean-facing side, for someone arriving by water, rather than on the inland side facing the street that provided access to the villa by

50 Settenestre, La Provinca (sic!) and Le Colonne (T1, T2, and T3); Quilici and Quilici Gigli 1978. See also Dyson 2002 for the villa Le Colonne. 51 Indeed, the turrets are solid and not accessible, despite having windows. 52 Dyson 2002: 213. 53 See also the threshold of the tablinum of the Roman villa at Villa S. Rocco, Francolise (Cotton and Metraux 1985: 105–107) and the mosaic fragment recorded recently at the villa Astura-Le Grottacce (Catalogue L20) in Attema, de Haas and Nijboer 2003: 131. Examples are also known in urban contexts, such as Pompeii, ins. VIII.3.8 or the Domus B in Priverno (Righi 1983). This iconography is not limited to Italy: many examples are known from North Africa. One such mosaic depicts a villa with corner towers (the castellum of Nador, on which see L. Anselmino et al., Il castellum del Nador. Storia di una fattoria tra Tipasa e Caesarea (I–VI sec. d.C.), Roma 1989). It is worth mentioning here that large courtyard, fortied villas with towers were in use both in Sicily and North Africa as early as the late third century b.c., and that Roman authors refer to Punic farms as turres or castella (App. Pun. 101 and 117). On this see Fentress 2001: 257–260.

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Figure 1. Prima Porta, Villa “Ad Gallinas Albas”, drawing showing a detail of the mosaic from the atrium (A. Wilkins).

land, thus indicating that the sea-side view of the villa complex was the privileged one. Such an arrangement occurs at Villa Plinio at Castel Fusano, in spite of the presence of the Via Severiana. Considering that scholars generally admit a correlation between the widespread proliferation of maritime villas and the disappearance (or at least the considerable reduction) of the threat represented by piracy,54 one could postulate that the image of a coastline dotted with villas came to evoke the idea of security, of safety on the water, and, ultimately, of the control imposed by the Roman state upon land and sea. The menace represented by pirates was, indeed, felt to be a very serious problem in Rome, leading to the lex Gabinia of 67 b.c. In that year Ostia itself had been attacked by pirates, who destroyed the Roman eet there and took control of the city for several days.55 The pacication of the sea, therefore, had an important place in the political propaganda of the prominent gures of the late Republic. Pompey strongly emphasized his success in freeing the sea from piracy, listing it

54

Lafon 1981: 299; Purcell 1998: 11. Cic., De imp. Cn. Pompei 33; on pirate attacks, P. De Souza, Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge 1999: 133–145. 55

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among his military deeds when he celebrated his triumph in 61 b.c.56 Some years later, Octavian celebrated the general pacication of the sea after the struggles against the “pirate” Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey, and against Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra.57 Cicero stresses the disadvantages of maritime cities, which are dangerously exposed to surprise attacks from the sea, contrasting their cupiditas mercandi et navigandi with the cultus agrorum et armorum of rural centers.58 His intention is to exalt the unique situation of Rome—which, as a river-city, possesses all the advantages of a maritime center (i.e., ease of shipment of goods) and none of the disadvantages—but in this comparison we can nonetheless detect the sense of danger associated with the coastline and the idealization of the country as “safe”. In antiquity, the upper class had a high level of physical mobility. Members of the Roman elite traveled often from one estate to another, and, whenever it was possible and convenient, they traveled by sea. In my opinion, literary descriptions59 and painted views of maritime villas allude to and stress the importance of the sea’s safety with regard to villas by always taking the sea as the viewer’s point of observation. If to this we add the fact that military support, during the turbulent years of the Civil Wars, could also come from coastal estates, as evidenced by the case of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the role of the villa maritima I am proposing as a “metaphor of power” in the collective memory of the elite becomes clearer. Caesar reports in the De Bello Civili that in 49 b.c., Domitius, assigned as proconsul to Cisalpine Gaul, raised an army of slaves, freedmen, and tenants (or farmers) from his properties 56 Diodorus (60.4) reports the text of an inscription set up by Pompey to celebrate his own deeds: “Pompey the Great, the son of Cnaeus, imperator, freed all the shores of the oicumene and all the islands in the Okeanos from the war against pirates [. . .]”. The praefatio that was displayed during Pompey’s triumph is reported by Pliny (NH 7.98): Hoc est breviarum eius ab oriente, triumphi vero quem duxit a. d. III Kal. Oct. M. Pisone M. Messala coss. Praefatio haec fuit: cum oram maritimam praedonibus liberasset et imperium maris populo Romano restituisset. Finally, see also CIL I.2500, a bilingual inscription from Delos reproducing the Lex Gabinia de insula Deli, the introduction of which mentions the pirates who for many years had devastated the world ( predones quei orbem terrarum complureis annos vastarint) and the pacication of the sea by Pompey (re publica pulcerrume administrata imperio amplicato pace per orbem terrarum confecta). 57 As Purcell 1998: 17 justly pointed out, Octavian and Agrippa were able to defeat Sextus rst by taking control of the coasts of Latium and Campania and then by occupying the Lucrino Lake, Misenum, and many coastal villas. 58 Cic. Rep. 2.7–10: “the immoderate desire for trading and sailing” versus “the pursuit of agriculture and arms”. 59 For example Stat. Silv. 2.2, who describes Pollius’ villa as seen approaching from the sea.

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in the area of Cosa and Giglio Island for the purpose of seizing Massilia.60 On the basis of this passage and the mention, in the Itinerarium Maritimum, of a Domitiana positio, it has been proposed that, in addition to the one on Giglio Island, the various villas that stood on the Argentario Peninsula, together with the one on Giannutri Island (for a total of ve villas), belonged to the Domitii Ahenobarbi.61 The status of the preservation of these archaeological remains and the information we have about each site is very uneven. Nonetheless, it seems certain that these villas present building phases ranging from the mid-rst century b.c. to the second century a.d.,62 and that from the rst phase presented an “open-front” maritime façade, marked by terraces, substructures, and colonnades, easily visible to someone approaching from the sea. It is important to remember that both Giglio Island and the Argentario Peninsula were on the sea route from Italy to Sardinia and Africa (and vice versa) up until the fth century a.d., as shown by shipwrecks,63 as well as along the commercial route to Gaul, for which a great deal of wine, in particular, was destined in the late second and rst centuries b.c. Furthermore, in this specic case, the villas on Giglio and Giannutri were within sight of each other.64 If the villa at Porto Ercole also belonged to the same proprietors, thus enclosing that inner stretch of sea in an imaginary triangle, it is possible that this fact gave the owner of the villas special rights on that part of the sea.65 Overall, a maritime

60 Caes. BCiv. 1.34: profectum item Domitium ad occupandam Massiliam navibus actuaris septem, quas Igilii et in Cosano a privatis coactas servis, libertis, colonis suis compleverat; see also Caes. BCiv. 1.56.3: Certs sibi deposcit naves Domitius atque has colonis pastoribusque quos secum adduxerat complet. For a discussion whether to interpret the term colonus in these passages as tenants or farmers see De Neeve 1984, Appendix I. 61 See Manacorda 1980. For the villas, see Catalogue: T19; T20; T29; T30; T31. Aubert 1994: 127 hints that L. Domitius must have owned hundreds of thousands of iugera, since he plausibly promised to give 40 iugera to each of about thirty cohorts (Caes. BCiv. 1.17.3). More likely he was expecting to take this land out of the properties conscated from his enemies in the event of success in the war. 62 Against a Republican date for the villa at S. Liberata on the Argentario Peninsula, see Lafon 2001: 60, who supports his argument with architectural typology and the dating of materials found in archeological surveys (the oldest being from the time of Nero). 63 Martelli 1982. 64 There were also lighthouses atop the villas on both islands. Horden and Purcell 2000: 125–126 for coastal villas as symbol of a tamed sea. 65 This was suggested to me by Prof. R. Brilliant. We know that in the case of a piscina built along the shore, its owner acquired property rights to that sea-enclosure and, it seems, some shing rights in the waters around the piscina. Roman law in general considered the sea and the shore to be res nullius (common to all people; Dig. 1.8.21: et quidem narurali iure omnium communia sunt illa: aer, aqua prouens et mare, et per hoc litora maris). The ius piscandi derived from the status of the sea as res nullius, and

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villa displaying grand architecture could convey, in the codied language of the elite, several messages: (1) The power of the owner, who was able to maintain and defend such an estate. If scholars are correct in assuming that the territory of Cosa and the Argentario Peninsula, which had been actively involved in the ghting of the Civil Wars, had been sacked by pirates, the villas of the Domitii in the area must have been an even more powerful sign of control over that territory. (2) Military power, especially in the tumultuous years of the Late Republic. I have already quoted the example of Domitius Ahenobarbus. Cicero makes the point even more clear in talking about the fundus owned by Clodius: Ante fundum Clodii, quo in fundo propter insanas illas substructiones facile hominum mille versabatur valentium edito adversarii atque excelso loco superiorem se fore putarat Milo, et ob eam rem eum locum ad pugnam potissimus elegerat?.66

(3) The civilizing power of the owner, as in the case of Pollio in Statius’ poem. Villa owners consciously played with this equation, to the point of staging myths with related meaning. Hortensius, for instance, held banquets in a park he had on his estate, which was populated with wild beasts. The guests were entertained by a singer dressed as Orpheus, thus evoking his taming power over wild nature. This concept is connected, in my opinion, to the idea of the maritime villa as symbol of the pacication of the world by the Roman state. Monumental maritime villas were built not only for the enjoyment of the panoramic views they offered, but also to be viewed, which explains why in paintings villas are always seen from the sea.67 (Figure 2) I believe that the many painted views depicting maritime villas in private houses, starting in the rst century a.d., included also the right to dry, store, and repair nets, to construct shelters, and, by extension, to establish and operate a saltern (Curtis 1991: 149–50). But according to the Digest (41.1.14.30), pilings built in the sea were considered res privatae as long as they did not obstruct rivers and harbors, which were considered res publicae. On this, see Higginbotham 1997: 59. 66 Cic. Mil. 20.53: “in front of Clodius’ estate, that estate in which, because of those absurd substructures there were easily a thousand strong men, on that high and raised ground belonging to his adversary did Milo think that he would prevail and had he with that view chosen that spot for the battle above all others?.” This was a rural estate, not maritime. To stress Clodius’ hubris Cicero also claims that the substructures of his villa, extending to the Albano Lake, violated the sacred altars and cults of Alba Longa (31.85). 67 As Lafon 2001: 218.

Figure 2. Fresco depicting a maritime villa. From Pompeii, House of M. Lucretius Fronto, now in Naples National Museum (Fototeca Unione- AAR).

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signied a pacied world by means of the representation of a particularly humanized landscape. I consider these landscape paintings as the domestic counterpart of geographical maps displayed in public spaces, such as the map of Agrippa in the Porticus Vipsania,68 indicating the control of the Roman Empire over the world. Sources seem to indicate that the self-celebration of a proprietor by means of his maritime villa could reach even the “divine realm.” In Varro’s account, Licinius Lucullus seems to have been “competing” with Neptune himself, by creating in his shponds a maritime environment under his control. When engineering works at his villa on the small island of Nisida allowed constant fresh sea-water in the ponds, Lucullus did not need anymore to “yield to Neptune in the matter of shing.”69 If we take into account the celebratory and ideological practices of the Roman elite and their identication with divinities, which has a long history in Roman society,70 then the twelve villas on Capri named by Tiberius after the Olympian gods regain their powerful symbolic meaning. It may be possible that this ideological dimension of villa-estates was also in part the result of the construction, in some cases, of villas on spots previously occupied by sanctuaries.71 A correlation between the monumental architecture of sanctuaries and private architecture, particularly that of villas, is generally admitted in

68 In the Roman world, the use of the metaphor of control over nature to signify power was connected to an interest in geography. The ability to produce precise maps has always been, in different ages and societies, a sign of the power of an empire (cf. the British Colonial Empire and the National Geographic Society). In Rome, the public display of maps and representations of other countries was always related to the idea of military victories and triumphs. Consider the case of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, who placed a map of Sardinia in the temple of Mater Matuta in 174 b.c. on the occasion of his second triumph. On geography and politics, see Nicolet 1988. 69 Varro Rust. 3.17.9: L. Lucullum, posteaquam perfodisset montem ac maritumum umen immisisset in piscinas (. . .) Neptuno non cedere de piscatu. In a previous section (3.17.2), Varro made a distinction between fresh-water ponds, found among “the common folk” (apud plebem) and sea-water ones, owned by the nobility, for which “only Neptune can furnish the sh as well as the water”. 70 Just two of the many possible examples: Augustus impersonating Apollo (see also the famous dinner he organized with the guests impersonating the twelve Olympian gods, Suet. Aug. 70) and his opponent Marcus Antonius impersonating Dionysus. 71 The villa at Punta della Vipera, villa “della Standa,” etc.; see discussion infra: 45 and Catalogue: L182; L104). Under the Empire, the illegal occupation of sacred soil and luci seemed to have been quite common in Italy, due to the profusion of landholders, as stated by Agennius Urbicus, De Controv. Agr. 47 Th.: in Italiam autem densitas possessorum multum improbe facit, et lucos sacros occupant, quorum solum indubitate P. R. est, etiam si in nibus coloniarum aut municipiorum (quoted by Lo Cascio 2003: 1).

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modern studies.72 While the monumentalizing of sanctuaries, especially in Latium, is very often attributed to local aristocracies, monumental maritime villas tend always to be linked to Roman elite owners. In my opinion, we should also seriously consider local ownership of maritime villas, at least in areas where local elites enjoyed economic prosperity.73 The construction, for instance, of numerous coastal villas in the area of Fundi is connected by Lafon to the intensication of viticulture and the commercialization of the Fundanum wine by local proprietors. This area shows signs of considerable capital investment in land works aimed at improving agricultural production. In the area of Pantanello, for example, some 6500 Dressel 1 amphorae, laid head-to-toe, were employed in a remarkable drainage system of the plain. In the case of Cosa and the surrounding territory, where the well known villa of Settenestre has been connected to the senatorial family of the Sestii, some of the other villas should perhaps be related to members of the municipal elite of that town, since their involvement in commercial ventures in that territory is well-attested, as in the case of the Pacuvii or Gavii, owners of glinae.74 Maritime villas gave an opportunity to assert one’s power against rivals, and this “language”, far from being exclusive to the senators of Rome, was mastered by locals elites as well. Since the best, most dominant positions—from the topographic point of view—were limited, competition expressed itself through engagement, in the most spectacular ways, with the liquid element, as in Lucullus’ case.75 However, the creator and owner of a maritime villa walked a ne line. The civilizing “power” of the villa-owner could easily degenerate, becoming morally questionable. Philosophers and moralists attacked the re-creation of nature as an unnatural and immoral practice. Already in Augustan times, we nd Papirius Fabianus censuring luxurious landowners who “copy even mountains and forests in their damp houses, and in the sunless smog green places, coastlines, and streams.”76 In other sources we nd that when technology achieved anything in deance of the laws of nature, it suggested tyrannical behavior. Velleius Paterculus 72

Coarelli 1983a. For a reference to municipales and their villas see Cic. ad Att. 8.13.2, despairingly remarking that they care only about their properties and money (nihil prorsus aliud curant nisi agros, nisi villulas, nisi nummulos suos). 74 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 148. 75 Lafon 2001: 217. 76 Apud Sen. Controv. 2.1.3. 73

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reports that Pompey called Lucullus “Xerxes in a toga” for his daring building projects on the Bay of Naples,77 equaling in hubris the deeds of the Persian king. Within the ideological realm of villas, special mention must be made of maritime villas on islands, used in particular by the Julio-Claudian emperors as places of internment. Augustus conned various members of his family to islands, most notably Agrippa Postumus and the two Iulias (Augustus’ daughter and granddaughter). Suetonius, when referring to these events, does not explicitly say that they were conned in villa or in praediis. The harshness of the penalty is evoked just by saying that someone was sent to the “island.”78 On the other hand, archaeology has revealed the remains of villas on islands that had most likely already become Imperial property in the time of Augustus, such as Ponza (Pontia), Ventotene (Pandataria), and Pianosa (Planasia). These villas are as elegant and luxurious as any on the mainland, equipped with ponds for sh-breeding, baths, and panoramic views. Thus, connement implied neither a lower standard of dwelling nor the renunciation of comforts like baths and sophisticated food (although we are told that Iulia was forbidden to have wine), but rather a complete curtailment of one’s social life. Visits were not regularly permitted, and the island location was sought specically because it allowed for complete control over anyone who might approach. Therefore, it is not the villa as architectural form that is equated with the idea of connement, but the geographic isolation of the island. It is ironic that the “villa,” emblematic of a network of social relations, economic investments, and the assertion of one’s status in society, in this case had none of these characteristics, being quite the opposite: a symbol of complete retirement from the public scene. Undoubtedly, in insula expressed this idea of isolation more poignantly than in villa. It is necessary to mention one last aspect of coastal villas—indeed, of all villas—as represented in the sources, namely that the villa and its estate were “places of memory.” An estate often housed the monumental tombs or mausolea of family members of the owner or past owners, 77 Vell. Pat. 2.33.4: Lucullus (. . .) quem ob iniectas moles mari et receptum suffossis montibus in terras mare haud infacete Magnus Pompeius Xerxen togatum vocare adsueverat; see also Plut. Luc. 39.3, who attributes these words to Tubero the Stoic. 78 For instance Suet. Aug. 65 about the transfer of Agrippa Postumus from Surrentum: Agrippam (. . .) in insulam transportavit saepsitque insuper custodia militum; and about Iulia transferred on the mainland: ex insula in continentem lenioribusque paulo condicionibus transtulit eam.

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chosen as the best place to preserve the memory of the deceased. Cicero’s well-known desire to build a shrine to Tullia in Astura is just one of many examples. Of course, changes in ownership and neglect on the part of those in charge of building and maintaining a tomb could jeopardize the successful execution of such a choice, as shown in the well known example of Verginius Rufus’ tomb in his former villa at Alsium, still unnished ten years after his death, as we learn from one of Pliny the Younger’s letters.79 The topographic connection between villas and monumental tombs became even stronger during the second and third centuries a.d. During this period, sentimentalism appears more outspoken in the commemoration of the deceased, even in epitaphs put up by masters for deceased slaves.80 The creation of complex “commemorative and sacred landscapes” in memory of the wife Anna Regilla and other deceased family members by Herodes Atticus in his estates around Rome and in Greece has been recently analyzed.81 This closer interacting with the cult of the dead and changed spiritual attitudes towards the idea of death culminates in the fourth and fth centuries a.d., when tombs and mausolea are physically integrated into the villa-building.82 Since villas could preserve memory, it is no surprise that in seeking to destroy someone’s “social memory,” villas could be targeted, too. Augustus ordered the complete demolition of a rich and elegant villa built by his granddaughter, Iulia.83 As has been suggested,84 this drastic decision must have been related to the disgrace that fell upon Iulia and the intention to remove her from the social scene and collective

79 Pliny Ep. 6.10: Libuit etiam monimentum eius (i.e., Vergini) vedere, et vidisse paenuit. Est enim adhuc imperfectum, nec difcultas operis in causa, modici ac potius exigui, sed inertia eius cui cura mandata est. For a treatment of villas and monumental tombs, see the volume on villa gardens edited by MacDougall (MacDougall 1988) and Bodel 1997. 80 See for instance CIL VI.16913, cited by J. Griesbach, “Villa e mausoleo: mutamenti nel concetto della memoria nel suburbio romano”, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005: 113–123, p. 118. On the topic of monumental tombs in suburban estates see also L. Chiof, “Sepulchra in extremis nibus . . . etiam in mediis possessionibus sepulchra faciunt” in that same volume: 125–133. 81 Galli 2002. 82 See Griensbach, quoted at footnote 80 and also discussion in Chapter 8. 83 When Cicero was exiled, not only was his domus in Rome destroyed, but also parts of his villas in Tusculum and Formiae. 84 Bodel 1997: 10.

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memory, rather than to the mere dislike Augustus had for luxury, as stated by Suetonius.85 As we will see in Chapter 3, the ideological dimension occupied by rural estates is totally centered on the idea of productivity. In the next chapter maritime villas will be presented as centers of production perhaps in a more diversied way than country villas, but in this case the constructed “idea” of the maritime villa that we derived from the literary sources does not talk of production, but of architectural display and modication of the natural landscape. Also the painted views of coastal villas, which I mentioned earlier, do not realistically capture the “economy” of villas, by depicting, for instance, shponds,86 but focus on architecturally elaborated sea-fronts, meant to be seen and to bespeak the power of the owner.

The Archaeological Evidence Although the archaeological evidence regarding coastal villas is fragmentary, one can attempt to draw general conclusions. It is possible to get a general idea of the distribution of coastal villas, as well as their architectural typology and chronology. The highest concentration of coastal villas can be seen in the portion of coastline between Formiae and Monte Argentario. North of the Argentario Peninsula, the number of maritime villas is lower, at least according to the current available evidence. The chronology regarding the occupation of these sites cannot always be determined with certainty, but the general trend that appears is one of uninterrupted use of the mansions until late Imperial times.87 In terms of architectural typology, coastal villas do not differ substantially from country villas; both usually make use of a basis villae, an articial platform upon which the villa’s structures

85 Suet. Aug. 72: Ampla et operosa praetoria gravabatur. Et neptis quidam suae Iuliae, profuse ab ea extructa, etiam diruit ad solum. 86 Possibly, a mosaic emblema depicting a maritime villa, found in the villa of the Cecchignola in the suburbium of Rome and currently in the Museo Archeologico of Venice, depicts also a shpond, although it is difcult to work out the details of the representation. For a photo of the mosaic see De Franceschini 2005: 243. 87 The question of the chronology of villas will be examined in more detail in Chapter 8.

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rest. The most striking element that emerges when looking at a large sample of archaeological evidence pertaining to maritime villas is the constant presence of “production-quarters,” either partes rusticae for the processing of agricultural products, or potteries ( glinae) and other types of commercial activities, as we will see in detail in the following chapter. This aspect of “productivity” is at odds with the Roman ideological constructions about coastal villas delineated above. In the following section I shall offer an outline of recurrent architectural features of maritime villa sites, before passing on to the analysis of maritime villas as economic enterprises. Architectural Typology It is not my intention to offer an exhaustive and detailed study of villa architecture, for which a vast bibliography exists.88 Rather, I am offering a synthetic overview of the salient architectural features of maritime villas. The traditional typology of Italian villas is divided into two broad groups: the courtyard-villa and the portico-villa. If we focus on the architectural typology, coastal villas present recurrent features, and almost always fall into the category of portico-villas. The use of substructures, forming the basis villae, and of various terraces on which the building unfolds is a recurrent theme, not only when the morphology of the terrain required this type of engineering solution, but also when the terrain was rather at and high cliffs were absent. The villa at Marina di S. Nicola, for example, on the at, sandy coast of Latium near the ancient colony of Alsium, was built on two small hills and had two cryptoporticoes sustaining the quadriportico of the pars urbana. In this respect, maritime villas present the same features as country villas, which also show the recurrent use of substructures and multilevel

88

For the architectural history of villas, see McKay 1998, Mielsch 1987, Painter 1980, and Romizzi 2001; on maritime villas in particular: Lafon 1981. See also Frazer (ed.), The Roman villa. Villa urbana. Symposium on Classical Architecture, Philadelphia 1998 and MacDougall 1988. The recently published Lafon 2001 (in particular chapters 1–3) attempts a complete architectural history of the villa maritima, looking at possible models for the type found in Magna Graecia (Hellenistic villas), but also insisting on the internal evolution of Italian villas, which led to the different forms of maritime villas. On the origin and evolution of the villa in general, with some innovative and provocative suggestions, see also Terrenato 2001a.

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construction.89 It is not always possible to determine the layout and architectural typology of the different maritime villas, especially in the rst phase of occupation. When it is possible to verify this, however, the distribution on different terraces and the usage of open sea-front architecture seems to have been present from the very beginning as the main feature of the establishment. A relationship has been established between the architectural typology of monumental villas in the rst century b.c. and that of sanctuaries, especially in Latium (Preneste, Terracina, etc.).90 X. Lafon has recently proposed to look for archetypes in the Hellenistic terraced sanctuaries, like the one on the island of Cos. Lafon’s suggestion is based on the early date of Villa Prato (Sperlonga), which, preceding the rst-century monumental phase in Italian sanctuaries, also indicates that the later similarities between sacred and private architecture are to be understood as a two-way exchange process.91 However, the possible inuence of examples from Hellenistic Alexandria on “scenographic” villa architecture should also be considered. The open-front architectural typology is what we nd represented in so many painted views of maritime villas discovered in the villas of Stabiae or in the houses of Pompeii. These frescos, therefore, although depicting a partly idealized landscape, give us an idea of the appearance of the villas not only on the Bay of Naples, but also elsewhere on the Italian coastline. It seems reasonable to regard the use of an open sea-front as an indication that the sea and the coasts had reached a certain degree of safety. As we have seen in the previous section, many scholars believe that the defeat of piracy in the Mediterranean was the condicio sine qua non for the diffusion of maritime villas. In fact, we must imagine that the defense of villas built right on the shore and with an open sea front would have been rather difcult, requiring many men in case of an attack from the sea. The famous anecdote about Scipio Africanus is often quoted as proof of the menace pirates represented for villas. Valerius Maximus92 reports that while Scipio was in his villa

89 On substructures and subterranean rooms in Roman domestic architecture see the various contribution in the volume edited by Basso and Ghedini 2003; on substructures in particular, discussing various examples of country and maritime villa architecture see Z. Mari, “Substructiones”, in that same volume, 65–112. 90 Coarelli 1983a. 91 Lafon 2001: 58. Villa Prato, built on two terraces, is dated to the second half of the second century b.c. See Catalogue: L192. 92 Val. Max. 2.10.2b.

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at Liternum, a group of pirate chiefs disembarked and made for the villa of the famous Roman general. It turned out that, in this case, their intentions were not hostile. The pirates wanted to pay Scipio their respects, but the household, seeing them approaching, was sure of an attack. Everyone retired to the roof, armed and ready to resist the looting of the villa. This episode can be taken as an indication of the belief that raids by pirates targeting villas on the Italian shores had been widespread. Victory in the ght against piracy helps to explain the spread of maritime villas beginning in the rst century b.c. and the construction of villas further away from urban centers, whose defensive function was no longer a priority.93 However, in my opinion, the impact of the end of the Civil Wars on the architectural typology (for the open front type) and diffusion of maritime villas should not be underestimated. It has been pointed out that the years 30–20 b.c. saw a boom in the construction of maritime villas in response to the end of the civil strife.94 This is not to say that we do not have archeological or literary evidence about coastal villas dating to the second century b.c. It is known that Cornelia, the mother of the two Gracchi, had a villa at Misenum, for instance.95 But these early maritime villas differ in one notable respect from those built later—they were not built immediately on the shoreline, but on hills about 800 or 900 m from the sea; and in some cases they were fortied by walls, making them easier to defend. Archaeological evidence of this comes from the area of Sperlonga, where we nd a series of coastal villas of early date (as indicated by the substructures in opus polygonale dated to the second century b.c.)96 In particular, the so-called “Villa Prato” was built on a hill about 800 m from the coastline, next to the Via Flacca. The rst date of the structure, inferred from the building technique (Fourth Style opus polygonale) and

93 Lafon 2001: 140. He observes that most of the episodes of attack by pirates that we know of for the years 70–60 b.c. concerned villa owners. 94 Ibidem: 139. See Appian (BC 1.49) for the enrolment during the civil wars of freedmen in the army to garison the coastline from Cumae to Rome, to prevent attacks by sea. 95 Plut. C. Gracch. 19.1–2. It is very difcult to infer anything about the typology of the villa from this late testimony of Plutarch’s. 96 One possible explanation of the early date of these villas might be the involvement of these establishments in the wine production of the Fondi plain: the caecubum and the fundanum were famous wines from this area. See Pliny NH 3.60; Strab. 5.3.6.

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from material nds, is the second half of the second century b.c.97 It is interesting that this villa, according to the results of the excavations led by the French School in Rome, was abandoned from 60–40 b.c.,98 right in the middle of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. The struggles of the civil war, directly or indirectly, might have caused the abandonment of this estate.99 That during this violent time coastal villas could appear more similar to military buildings than to vacation residences could be argued from Seneca’s testimony, comparing villas to military camps: C. Marius et Cn. Pompeius et Caesar exstruxerunt quidem villas in regione Baiana, sed illas inposuerunt summis iugis montium. Videbatur hoc magis militare, ex edito speculari late longeque subiecta. Aspice quam positionem elegerint, quibus aedicia excitaverint locis et qualia; scies non villas esse sed castra.100

One should, however, consider the moralizing content in Seneca’s letter, which might have led him to stress the military aspect of the residences of the great generals of the Late Republic. By the age of Augustus, the villae maritimae undoubtedly had the open sea-front typology we are so familiar with from Roman frescoes, with different kinds of structures built just by the sea, such as harbors, sheries, baths, and nymphea. In some cases, Roman architects applied daring engineering solutions using opus caementicium and built parts of villas directly into the sea, like the pars maritima of the Pisones villa about 130 m from Punta Epitafo in Baiae101 or the triclinium projecting towards the shore in Pliny the Younger’s Laurentine villa.

97

A certain terminus post quem is 184 b.c., when the censor L. Valerius Flaccus built the via Flacca. The villa must be later in date. 98 The structures show no traces of later restorations, and no pottery has been found dating to any time after the age of Augustus. Lafon 1991 and 2001: 52 ff. 99 It is important to mention that Villa Prato, together with Tiberius’ villa, is the only one in the area that has been extensively excavated. Another possible explanation that has been formulated to explain the abandonment of coastal villas in the area of Sperlonga is that ad Speluncam, once Imperial property, became the center of a large fundus (this is inferred from the construction of a large storehouse in the villa) incorporating other villas in the area. But if the chronology for the abandonment of Villa Prato given by the French School team is correct, this explanation does not hold up. 100 Sen. Ep. 51.11: “C. Marius, Pompey, and Caesar indeed built villas in the area of Baiae, but they set them on the very top of the mountains. This seemed more soldier-like, to look from a height upon places spread far and wide below. Observe which position they chose, which situation and type of building, you will know that they were not villas but rather military camps. 101 Di Fraia 1985–1986: 262 ff.

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Piscinae A constant architectural feature in maritime villas is the presence of piscinae for the breeding of sh.102 Fishponds were of three types, containing fresh water (this type is presented as the oldest by ancient sources103 and is found in inland ponds), salt-water,104 or brackish water (which occurs naturally in coastal lagoons). The size of these piscinae varies according to the size of the villa itself, but, although Varro in particular mentions them as a costly extravagance of rich proprietors, in some cases the piscinae were clearly an economic investment, producing fresh sh for the external market demand of such luxury goods (see Chapter 2). These piscinae were quite elaborate, with internal divisions allowing different types and sizes of sh to be kept separated, “just as the painters’ boxes present different parts for the different colors.”105 A very common shape for a piscina is the rectangle, although round or semi-circular shponds are also well attested archaeologically (Figure 3). In fact, the semi-circular shape was more effective at breaking the force of the waves, it reduced the number of corners where circulation of water would be difcult and sediment could accumulate, and it was undoubtedly more decorative.106 Great care was put into the construction of such ponds, in order to allow proper circulation of water, resulting at times in extraordinary engineering solutions, such as the tunnel dug through a mountain by Lucullus to allow the sea-water to reach his piscinae.107 The use of numerous gratings connecting the pond to the open sea permitted the exploitation of the tides to replace the water in the pond. Most seaside piscinae also employed freshwater hydraulics in order to control the temperature of the water and oxygenate it, and also, by varying the degree of salinity, to articially recreate the natural

102 For a study on piscinae in Italy see Higginbotham 1997, with previous bibliography. 103 The earliest attested form of sh-breeding consisted of simple ponds dug in the soil of a country farm. See Plaut. Truc. 35; Varro Rust. 2.17.2. According to Pliny (NH 9.170), the rst person to create vivaria for saltwater sh was Licinius Murena ( praetor c. 100 b.c.). 104 Varro Rust. 3.3.2: piscinas dico eas quae in aqua dulci aut salsa inclusos habent pisces ad villam; 3.3.5: piscinae dulces eri coeptae et uminibus captos recepere ad se pisces. 105 Varro Rust. 3.17.4: Nam ut Pausias et ceteri pictores eiusdem generis loculatas magnas habent arculas, ubi discolores sint cerae, sic hic loculatas habent piscinas, ubi dispares disclusos habeant pisces. 106 Higginbotham 1997: 19. 107 Pliny NH 9.170; Varro Rust. 3.17.9.

Figure 3. Examples of shpond design.

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conditions that would induce sh to reproduce.108 Lacking a natural spring or a connection with an aqueduct, fresh water was provided by cisterns, as in the case of the villa at S. Liberata (Monte Argentario) or at Grottacce, S. Marinella.109 Besides the examples of piscinae built in opus caementicium and lined with opus signinum, there are also some underground ponds, dug in the rock, like the elaborate complex of ve ponds on the island of Ponza (Pontiae) or the ponds in the villa of Agrippa Postumus in Sorrento.110 Where possible, this solution was preferred, because it lowered the risk of the water heating, which was very harmful for sh-breeding. In the Ponza example, four piscinae are underground ponds and one was built on the at rocks along the shore, for a total area of 700 m2. The underground ponds are connected to the sea and to each other by means of a complicated system of canals. The piscinae built next to the shore had to be protected by breakwaters, to control the force of the sea in case of storms. In many cases the only surviving archaeological evidence of villae maritimae along the coastline of Italy are the piscinae and breakwaters, as a quick look at the catalogue of villa-sites reveals. Columella recognizes sh-breeding as a remunerative occupation and, although he says that these types of revenues are “alienissimum agricultoribus,” he dedicates paragraphs 16 and 17 of Book 8 of his De Re Rustica to advice about the construction of piscinae and the choice of the different types of sh. Acknowledging that a behavior like the one of Sergius Orata or Licinius Murena is in his time no longer censurable,111 Columella wants to show that the cura piscium can also produce revenue for a villa, especially if it is built on an island or in a coastal area that

108

Higginbotham 1997: 15. Catalogue: T31; L179. 110 The coast of this volcanic island in this point is high and tufaceous, and thus apt to be dug; the same applyes to the Sorrento villa. For a plan of the shponds in Ponza see the Catalogue: L163. 111 C. Sergius Orata, a Campanian speculator, was the rst to exploit commercially the lake Lucrinum for the breeding of oysters, which became very renowned. Pliny (NH 9.168) says that Orata acted “nec gulae causa, sed avaritia”, clearly morally condemning his doings. He was also an investor in real estate, building and selling villas equipped with baths with hypocaust-his invention. He gained his cognomen from the sh aurata/orata (gilthead), which, according to various sources, was either his favored dish or was successfully bred by him in shponds. Besides Columella, loc. cit., see also Varro Rust. 3.3.10; Val. Max. 9.1.1; Macr. Sat. 3.15.2; L. Licinius Murena, a contemporary of Orata, according to Pliny (NH 9.170), invented shponds for all sort of sh. For Columella he also received his cognomen (murena = moray eel) from the sh he “captured” in his ponds. 109

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does not allow good cultivation.112 But sh were not the only option and mollusks like oysters, murices, and scallops were also bred. The last thing to mention about the typology of the piscinae is that in richer and more elegant villas, the practical aspect of keeping an available supply of sh for consumption and/or sale was linked with the desire for deliciae on the part of the owner and his guests. Sometimes, in fact, a pavilion was built in the middle of the piscina to be used as a cenatio in summer, as in Tiberius’ villa at Sperlonga. In other cases, a platform resting on small substructures protrudes from one side of the sh-pond, also offering a space for recreation and entertainment. An example of this type of solution is the so-called piscina of Lucullus, on the northern side of the Circeo promontory. It is believed that this piscina belonged to a villa in the area, the remains of which have not yet been discovered.113 It is an interesting example of a piscina with a complex layout. First, it is not located immediately by the sea, but about 200 m from the shoreline, so that for the circulation of water it depended upon a canal dug between the sea and the lake of Paola. The piscina has a circular form, about 35 m in diameter, and is divided into a small central circular pond, four wedge-shaped ponds, and two trapezoidal ponds, outside the circle. An external wall running around the piscina provides access to a platform protruding into the pool. The size of this platform is large enough to have been used for banquets (17.90 u 9.20 m).114 (Figure 4) Ports Maritime villas always had a small port, protected by breakwaters, or at least a dock, so that one could arrive and leave by sea rather than following the land-route. In the case of villas built on promontories

112

Columella Rust. 16.6: hunc etiam quaestum villaticum patri familiae demonstraremus. Of this opinion is Mielsch 1987: 26. But there is also a possibility that the piscina belonged to the local community. Coarelli 1982: 305 believes it was so on the basis of a stamp on a stula discovered in the area, which reads Rei P(ublicae) Circeiens(ium) (CIL X.6431). This piece of evidence sheds new light on those villas whose existence was inferred only from the remains of piscinae, inviting us to consider the possibility that these shponds belonged to nearby towns. The shpond did not belong to Domitian’s villa, on the other bank of the nearby lagoon. 114 For a detailed description of the structure see Schmiedt 1972: 123–133. The platform, which presents three arched openings, had a series of amphorae walled along its sides on two different levels, to offer shelter for sh, as in the case of the shpond in the villa of Sperlonga. See also discussion in Chapter 2. 113

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Figure 4. Circeo, axonometric drawing of the so-called Fishpond of Lucullus (after Schmiedt 1972).

or islands, whenever possible, two harbors were built, one for each side, so that regardless of the sea’s conditions it was always possible to land. Examples of this pragmatic expedient include the villa built on Giannutri (Dianium) island, with a harbor on each side of the island, or the case of the island of Ponza, where a tunnel 128 m long connected the east harbor to the west one.115 The sea-facing side of a villa with its harbor could be preferred as access to the establishment even when the villa was connected to an important road. The villa partially excavated at Castel Fusano, by some scholars identied as Pliny the Younger’s Laurentinum,116 seems to have had the main entrance from the sea-side, although from the side inland there is the Via Severiana.

115 The island, which had many villas, was probably Imperial property already under Augustus. The presence of engineering works such as the tunnel can be explained by Imperial involvement in the territory. For the connection between Imperial property and “public works,” see Chapter 6. 116 See Ramieri 1995: 407 ff. Catalogue: L59.

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Baths A constant presence in the pars urbana of a Roman villa was the bath complex, an important part of the daily routine and social behavior of a Roman. Although most of the coastal villa-sites have not been completely excavated, it seems reasonable to extend to them the same pattern already observed in so many country villas. In these cases, during the second century a.d., new, larger baths were added, sometimes as a structure separate from the main part of the villa. Only seven of the maritime villas listed in the catalogue are known for sure to have had bath complexes dated to the second century (Castel Fusano, Castel Porziano, Grotte di Piastra, Marina di S. Nicola, Giannutri, S. Vincenzino, and Talamone),117 but this pattern is very likely applicable to the other villa sites as well, when we know they were in use in that period.118 The new bath quarters that were added to villas during the second century a.d. were complete thermae, in the sense that they present the canonical layout and succession of rooms: frigidarium, tepidarium, and caldarium. The old bath suites found in all villas by the time of Augustus were smaller in size, did not always present this distribution of space, and were always located next to the kitchen,119 in the heart of the residential part of the villa. The necessity felt during the second century to add new bath quarters, separate from the main nucleus of the villa, probably did more than satisfy a desire to keep up with the latest fashion. The desire to relax in rooms decorated with elegant mosaics and precious opus sectile in marble from the provinces—a smaller-scale version of the urban baths built in the period120—was certainly present. But this phenomenon, as I will try to demonstrate in a subsequent chapter, can be taken to indicate a shift in the social habits of villa-owners as well as in the social function of villas in the mid-Empire.

117

Catalogue: L59; L63; L64; L139; T19; T24; T47. On the interesting implications of this architectural feature for the social behavior of the villa owners, see below. 119 Siting the baths in this location was a practical way to facilitate the heating of water. On baths in the early villas, see Fabbricotti 1976 and Lafon 1991. 120 The building of new baths in villa complexes must also be related to the privatelynanced construction in the second century of so many thermae, both in towns and along major roads. For data on this phenomenon in Etruria see Ciampoltrini 1993; Zanker in Italie 1994: 270–73; Papi 2000: 126 ff. 118

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Pars Rustica Although modern scholars sometimes forget this element when thinking about maritime villas, it is worth mentioning that they too had a pars rustica or quarters reserved for production, either for internal consumption or for distribution in external markets. Again, the fact that in many cases only the residential part of a maritime villa is known is the result of incomplete excavation and fragmentary documentation, and not an indication that these villas had no pars rustica. In contrast to what one observes in provincial villas, especially in the north, in Italian maritime villas the pars rustica tends to be, architecturally, marginal to the pars urbana, often separate from the main complex.121 The pars rustica could have been devoted to the production of wine, oil, or both. In fact, we know of the production of different types of wines, considered to be of good quality, at vineyards in coastal fundi. Columella mentions the wine produced from vineyards in the area of Caere, the productivity of which was noteworthy.122 Martial refers to this same wine, appreciating its quality.123 Other famous wines produced in coastal areas included the caecubum and the fundanum, produced in the area of Fundi,124 in the production of which the maritime villas near Sperlonga must have been involved.125 From an architectural point of view, if the villa was built immediately on the shoreline, the pars rustica tended to be located inland, leaving to the residential part the enjoyment of the sea-facing side. At S. Marinella, the villa built during the rst century b.c. on Punta della Vipera presents the following type of organization in the plan: the pars urbana with a large rectangular piscina is located by the sea, while the pars rustica, provided with torcular, is on the mainland side.126 This villa

121

Lafon 2001: 307. Columella Rust. 3.3.3, 3.9.6. 123 Mart. 13.12.4, 13.6.73. Among modern studies on this topic see in particular Tchernia 1986. 124 Strab. 5.3.6; Pliny NH 3.60, 14.67 about the wine of Graviscae. 125 According to Pliny (NH 14.8.61), work in this area for the construction of the fossa Neronis destroyed the caecubum vineyards. If we had more reliable and precise data on the chronology of the abandonment of some of these coastal villas, it might be possible to hypothesize a causal connection between the two phenomena. Lafon 2001: 234 also sees a connection between the appearance of vineyards and Roman villas on the Sorrento Peninsula. He relates the Roman villas there to “l’émergence dans la série des grands crus du vin de Surrentum.” 126 Catalogue: L182. See also L177, the luxurious villa that at a certain point belonged to the jurist Ulpianus in this same area, where excavations identied traces of a pars rustica. If the millstone recovered and mentioned by Gianfrotta is the same 122

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is, in other respects, a very interesting case—it was built on the site previously occupied by a sanctuary dedicated to Minerva (sixth–rst centuries b.c.), reusing building material from the sanctuary—and as such raises questions on the matter of property law, specically the law concerning private ownership of sacred areas.127 The phenomenon is also attested at Minturnae at the beginning of the Imperial period—under Tiberius or the Flavians, part of the lucus dedicated to the goddess Marica was transformed into a villa.128 There is also at least one known example of a pars rustica that is not clearly separate from the residential part. The villa at Marina di S. Nicola, south of the castle of Palo Laziale, presents, in the northwest part of the complex, a pars rustica with presses and a series of small ponds. But this part of the villa also appears to have been used, simultaneously, for residential purposes, indicating the existence of various possible solutions in the distribution of space and its use.129 Furthermore, though in this stretch of coast the main villas were anked by satellite farms (see below), at least in the early Empire, nonetheless the main villa had a section devoted to pars rustica, although of relatively small size in comparison with that of the complex. One might expect that in a situation like this, with nearby farms belonging to the same estate, all aspects of agricultural production would be conned to these farms, leaving the main villa for residential purposes only. The case of Marina di S. Nicola not only tells us something about the architectural features of a maritime villa, it also makes possible some further considerations. The existence of a pars rustica in this complex can mean three things. First of all, it could be a manifestation of the idea, deep-rooted in the mentality of the elite, that a villa had to be self-sufcient, producing item currently kept in the garden of Castel Odescalchi then it appears to be an olive mill and not a grain mill (personal autoptic observation). 127 Cf. the case of Lucus Feroniae, where the so-called “villa della Standa” (Catalogue: L104) was built sometime during the second century b.c. in an area belonging to the sacred lucus of the goddess Feronia. 128 Coarelli 1989: 118 n. 18. Coarelli does not think this fact necessarily implies that the sanctuary was abandoned at this time. He notes that we do not know the precise extension of the lucus and that the sanctuary shows a restoration phase in brick, with the relocation of the main façade to the river side, most likely under Hadrian (restorations are attested also in the buildings of the colony). 129 On this villa see Lafon 1990, Caruso 1995 and Lafon 2001: 262 ff. Traditionally referred to rst as Pompey’s, then as Caesar’s villa, although no current archeological evidence supports a Republican date, it was certainly Imperial property in the second century, as attested by an inscription (ILS 1580) mentioning a procurator villae Alsiensis. See Catalogue: L139.

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all that was needed on the estate. This is a theorization omnipresent in ancient sources, from the idealization of the villa rustica found in the agricultural writings of Cato and Columella to the satires of writers like Martial.130 Secondly, it could indicate that the smaller farms were rented to coloni who paid their rent in kind.131 Part of this rent, necessary for the supply of the villa, could have been processed in the villa itself—olives transformed into oil, grapes into wine. Thirdly, it may indicate the prot-oriented mentality of the (elite) owner, where every property was used to produce a surplus for the market (i.e. not just selfsufciency). Indeed, X. Lafon has suggested the possibility that, along with the subdivided exploitation of the fundus, the maintenance of a main pars rustica in close proximity to the villa’s own port,132 built on an internal canal, was intended to facilitate shipping of goods. The recurrent presence in coastal villas of large shponds, partes rusticae for the production of olive oil and wine, and ports is a rst indication of the discrepancy between the textual and the archaeological sources on the economic function of these villas. As we will see in the following chapter, the economic enterprises attested for coastal villas and their estates are of various kinds: potteries, quarries, sh-breeding, cultivation of owers, etc. Textual sources, however, stress a different “reality”, an ideological dimension where the concept of villa maritima moves from being the symbol of wealth and power to that of moral corruption and extreme hubris. This situation can be in part explained considering that by the time maritime villas started to appear in high numbers—the rst century b.c.—country villas and the theorization of agriculture as the proper occupation for the Roman elite, had already been in existence for a century or so. The chronological priority in the development of country villas in the surroundings of Rome, combined with the centuriatio—the measuring, dividing and ordering of land—in the areas progressively annexed by Rome may have contributed to create the idea that the countryside was safer than the coast and the only proper seat for the pursuit of prot.

130 Cato Agr. 2.3.7: patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet; Mart. 3.58, contrasting Faustinus’ productive, self-sufcient Baian villa with that of Bassus, supplied with food from the urban market. 131 See Pliny the Younger and his coloni at Tifernum: De Neeve 1990. 132 Lafon 2001: 263.

CHAPTER TWO

VILLAE MARITIMAE AS ECONOMIC ENTERPRISES

Fish-Breeding and salinae Maritime villas offered their owners a wide range of possible economic enterprises, that could be as protable as agriculture, if not more so. The principal possible economic activity, already mentioned in the context of a discussion of the architectural features of villas, was sh-breeding.1 Despite Varro’s comments on the costly piscinae maritimae, leporaria of the sea,2 symbolic of elite extravagance, many factors indicate that this was a lucrative and widespread occupation.3 In fact, had the sh bred in these vivaria not had a high market value and been easily distributed on local markets, it would be very difcult to explain what literary sources report about the exorbitant prices fetched by certain villas on account of their lavish piscinae.4 I have quoted above the case of C. Hirrius, an anecdote recounted by several authors. According to these accounts, it was only thanks to the vast quantity of sh in his piscinae that his otherwise modica villa was sold for four million sesterces. Hirrius had considered it more “protable” to lend Caesar six thousand murenae (in other sources, four or two thousand) on the occasion of the dictator’s triumphal banquets, than to sell them to him, evidently foreseeing the social advantages of doing

1 For the economy of maritime villas see also Lafon 2001: 127–186. In discussing sh-breeding, he rightly distinguishes between extensive sh-breeding, at times associated with salting, and intensive breeding, to which relate the complex shponds built along the Tyrrhenian coast. Lafon (164) analyses in particular the origins of piscinae constructae and their architectural relationship with the villa. 2 Varro Rust. 3.3.10. 3 This is implicitly admitted by Varro himself at Rust. 2: praefactio: fructus tolli possunt non mediocres, ex ornithoribus ac leporariis et piscinis (bold mine). 4 Columella Rust. 8.16.5 on Cato selling Lucullus’ piscinae for 400,000 sesterces. Higginbotham 1997: 57 sees in this the symbolic value of sh and shponds, with the elite competing to assert their high social status by spending large sums of money on fancy shponds, rather than an implication that these ponds must have been marketable. See below for a discussion of Higginbotham’s ideas.

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Caesar such a favor.5 This anecdote suggests how truly grand Hirrius’ vivaria must have been, allowing him to offer Caesar, all at once, such a large number of morays, which cannot be bred with other types of sh or in overcrowded conditions.6 Hirrius was clearly breeding sh on an “industrial” scale, not just for show or for his own supply, but as a source of revenue.7 If we can credit the information found in Plutarch,8 even Cato the Censor turned from agriculture to more remunerative enterprises, such as sh-breeding, in his old age. The archaeological evidence for shpond in maritime villas indicates that most of them were built in the rst century b.c., the period of the diffusion of pastio villatica in its various forms according to Pliny the Elder.9 However, the passage from Scipio Aemilianus’s Fifth Oration has been taken to indicate that already in 140 b.c. villas with shponds and game reserves were widespread.10 One villa complex that presents archaeological evidence of sh-breeding on a very large scale, is the complex of Torre Astura, on the coast of Latium, just south of Antium. (Figure 5) This villa, in older publications referred to as Cicero’s villa in Astura, has a 15,000 m2 piscina built partly on an articial island, complete with a pavilion and an aqueduct/bridge, which both fed the pond with fresh water and connected it to the main part of the villa. The size of this piscina is truly astonishing; by way of comparison, the complex of piscinae on the island of Ponza although large and technologically sophisticated, measures only 700 m2.11 The various compartments into which the piscina at Torre Astura is divided show that different kinds of 5 Varro Rust. 3.17.3; Plin. NH 9.171; however note the language in Varro “mutua dare” (in Pliny mutua appendit), generally used for loans of money. 6 Hirrius was credited with the invention of ponds solely dedicated to the raising of murenae, a sh referred to by Columella as pretiosus piscis (Rust. 8.16.10). Cicero reports that M. Curius also raised large quantities of murenae (Parad. 38). 7 See also Purcell 1995: 160 for the idea that “the piscinarii of the Republic are not to be taken as simply whimsical, choosing pisciculture as a random pastime for reasons of fashion.” 8 Plut. Cat. Mai. 21.5. 9 NH 9.168. 10 Morley 1996: 90. The excavators of villa Prato (Sperlonga; Catalogue L192) believe that the shpond “le Salette” belonged to the villa and date the two features, on the basis of building technique, to the rst half of the 2nd century b.c., making this the earliest archeologically attested shpond. 11 The villa had various building phases that enlarged, in Imperial time, the pavilion built on the articial island, slightly reducing the size of the shpond (part of the lozenges-shaped tanks was obliterated. For the complex reconstruction of the building phases see Piccarreta 1977: 27–49.

Figure 5. Torre Astura with harbor (after Schmiedt 1972).

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sh were bred there. A large harbor with utility buildings on the docks, most likely related to the shipment of sh or sh products, was added during the rst half of the rst century a.d., likely the date of the large shpond as well.12 We know that the villa was Imperial property by this time, for literary sources mention that the rst three Julio-Claudian emperors used to stop in Astura on their journey to Campania. Certainly the addition of the harbor not only served a commercial purpose, but also offered a proper place for the emperor to land when visiting the villa. It could be argued that the piscina and its contents provided for the consumption of sh at the villa when the emperor and his train stopped there, but the size and complexity of this piscina bespeaks commercial enterprise. Certainly this complex was not meant to supply fresh sh only occasionally; it is possible that the shpond supplied the emperor with sh needed for the various banquets he offered at Rome, in the same way the vivaria Caesaris in Ancona seem to have supplied the Imperial palace in Rome,13 or the villa and hunting grounds of Trajan at Arcinazzo probably supplied game for the emperor’s banquets in Rome.14 The whole of this part of Latium was, in fact, known for its sh-breeding. Literary sources attest the farming of oysters in the area,15 while the various coastal lakes, well stocked with sh even in modern times, offered an alternative to the breeding of saltwater sh in piscinae.16 The area between Fogliano and Circeo, rich in small lakes, was perhaps also the center of production for a local garum industry.17

12 To the south of the promontory is the mouth of the river Astura, by which, according to Strabo 5.3.6, was an important protected natural anchorage; the coast, open to the predominant south-western wind (Libeccio) offers no other anchorage until Circeii. For reference to literary sources that mention the place-name Astura, including Cicero’s letters, see Piccarreta 1977: 10. 13 See the famous satire by Juvenal, Sat. 4.51. 14 Fiore and Mari 2003: 39. 15 Hor. Sat. 2.4.33, Juv. 4.140; Pliny NH 32.6.60, in particular about oysters from the Circeii area. 16 Piccarreta 1977: 13–15 gives a brief summary of the ora and fauna of the area, much more complex and rich than the generic image of unhealthy swamps that the name of Paludi Pontine evokes; he notes that the coastal lakes were very rich in sh and mollusks (interestingly similar to African kinds) used to supply Rome. 17 See Panciera 1967: 44–45. A dolium fragment, found in the area of S. Eufemia, between Pontinia and Sabaudia, bears the inscription: L XV VR, read by Panciera as: L(iquaminis) quindecim VR(nae). On the basis of CIL XV.4712 mentioning garum from Antium, he postulates a local garum industry. However, the reading of CIL XV.4712 has been considered incorrect and the titulus has been referred to Antipolis instead (see below, note 28). In the area of Sabaudia we nd the so-called piscina of Lucullus. See below.

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Ancient sources list other processed sh products besides the famously popular garum, such as the common sh sauces known as liquamen, allec, and muria.18 As we know in particular from installations in Roman Spain, salterns often had kilns located nearby for the production of the containers in which the sh products would be sold. It is possible that some of the remains of kilns and amphorae wasters identied on the stretch of coast between Astura and Circeo should also be interpreted in this sense (see the section on glinae, below).19 Higginbotham, in his book on piscinae, argues strongly that Italian shponds were, rst and foremost, emblems of social status, the result of competitive ostentation among the members of the elite, and downplays the commercial reasons for their proliferation.20 He contrasts the scenario of the villa owner providing fresh sh to neighboring villas and communities from his ponds’ surplus with Varro’s assertion that it was very expensive to maintain them. Stocking the ponds with sh, according to Varro, was challenging, and Higginbotham, recalling Juvenal (5.92 ff.), raises the possibility that sh were scarce in the Mediterranean in antiquity “due to the age of the sea and excessive shing.”21 In addition, he notes that, without refrigeration, it would have 18 Garum was the primary product, while allec was the sediment created in the making of garum. It is more difcult to determine the exact nature of muria and liquamen, since these terms were used imprecisely. It seems that liquamen originally meant a sauce distinct from garum, but was then used to refer to any sh sauce. Muria was used to mean garum, or the liquid used in making garum or in packing salted sh products. On sh products in antiquity (salted and fermented) and their commerce, see Curtis 1991. 19 Piccarreta 1977: sites 11, 14 and 15C; unfortunately he does not mention what type of amphorae the kilns were producing. Recent investigations conducted by the Pontine Region Project at the villa site of Le Grottacce (L20) suggested that the amphorae were olive oil containers: Attema and de Haas, “Villas and farmsteads in the Pontine region between 300 b.c. and 300 a.d.: a landscape archaeological approach”, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005, 97–112; see p. 105. The interim report published by Attema, de Haas and Nijboer 2003 gives a preliminary typology of the diagnostic amphora sherds collected, which include: Graeco-Italic (2nd c. b.c.), Dressel 1A (late 2nd/early 1st centuries b.c.); Dressel 6A (maybe an earlier prototype of the Augustan amphora) and various unknown types, which constitutes the majority of the sherds. These unknown containers should have been small in size, judging from the size of the handles; the rim is similar to early Tripolitanian amphorae, while the bases match the “Brindisi” type amphora. 20 Higginbotham 1997; Lafon 2001: 164–179 discusses shponds and intensive sh-breeding in villas, but he seems to regard this activity as mainly for the benet of the villa residents. Although he mentions several times the economic function of sh-breeding, it is not clear if he considers the production of the shponds for the commercial market. 21 Higginbotham 1997: 56. And yet, Higginbotham himself reports (45–46) that eels can be cultivated in densities not possible for any other species of sh: in modern

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been difcult and costly to transport fresh sh over great distances. But these objections do not really hold up, if we consider that nowadays, despite excessive shing in the Mediterranean, pollution, and ecological disasters, the sea is nonetheless full of sh. As for transportation, it may have been expensive, but no more so than transporting snow from mountaintops to chill drinks in the summertime, a practice well attested in antiquity.22 In the anecdote about Hirrius mentioned above, the 2,000+ murenae lent to Caesar for his triumphal banquet were transported to Rome, most likely alive. But what ancient authors appear to have found unusual is the large number of sh involved, not the logistics of their delivery. Thanks to a rare and fortuitous archaeological nd, we know that there were small boats equipped with sh tanks,23 enabling shermen to keep their catches alive. With this in mind, the existence of larger boats or even wagons equipped with tanks for the transportation of sh to market is not improbable. In fact, a reference to ships equipped with tanks can be found in Macrobius, who relates that when the praefectus classis Optatus introduced the Eastern Mediterranean parrot wrasse (scarus) into the waters of Ostia and Campania under Claudius, he transported the sh on ships equipped with vivaria.24 Furthermore, archaeological evidence from macella and from kitchens in domestic contexts points to the existence of tanks where sh could be kept alive until the moment of consumption.25 Turning from fresh sh to sh products, such as sh sauce and salted sh, Higginbotham is right in pointing out that in spite of the literary commentary, there is little physical evidence of the processing of sh products in Italy. However, in my opinion, this is the result of incomsheries in the lagoons near Orbetello, the annual yield per thousand m2 of pond area is about four tons. This yield is produced by stocking the lagoons with just ten kg of elvers. E. Gazda (McCann 1987: 149) estimated that the Roman shery at Cosa could produce 48 tons of eels annually. 22 For a study revaluating of the cost of land transportation as cheaper than previously thought see Laurence 1998. 23 See Testaguzza 1970: 132; photo and drawing: 143–144. The nd is also discussed in Higginbotham 1997: 35. 24 Macrob. Sat. 3.16.10: nam Optatus praefectus classis sciens scarum adeo italicis litoribus ignotum, ut nec nomen Latinum eius piscis habeamus, incredibilem scarorum multitudinem vivariis navibus huc advectam inter Hostiam et Campaniae litus in mare sparsit, miroque ac novo exemplo pisces in mari tamquam in terra fruges aliquas seminavit. Cf. also Pliny NH 9.62–63: inde advectos (scaros) Tiberio Claudio principe Optatus e libertis eius praefectus classis inter Ostiensium et Campaniae oram sparsas disseminavit, quinquennio fere cura adhibita ut capti redderentur mari. 25 Macella: De Ruyt 1983: 313; 345; kitchens: Salza Prina Ricotti 1978–80: 267.

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plete archaeological investigation, anthropogenic factors, and changes in both the Italian coastline and the level of the Mediterranean Sea,26 rather than proof that such establishments were relatively scarce in Italy, compared to what is known about the Iberian peninsula and North Africa.27 We know from tituli picti and literary sources, for example, that garum was produced at Pompeii, but we have little evidence for salting installations from the town.28 In his recent studies on maritime villas, Lafon suggests that one can see an incompatibility between piscinae belonging to opulent villas, and sh salting activities, which are located in less sought-after areas, and which, when we have traces of buildings, are associated with more modest villas.29 His opinion rests partly on Pliny’s reference to the foul smell of the salting process.30 The elaborate shponds for intensive sh-breeding displayed by many villas were clearly meant for the production of the highly sought after fresh

26 Schmiedt 1972; Pasquinucci and Mezzanti 1987: most of ancient coastal installations are underwater now. In some cases, place names can supply information when we lack archaeological evidence. See, for instance, the case of the town of Cetara, on the Amal Coast (province of Salerno), where a traditional local industry of sh products still exists today. The name comes from the Latin cetaria (also attested cetarium), used to indicate either the shpond by the shore into which sh, in particular tuna, were herded or the salting vat. Cetarius was the (tuna) sherman or the person salting the sh. See Pliny NH 9.92; ibid. 31.94, also 9.49: Hispaniae cetarias hi replent, thynnis non commeantibus. Hor. Sat. 2.5.44: plures adnabunt thynni et cetaria crescent, usually interpreted to refer to piscinae, but see Curtis 1997: 54 n. 43 and the scholiast to Horace, who explains: cetaria dicuntur proprie loca, in quibus salsamenta unt. On the entire Amal Coast, from Punta della Campanella to Salerno, there are numerous signs of Roman villas. Of these only one, in Minori, is now an archaeological site open to the public. A maritime villa was also recently discovered in the town of Amal itself. 27 Higginbotham 1997: 56. In the provinces, in particular in Lusitania and Betica, villas were very frequently connected closely with salting installations, both large salterns and smaller ones, including only a few salting vats. See Curtis 1991: 148. 28 In Pompeii (and on a shipwreck directed to Gaul) many garum containers were recovered bearing the name A. Umbricius Scaurus. The atrium of his house, near Porta Marina (Ins. Occ. 12–15), had a mosaic “advertising” his products. See Curtis 1984 and Id., “A personalized oor mosaic from Pompeii”, AJA 88, 1984: 557–566. On recent discoveries related to garum workshops in Pompeii see R. Jones and D. Robinson (in press) ‘‘The economic development of the Commercial Triangle (VI.i.14–18, 20–21),” in M. P. Guidobaldi (ed.) Nuove ricerche sull’area Vesuviana—New research in the Vesuvian area. Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei Monograph. Roma. The rare titulus CIL XV.4712 was in the past considered to refer to garum produced in Antium, but more likely refers to Antipolis; the possibility of garum from Ostia comes from an amphora (type not given) with titulus G(arum) OST(iense) discovered in Noricum at Magdalensberg; on this see Curtis 1984: 90. 29 Lafon 2001: 180. 30 Pliny NH 32.16.

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sh, but there are few instances of coastal villas with archaeologically attested sh processing activity (see infra). I agree with Higginbotham, insofar as the existence of shponds in Italy cannot be explained by commercial reasons alone. Clearly, a series of other factors were at play, chief among them the elite ideology of display and competition,31 but I do not share his view that “in Italy, the paucity of sh off the coasts coupled with successful imports from Africa, Gaul and Spain made an already risky venture economically precarious.”32 Of course, it is necessary to distinguish between piscinae solely dedicated to sh-breeding—the majority of the existing coastal archeological remains associated with coastal villas—and vats and ponds for the salting and curing of sh, which can be more difcult to identify in the archaeological context. Furthermore, though there is no doubt that sh and shponds possessed a potent symbolic value in the socially and politically competitive climate of the Late Republic,33 it is too drastic to say that “sh could and were vended not as a regular trade but to feed the appetite of those wanting to impress rivals and peers.”34 The fact that ancient literary sources do not explicitly state the involvement of piscinarii in the Republican sh trade, stressing the cachet of owning piscinae over the sale and consumption of the sh they produced, does not necessarily imply that the sh were not sold and consumed.35 It is impossible, otherwise, to explain why Varro (reluctantly) and Columella admit that it is a protable enterprise to have shponds. Higginbotham correctly states that the larger ponds, “with their elaborate tanks, walkways, gates, and nearby ports were clearly equipped with more features than were needed for purely personal use” (italics mine),36 but he then 31 As pointed out by Lafon 2001: 197, when referring to piscinarii Cicero, Macrobius, and Pliny the Elder stress their nobilitas ( principes; nobilissimi principes). Cicero also uses the term to allude to those who had retired from political life at a particularly crucial time for the Republic; see, for instance, Att., 1.19.6, 1.20.3. 32 Higginbotham 1997: 57. 33 To quote Lafon (2001: 197): La pisciculture intensive est à la n dela république un signe d’une élite sociale, la même qui entend résever à seul usage les rives du Crater. In the late st century Martial satirized Papylus, a social climber, who would send gifts of expensive sh to make a good social impression, but then dine poorly at home (7.78.3). 34 Higginbotham 1997: 57. 35 But see Columella Rust. 8.17.15: nam nisi piscis domini cibariis saginatur, cum ad piscatorium forum perlatus est . . ., explicitly mentioning sh from shponds brought to the market to be sold. The Forum piscatorium was the Republican macellum in Rome: De Ruyt 1983: 239–243. 36 Higginbotham 1997: 59.

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fails to recognize these particulars as signs of establishments intended to be protable, providing revenue to their owners. The constant association of piscinae with ports and/or docks should be regarded as an indication that these shponds were equipped with the necessary infrastructure to allow the shipment of sh to markets. It is worth remembering that legal texts include ships and mules in the instrumentum fundi, necessary for the transport and distribution of goods produced on the estate; in coastal estates the goods loaded on such vessels need not be only wine amphorae.37 Moreover, to envision a fair prot margin there is no need to imagine production and distribution as being solely vast in scale or intended only for faraway markets. The kinds of fresh sh that were bred in these shponds were highly prized and regarded as luxury goods. A passage in Varro’s De Re Rustica, seldom quoted in the context of the protability of sh-breeding in coastal villas,38 seems to state this concept clearly. The passage concerns L. Abuccius, who apparently stated that on his fundum albanum the revenues from the land were 10,000 sesterces and those from the farm more than 20,000, but that the revenues from a maritime villa would have been more than 100,000 sesterces.39 Thus L. Abuccius considered a maritime villa to be ten times more protable than a villa rustica, and in my opinion we should recognize this as evidence not only of the protability of sh-breeding, an enterprise common to all maritime villas, but also of the greater versatility of maritime properties, which ultimately made them more appealing than properties in the countryside. Without question, if we consider the marketing of fresh, rather than processed, sh, the location of a villa becomes crucial. A high concentration of villas with shponds can be found in the stretch of coast immediately south and north of Rome, with the exclusion of the Litus Laurentinus, where the sandy sea-bottom did not offer the rock-shelf usually preferred in the construction of shponds, and where the type of habitat was suitable only for at-bottomed sh rather than kinds

37 Dig. 33.7.12.1.: ea quae exportandorum fructum causa parantur, instrumenti esse constat, veluti iumenta et vehicula et naves et cuppae et culei. 38 To my knowledge, only Kolendo 1994: 64 quotes this passage in discussing the revenues offered by sh-breeding. 39 Varro Rust. 3.2.17: Nonne idem L. Abuccius, homo, ut scitis, apprime doctus, cuius Luciliano charactere sunt libelli, dicebat in Albano fundum suum pastionibus semper vinci a villa? Agrum enim minus decem milia reddere villam plus vicena. Idem secundum mare, quo loco vellet si parasset villam, se supra centum milia e villa recepturum.

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more highly valued in Roman (and also modern) cuisine, such as seabass and gilt-head.40 Higginbotham is right in saying that the market value of sh was driven by the demand from banquets (triumphal or otherwise) and club dinners. In a well known passage, Varro explicitly states the importance of triumphal banquets, public banquets, and collegial dinners in driving up the price of the fruits of the villatica pastio.41 Indeed, if we look at the distribution of known shponds in association to villas, we see that the concentration of these installations is rather high along the coastline south and north of Rome (Figure 6). The market represented by collegia and their regular dinners in town centers other than Rome deserves also to be considered. Rome was not the only market available for the distribution of villa-production. The large Astura complex, for instance, as well as the other villas along that stretch of coast, were close to the urban centers of Antium and Forum Appii.42 It seems likely that local centers such as these could have absorbed any surplus production from coastal villas. Examples of villas involved in sh-related economic activities are not limited only to the coastline of Latium. In the area around the colony of Cosa and the peninsula of Monte Argentario, part of what is now Tuscany, there are two other examples attested archeologically. The rst is the villa complex of “La Tagliata,” near the ancient harbor of Cosa.

40 In this area Pliny the Younger had his Laurentine villa; see the remarks he wrote in the letter dedicated to his villa, 2.17.28 about shes that could be found: mare non sane pretiosis piscibus adundat, soleas tamen et squillas optimas suggerit. 41 Rust. 3.16–17: Sed ad hunc bolum ut pervenias, opus erit tibi aut epulum aut triumphus alicuius aut collegiorum cenae nunc innumerabiles excandefaciunt annonam macelli. As an example of the frequency of club dinners and of the obligatory contributions due in these circumstances, see the lex collegii Dianae et Antinoi in Lanuvium (ILS 7212, 136 a.d.) ll. 14 ff. of the second page: Ordo cenarum: VIII id. Mar. natali Caesenni . . . patris. V k. Dec. nat. Ant[inoi]./Idib. Aug. natali Dianae et collegi. XIII k. Sept. na[t. Caese]nni Silvani fratris. Pr. N[on.]./natali Corneliae Proculae matris. XIX k Ian. n[at. Caes]enni Ru patr. Munic[ipi]. Magistri cenarum ex ordine albi facti qu[oqu]o ordine homines quaterni ponere debeb[unt]:/vini boni amphoras singulas, et panes a. II qui numerus collegi fuerit, et sardas [nu]mero quattruor, strationem, caldam cum ministerio. Note that here the obligatory contribution of sh consists of realtively cheap types. 42 Forum Appii, located on the Via Appia between Terracina and the statio of Tribus Tabernis, does not seem to have been even a municipium, and the ILS lists only one inscription found there (= CIL X.6824, a milestone recording restoration works by Nerva). Antium is a different story: already rich in elegant villas in the late Republic, it was also an Imperial residence (see the collegium of Imperial slaves and freedmen, CIL X.6638, which seems to have had an annual celebration with gladiatorial games). The existence of the praetorium Antiatinum is attested by an inscription mentioning a tabularius: CIL X.6667. Two collegia are epigraphically attested in Antium, the Cultores Spei Augustae (CIL X.6645) and the collegium fabrum (CIL X.6675, 6678).

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Figure 6. Distribution map of maritime villas equipped with shponds (A. Marzano).

This villa, which ourished in the second century a.d. and seems to have been in use down to the fth, presents, peripheral to the main part of the villa, a structure traditionally labeled as a storehouse or granary. Instead, archaeological investigations directed by the Soprintendenza Archeologica have revealed that the structure was very likely used for the processing of sh.43 In the area of portus Cosanus, many pools for shbreeding had already been built in the Late Republic, so the industrial structure at La Tagliata could plausibly have processed sh from these nearby vivaria.44 In addition, it is worth mentioning Strabo’s report that schools of tuna migrated through the waters around the Argentario Peninsula and off the coast of Cosa, and that at certain times of year

43

See Ciampoltrini and Rendini 1990; Ciampoltrini 1991; Catalogne T4. It is also possible that the lagoon located near the villa, which is believed to have existed also in Roman times, was used as a sh-vivarium. 44

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this type of shing was also practiced in the area.45 The sh processed in the villa could have come from such seasonal shing. This passage from Strabo might also be read in connection with the other villa-complex in this area showing sh-related industrial activity. Excavations at the Villa dei Muracci at Porto S. Stefano uncovered “installations for pisciculture”,46 and next to it, the remains of structures, probably storerooms, containing many amphorae with tuna sh-bones. These remains were recorded by S. Lambardi in the 1800s, on the occasion of the construction of a factory, and unfortunately lack the type of information we would like to have, such as the type of amphorae discovered.47 But it seems plausible to relate this complex also to some kind of “industrial” process, in particular the production of salted sh, garum and other sh-based products. Moreover, the thin stretch of land connecting the Argentario Peninsula to the mainland was characterized in antiquity by many lagoons, which seem to have been used—as indeed the Orbetello lagoon is still used today—as vivaria. The eastern lagoon, the Tombolo di Feniglia, which might have been connected directly to the sea by a canal in Roman times,48 presented a series of piscinae along its southeast bank. One pool measured about 2,250 m2, a considerable size. Five other pools can only be identied by the remains of their manmade platforms. The pools very likely belonged to the villa49 that stood not far off, suggesting a large-scale economic enterprise. The coastal area of Pyrgi and Castrum Novum was also known for shing50 and sh-breeding, to judge from the number of piscinae attested

45

Strab. 5.2.8 about the existence of a lookout point from which to detect the arrival of the tuna. This passage seems to be based on Polyb. 34.8.3 (Buttner-Wobst). See the commentary to Strabo by N. Bif, L’Italia di Strabone, Genova 1988. Another such scouting point is reported by Strabo on the promontory of Populonia (Populonium). 46 Pasquinucci 1982: 152 suggests that Lambardi may have mistaken salting vats for remains of a shpond. 47 S. Lambardi, Memorie sul Monteargentario ed alcune sui paesi prossimi, vol. 1, Firenze 1866 (reference given in Pasquinucci 1982: 141, n. 2). 48 An ancient canal, lled up in the sixteenth century, is visible in aerial photographs. The date of this canal cannot be determined. Bronson and Uggeri 1970: 213 n. 86. 49 The remains of the villa consisted of its substructures and in surface nds—fragments of painted stucco and heating ues (tubuli; related to the bath-suite?), bricks, and tiles. No secure dating elements were found during the survey. On this and the evidence for the piscinae, see Bronson and Uggeri 1970: 213. 50 See the large number of shhooks and needles for shing nets recovered in the archaeological excavations at Castrum Novum and Pyrgi: Gianfrotta 1981: 527, n. 16.

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archeologically.51 An interesting passage in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai mentions Pyrgi, together with Antium, Tarracina and the Pontine Islands, as the possible origins of large and numerous shes served at the banquet.52 Considering that these areas are those where we observe a great concentration of shponds, and good harbor installations, it is likely that Athenaeus is not referring to shing eets, as the passage in usually interepreted by scholars, but to the shipment of fresh sh coming from the shponds of the area.53 Besides the Torre Astura example, we can presuppose that the installations had also an economic value, as in the case of other villas provided with large piscinae. The villa at Punta della Vipera had a piscina measuring about 2,000 m2, which, judging from the available documentation, remained in operation at least until the third century.54 The piscina of the nearby villa at Fosso delle Guardiole measured 6,000 m2. In each of these cases, the pools are much larger than was necessary if their purpose was simply to supply the villa-complex with fresh sh. By comparison, we can take as an example of shponds intended only for internal consumption the system of pools belonging to the so-called Bagni di Agrippa villa on the island of Pianosa,55 measuring 305 m2. Although the Punta della Vipera and Guardiole piscinae do not even approach the impressive size of those found at Torre Astura in Latium, they are still not inconsiderable in size.56 The last point, stressed by Higginbotham in order to downplay economic factors in the spread of Italian piscinae, is their chronology. The vast majority of shponds were built in the second half of the rst century b.c. or the rst half of the rst century a.d. Higginbotham

51 Gianfrotta 1972. The author recognizes that at least the larger piscinae must have been used for industrial purposes, probably to supply the Roman market with special sh, in the same way as the harbors of Pyrgi, Antium, and Terracina in Imperial times served as the base for shing eets to supply the urbs (p. 21); the latter statement seems to rest upon the passage by Athenaeus referenced below. 52 Ath. 6.224; see also footnote above. 53 Similar observations, but reached independently from each other, in Attema and De Haas 2005: 105 f., quoted at note 19, commenting in passing that the villas of the Astura coastline and their shponds had a productive function and that Antium and its port will have functioned as market and transhipment places for the sh from the villas on the adjacent coast. 54 See Catalogue: L182 and L178. 55 Catalogue: T36. 56 Salza Prina Ricotti 1998–1999: 139; 145 discusses the shpond-complex of Ponza as breeding sh for the market, but then strangely appears to deny this function for other shponds on the mainland such as Torre Astura and the shponds at Formia.

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comments that there was a decline in interest in large piscinae during the rst century a.d., reected in both literary accounts (scarce mention of shponds by ancient authors after the end of the rst century)57 and the archaeological record (a paucity of seaside piscinae built ex novo). He views this phenomenon as a byproduct of the different role played by the elite under the Empire: Any social and political benet from owning these structures decreased with the recognition of a single power at the top of the social pyramid [. . .] Changes under the principate progressively eliminated the traditional avenues of aristocratic self-advertisement and placed more emphasis on local or private displays of status.58

It must be said that, while current archaeological data do suggest that few coastal piscinae were built under the Empire, these same data show that in many cases the existing shponds were restored and maintained during this period. The shpond at Punta della Vipera, for instance, was still in use in the third century. Most of the ponds listed in Higginbotham’s gazetteer include restorations in bricks, datable to after the rst century a.d. In some cases, the shponds seem to have still been used for sh-breeding in the medieval period, as in the case of the Torre Astura complex, donated in 987 with its “shponds” to the convent of S. Alessio on the Aventine.59 It is probably correct to say that, owing to the changed political situation under the Empire, there was a decline in interest in piscinae as a way for the elite to display wealth; this does not, however, imply a decline in their primary function, sh-breeding. The paucity of newly built shponds should not be seen as proof of the decrease of sh-breeding altogether, but as conrmation that the Italian coast was already dotted with a sufcient number of shponds. Almost all of the

57 Fishponds appear as one of the literary topoi (see also marble revetments, mosaic oors and columns) in the attaks against excessive luxuria in the diatriba of the late Republic/Early Imperial period. Oltramare 1926: 109; 118; 211. 58 Higginbotham 1997: 62–63. 59 The 987 a.d. document mentions as part of the donation Astura and its ancient ruins (Astura cum parietinis suis), but the shponds appear functioning in a document dated 1140, in which the abbot of the monastery brings a complaint against Tolomeo de Tusculana, who was illegally controlling Astura and the shponds, depriving the monastery of its right (quod per vim et sine ratione detineret insulam de Astura . . . et piscariis, et pertinent iis suis et nostro monasterio abstulit). Fish-breeding or shing is still mentioned as one of the monastery rights in a bulla by Pope Honorius III in 1217: Totum quod vestro monasterio pertinet in Asturia et in insula Asturie, cum piscationibus, venationibus, naufragiis. Sources quoted in Piccarreta 1977: 10, footnote 14.

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coastal ponds are roughly contemporary with the villas to which they belong. What Higginbotham does not say is that few maritime villas were built ex novo after the rst century a.d.; already-existing villas were restored, enlarged, and upgraded to reect new tastes. Restoration of shponds went along with the life of the villas and if few new villas were being built, then there is no reason why we should expect to nd new shponds. On the other hand, the technology associated with the construction of shponds had already reached a very high standard, so that it was only necessary to restore them to keep them functional. Not all shponds belonged to villas. There are also cases of piscinae owned by a municipal community, like the so called piscina of Lucullus near the Lago di Paola (Circeo).60 This pond was fed by a canal, which carried brackish water from the channel connecting the Lago di Paola to the sea. An inscription, most likely dating from the early Empire, commemorates hydraulic works undertaken by one of the magistrates of the municipium in relation to the channel and the lake, evidence which could be seen to indicate ownership of the pond by the community.61 It is also interesting to note that spreads of crushed murex shells were found next to the channel.62 Since purple dye was produced not far from the piscina, it is possible that murices were among the species kept in the pond itself. In the light of purple dye production, it would be particularly interesting to ascertain with certainty whether the pond belonged to a private villa or to the community. Several villas were built on the shores of the lake, most of them dated to the late Republic but with Imperial phases also, since with the construction of Domitian’s

60

See Chapter 1: n. 113 and g. 4; the site is part of the modern municipality of Sabaudia. Coarelli believes the shpond was publicly owned by the community of Circeii on the basis of the stula found in the area in 1725 with the inscription CIL X.6431: Rei P(ublicae) Circeiens(ium). Also Lugli 1928: 50 thought that the piscina belonged to the town since it was located within the area of the harbor settlement of Circeii. In the same area is also the so-called “Fonte di Lucullo”, the Roman tapping of two springs, one drinkable, the other very rich in iron used to feed the baths. When Lugli surveyed the area, the piscina was used for sh-breeding; he reported that the two trapezoidal vats were modern, to keep sh eggs. Lugli 1928: 49. 61 CIL X.6428: L. Faberius C. f. Pom Murena/augur. IIII.vir. aed./aqua(m) quae uebat ex lacu conlegit et salientem in lacu(m)/redegit/d(e) s(ua) p(ecunia) f(aciundum) c(uravit). The inscription was discovered at S. Felice Circeo. 62 Blanc 1958. The deposits were not excavated but one, seen in section along the road, was 60 m long and 0.50 m thick. The deposits were securely dated to the late 1st–early 2nd century a.d., since they were immediately above the spoils dumped while constructing the nearby navigable channel built under Nero, connecting the lake of Paola to the sea.

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villa the spot became highly fashionable. Since Circeii is praised, in the ancient sources, for its oyster production, appreciated for their tenderness and sweetness, it may be also possible that the shpond was used for oyster breeding.63 Another activity peculiar to coastal villas was the production of salt, by means of letting seawater evaporate in shallow ponds. Salt was a precious commodity, making possible the preservation and stockpiling of food. These salterns were probably related to the processing of sh products in at least some cases. To my knowledge, on the stretch of coast in question, no villas with salterns have been identied with certainty on the basis of archaeological evidence. It is sometimes difcult to ascertain whether the poorly preserved remains of pools were shvivaria or salterns, but here literary sources complement the archaeology. In his poem De Reditu Suo, Rutilius Namatianus mentions the existence of salterns at Albinus’ villa at Vada Volterrana.64 This Late Imperial testimony could very likely be applied to the mid-Imperial villa, too. We do not know when the particular villa described by Rutilius was built, whether in the Late Republic or in the Early Empire, since, due to the erosion of the coastline, no archeological trace of it has been found. We do know, however, that these salterns still existed in the eighth century,65 three hundred years after Rutilius. The area of Torre Saline north of Orbetello, where a maritime villa has been located, seemed to have been exploited for salt production only in Medieval times,66 and this raises the interesting question of the source of the salt used in the garum and salted sh industry identied at Cosa, Torre Tagliata and Portus Fenilie. In the catalogue, I suggest that the villa-site on Monte Argentario/Tombolo della Giannella67 probably had large salinae and was engaged in the production of salt. The status of the archeological evidence can neither support nor disprove this hypothesis, but I base my suggestion on the fact that we know of salterns functioning in 63 Plin. NH 32.660: Cerceiensibus ostreis—neque dulciora neque teneriora ulla esse compertum est; Hor. Sat. 2.4.33; Juv. Sat. 4.140. Note, however, that the terracotta vessels walled in the sides of the podium and in some of the tanks point either to eels, that when in captivity are photophobic and hide in dark recesses, or to shes that have a strong territorial behavior. 64 Rut. Namat. 1.475: Subiectas villae vacat aspectare salinas. 65 See E. Castorina, commentary and edition of Rutilius De Reditu Suo, Firenze 1967. Some scholars think that the villa at S. Vincenzino, near Cecina, was Albinus’ villa. See Catalogue: T24. 66 Carandni and Cambi 2002: 221. 67 Bronson and Uggeri 1970 n. 80.

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that location in later times—down to the sixteenth century. In Roman times, various areas of the Italian coastline were occupied by brackish marshes, where salt naturally accumulated with the evaporation of water during the summer months. The mouth of the Tiber offered such a landscape in prehistoric and proto-historic times; later on, the natural salterns were concentrated on the borders of the lake that stretched from the Tiber to the Castel Fusano area. This lake was only reclaimed at the beginning of the twentieth century, and one can still see the efuent channel that once connected it to the sea. In antiquity, this channel was the border between the ager of Ostia and that of Laurentum, where villas began to be built in the Republic. It is likely that some of the villas built in this area included salterns in their fundi and used the salt in some kind of food processing. In fact, not far from the so called “villa of Pliny” at Castel Fusano, there was a seasonal settlement in connection with the salterns in place as early as the seventh century b.c.68 However, the entire coastal area between the Via Ostiense and the aforementioned lake was dotted with suburban villas, in direct relation to the civil and commercial center of Ostia. These villas, occupied continuously down to the third or fourth century, show no signs of “crisis”69 in the late Imperial period, a fact which, in addition to their close proximity to Rome and Ostia, was probably due to the important industry represented by the salinae.

Figlinae and Agriculture Economic activities connected to the sea and sh-breeding are by no means the only ones attested at coastal villas. The production of bricks, tiles and pottery was a common commercial activity at both villae rusticae and villae maritimae, and this discussion on glinae applies also to the rural villas that are the topic of the following two chapters. As we learn from the works of the agronomists and from juridical sources, 68 In the vicinity of Piscina Torta, where a great number of amphorae and pottery fragments dated to the seventh century b.c. have been discovered. Ramieri 2002: 36. 69 The small villae rusticae in the area of modern Acilia also present a continuous occupation from the Republic to the Late Empire. It is possible that these farms, which had their own necropolis and were served by aqueducts, were part of larger fundi organized around the maritime villas. They could also have been independent farms serving the markets of Ostia and Rome (Pellegrino 1995).

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the establishment of glinae was considered a natural complement of agriculture.70 As in the case of sh-breeding, where characters involved in it derived their cognomina from that activity or hobby (i.e., Murena, Orata), similarly we know of such cognomina as Tegula and Imbrex, clearly alluding to glinae and their production.71 Having a glina, whenever possible, at a coastal fundus was even more convenient, from a commercial point of view, than having one inland, since maritime (or uvial) transportation was more convenient for the shipping of heavy loads than land transportation.72 Not all the cases of kilns producing bricks and tiles located on the estate of a villa were necessarily producing a surplus to be commercialized. In some cases the production was aimed exclusively at the internal needs of the villa, as in the case of maintenance works implying re-roong, etc. or other building activities that might occur on the property. When both good clay beds and abundant fuel were present on an estate, enough to allow exploitation for the market, the resources could be exploited directly by the owner, or, as a solution often preferred to limit one’s own responsibilities, leased out to someone else, according to a locatio-conductio contract.73 Among the coastal villas examined herein this activity appears to have been particularly common in the coastal area of Astura, which offered beds of clay and sufcient water. Many known coastal sites show evidence of kilns, and in one case a drying-room related to a kiln has been identied in a rich coastal villa.74 The glinae could produce a variety of products, such as tiles, bricks, amphorae, and lamps,75 either

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The juridical and literary sources are analyzed in Di Porto 1984: 3235–77. See also Aubert 1994, who rightly points out that the presence of glinae as a fundamental part of estates is attested in the description of the fundi in the Tabula of Veleia (CIL XI.1146, 14, 47, 89). 71 These two names are for instance attested for the Licinii; brickstamps referring to this gens have been found in the area of Blera (Carandini 1989b: 162). 72 Consider the fact that in the Adriatic regions, the brick-stamps with diffusion over a wide area are found only along the coast, indicating distribution by boats. For a general re-assessment of land transport costs vs. sea and river transport see Laurence 1998. 73 See treatment on glinae in Aubert 1994. 74 See Catalogue: L20 and footnote 19. For the various kilns identied along the coast between Astura and the mouth of River Foglino see Piccarreta 1977: 17–18 and map. 75 As rightly pointed out by Zaccaria-Gomezel 2000: 299 n. 87, it is not true, as it was previously believed, that a particular stamp belonged only to one kind of product. In Istria, examples of the same stamp on dolia and bricks, or lamps and dolia have been recovered.

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for sale on the market or, in the case of amphorae, as containers for other produce from the estates (wine, olive oil,76 sh products). As mentioned above, in the discussion of sh-breeding, it is possible that many of the kilns in southern Latium produced containers for sh sauce or salted sh. A maritime villa in Bagni Sulfurei (Mondragone, Caserta) was located very close to the kilns that produced Dressel 1A and 1B amphorae, containers used for the shipping of Falernian wine.77 In Imperial times, the large glinae produced tiles and bricks mostly for the urban markets, to satisfy the demand for the building materials dictated by new architectural techniques: opus mixtum and opus vittatum.78 One of the fundamental problems archaeologists have to face, when they discover the remains of kilns at a villa-site, is ascertaining their size and volume of production—in other words, to determine whether the kilns produced tiles only to satisfy the villa’s own needs, or whether it was truly an economic enterprise oriented toward the outside market. It is not always easy to reach denite conclusions about this matter; it all depends on the quality of the archaeological data and the extent of the area excavated. We know from literary sources that, whenever possible, villas had glinae for their own internal supply, but that this supply could also have been completed from external sources.79 Brickstamps can be very helpful in this matter: a wide distribution of the same stamp, especially when the word glina appears in it, indicates a commercial glina.80

76 In Istria, roof tiles bear the same stamps found on Dressel 6–B amphorae for olive oil, showing that both were produced on the same fundi. The majority of the names on these stamps belonged to owners of senatorial or equestrian rank; only a few names belonged to members of the local elite. 77 See discussion infra and Gasperetti and Crimaco 1993; Pagano 1995: 216 ff. 78 Seminal studies on glinae and brick stamps are: H. Bloch, I bolli laterizi e la storia dell’ediliza romana, Roma 1947; specically for Rome, Ostia and the suburbium: M. Steinby, La cronologia delle glinae doliari urbane dalla ne dell’età repubblicana no all’inizio del III sec. d.C., BCAR 84, 1974; T. Helen, Organization of Roman brick production in the rst and second centuries A.D., Helsinki 1975; P. Setälä, Privati Domini in Roman brick stamps of the Empire. A historical and prosopographical study of landowners in the district of Rome, Helsinki 1977. 79 For the type of production in the praedia of large villas in central Italy in the Late Republic, see Manacorda in Carandini 1985: 101–106. Also, in the case of small glinae, it cannot be ruled out that part of the production was intended for a local market. See Zaccaria and Gomezel 2000: 297 for an analysis of the situation in eastern Venetia and Histria. 80 A personal name in a brick-stamp can indicate: a) the name of the owner of the glina were the bricks/tiles were produced; b) the name of the owner of the fundus were the material was used for construction—the glina could have been in the same praedium or somewhere else; c) the person for whom the bricks/tiles where produced,

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But what conclusion are we to draw when relatively few examples of a stamp are known, either spread out over a circumscribed geographical area or limited only to one site? This question introduces another problematic issue about brick stamps and villas, namely the tendency, when a stamp bearing the name of a senator or knight is found at a site, to attribute to that person the ownership of the estate. The desire on the part of scholars to give names to the owners of the numerous villas found in Italy is prevalent, but in fact we can condently attribute ownership in only a very few cases. Besides the fact that properties changed hands with relative ease,81 any assignment of ownership based on brick-stamps depends on whether one interprets the tiles/bricks as having been produced on the fundus or bought on the market.82 A cogent discussion of the various scenarios relating to brick-stamps and villas has been presented by M. Gualtieri.83 He outlines two case studies, showing opposite situations. The rst is a villa rustica at Oppido Lucano,84 with an impressive pars urbana, in use from the rst century b.c. to the fth century a.d. Various brick-stamps were discovered,85 and show that the villa was supplied from several regional sources, rather than from the praedium specically intended for the villa itself. Gaultieri’s second example is the villa of Ossaia, near Cortona, in Tuscany.86 Three types of stamps were recovered there,87 attributable to building phases in the rst century b.c. and the rst century a.d. But in this case, conwith no link to the ownership of the glina or the name of the ofcinatores. The owner of the glina could also lease it to someone else. Fundamental studies about this problem are: Manacorda 1993 and idem, “I diversi signicati dei bolli laterizi” in Brique 2000: 127–159. About the economic and social conclusions that can be drawn from this type of material see Andreau 1996. 81 Finley 1976; Shatzman 1975. 82 Petrographic analysis can help locate the clay-beds, but this does not always solve the question of the ownership of a villa, since in many cases we have contiguous estates sharing the same geological typology. Stamps on water stulae are traditionally considered more reliable than brick-stamps in the attribution of property ownership (for instance, see Eck 1982), but contra see Aubert 1993: 177, and Bruun 2003, esp. 494–499, for a discussion of stulae showing a proper name in the genitive case and having uncertain provenance. In these cases he suggests the necessity to consider also the possible provenance from public balnea, manufactures, etc. and not just villas. Bruun believes also that in some cases the genitive on the stamp indicates the manufacturer, implying the label “(ex ofcina) illius,” rather than the owner of the water line and, therefore, of the land (= aqua illius), as these stamps have always been understood. 83 Gualtieri 2000. 84 In the Bradano Valley, in northeastern Lucania (modern Basilicata). 85 Herculis; P. Vei.Pollion; Pote(ntinorum); C. E. Gali; C. Iuni Kani with hedera. 86 For this site, see the Catalogue: T14. 87 C.Vibi V. f. or VE; Caesarum; A. Gelli Potni.

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sidering the usage of the roof tiles and the known distribution of the specic stamp types, Gualtieri concludes that the stamps indicate the successive proprietors of the estate: a member of the Vibii Pansae family, followed by Caius and Lucius Caesar,88 and nally a freedman of a family native to Clusium. Not all scholars agree that a particular stamp indicates the ownership of a villa by a specic person. For instance, in the case of the Late Republican villa in Scansano, near Campo della Chiesa, where a previously unknown stamp has been recovered, several opinions have been expressed. The archaeologist responsible for the excavation, M. Del Chiaro, believes it shows that the villa belonged to the Anili family, whereas J. Bodel, in his appendix to M. Del Chiaro’s 1990 article, stresses that the brick-stamp only denotes the production of the tile in a glina owned by the Anilii.89 The picture of coastal villas that emerges when one takes into account the whole context into which they were placed, rather than focusing only on the residential aspect and the pars urbana, is a multifaceted one. A maritime villa was not a single entity, but rather a complex organism, with the main villa at the center and, depending on the size of the fundus, a variable number of satellite farms, often assigned to coloni.90 Due to the presence of hills and mountains, the coastal fundi very often have an elongated form, running parallel to the coast, with promontories separating two adjacent estates. This situation differs from what we observe in countryside fundi, where the estate belonging to a villa is formed by grouping the various lots, equal in size and shape, originally assigned to coloni (see the case/model of Settenestre). The organization of property and production based on a central villa and subsidiary farms has long been admitted for villae rusticae, but its validity for coastal estates has only recently been acknowledged by scholars. John D’Arms, after his fundamental study of the villas on the Bay on Naples, was the rst to recognize that maritime villas in the Vesuvian area had a series of satellite-farms that provided all that was needed on the main estate as well as goods for commerce.91 Nonetheless, it is still possible to nd statements in the modern literature about the

88 Octavian/Augustus inherited some properties belonging to C. Vibius Pansa (cos. 43). Shatzman 1975: 361. 89 Del Chiaro 1989; 1990. The stamp reads: P. Anilius P. F. 90 On the employment of tenants on villa-estates also during the Republic and early Empire, see the chapter on villae rusticae. 91 D’Arms 1970 and 1977.

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unproductiveness of maritime villas. Literary sources can be rather elusive on this matter, but we do nd some hints here and there about the presence of farms on the estates of villae maritimae. For instance—and to my knowledge, this passage is never quoted for what it implies about the property system—Varro reports that Hirrius, the owner of the famous piscinae mentioned above, had an income of 12,000 sesterces from the buildings near his coastal estate (Hirrius circum piscinas suas ex aediciis duodena milia sesteria capiebat).92 Whether this income came from rental contracts or from the sale of goods produced on the estate we are unable to tell, but the importance of the passage in this context is that it seems to point to the presence of satellite farms for maritime villas as well. A third possible reading of this passage is that, since Varro uses the term “aedicia” and not “villae,” we should posit not farms, but buildings right next to the piscinae for the industrial processing of sh, as in the production of garum and salted sh. I have already mentioned the villa complex of La Tagliata at Cosa, which contains such buildings, and the 19th century accounts recording tuna salting at the Villa dei Muracci. Other villa sites that may have been engaged in sh processing are Torre Valdaliga and Pian di Spille.93 There are two cases, in the geographic area under examination in which eld survey and topographical research have allowed the reconstruction of the distribution of major coastal villas and satellite settlements. Along the coast of Alsium, maritime villas, of which the average extent of the pars urbana is 80,000 m2,94 are located at a distance of about 2 km. The space in between these villas is occupied by small farms, as is the inland area. The number of settlements in this same area was better dened by the eld survey for the ager Caeretanus, which in the portion of territory between Ladispoli and S. Severa documented twelve large villas (10,000–32,000 m2), mainly along the Via Aurelia; forty-two medium/small villas (1,000–6,000 m2); and 132 small farms (1,000–2,000 m2).95 The second case is the coastal area immediately north of Torre Astura; here the small farms are located exclusively in the hinterland, since the average distance between maritime villas is about 200 m, one

92 Varro Rust. 3.17.2: “Hirrius used to take 12,000 sesterces from the buildings around his shponds”. 93 Catalogue: L95; L264; Marzano forthcoming. 94 See Lafon 1990. 95 Enei 1992, 1993, in particular 43 ff., and 1995.

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Figure 7. Torre Astura region, distribution of villas and farms (after Piccarreta 1977).

tenth of that between maritime villas in Alsium.96 In my opinion, this cluster of villas can be taken as an indication of two factors. First, it could indicate villa building along this part of the coast in the Republican period, earlier than along the Alsium coast, if one assumes that the closeness of villas reect the size of original, smaller-sized land allotments. (Figure 7) This fact would be in accordance with Lafon’s analysis of the chronology of maritime villas based on architectural and archaeological data. Second, this intense building activity could be attributed to, among other things, the vast range of economic enterprises possible in this part of the coast—sh-breeding, glinae, etc.—which

96

See Piccarreta 1977.

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determined the ourishing of villas. S. Ciccone has attempted a similar calculation of settlement pattern for a small portion of the coast at Formiae. In his reconstruction, in a little less than 1,200 m one nds four monumental villas, the estates of which extended about 1,500 m inland. This gives a gure of 60 hectares for the fundi, including the villa, a monumental tomb along the Via Appia, and several villae rusticae.97 As analyzed by Lafon, satellite farms could be part of one contiguous estate including also the main villa or the land holdings could be discontinuous; in either case, one observes a functional differentiation of the establishments, with few including a lavishly appointed residential part for the dominus.98 In the area of Castrum Novum (S. Marinella) the larger villas are concentrated along the coast, several at 1 km or less from each other; other villas, smaller in size, are distributed inland, along the axis of the coastal planes, in a strip of land measuring ca. 5 km from the coast (Figure 8). Lafon suggests that this also reects a system of satellite establishments belonging to the same proprietors, who would reside in the villas on the coast—the ones more elegantly appointed—during their visits.99 This hierarchical organization of one’s properties from the functional point of view is not exclusive to coastal villas, but applies also to their countryside counterparts. Recognizing the importance of these farms in the universe of production of the villa maritima allows us to attribute yet more possible production activities to coastal villas. Wine-making was mentioned briey in the section devoted to the pars rustica in maritime villas, and to this we must add farming and grain production. Literary sources mention these elements at an early date for some areas. Already in the third century b.c., we are told that the coastal area of Caere was rich in ocks and herds;100 archeological conrmation of this picture emerges from faunal taxa excavated at Pyrgi in the third century b.c. strata, including ovines, pigs, and bovines.101 According to Livy, during the Hannibalic war, Caere contributed in frumentum and commeatum omnis generis.102 A similar scenario seems to have been valid for the Julio-Claudian age, 97

Ciccone 1980: 14, discussed in Lafon 2001: 153. Lafon 2001: 153–156. 99 Ibidem: 155. 100 Lycoph. Alex. 1241. The context is that of the legendary Trojan war, so caution should be used in extracting information from this passage. 101 Papi 2000: 6 n. 8. 102 Liv. 28.45. 98

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Figure 8. S. Marinella, distribution of villas (after Gianfrotta 1972).

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when Columella’s praedia, in addition to vineyards, also included prata et pascua et silvas. In the section of coastline between S. Marinella and the mouth of the river Mignone, at least fty farms with torcularia, dated to the Republic, have been identied.103 Overall, the villa maritima, which might be considered initially only a privileged place for the enjoyment of otium, offers, from an economic point of view, a much more complex and variegated picture than the villa rustica. The villa on Giglio Island, very likely the property of the Domitii Ahenobarbi before passing to the Imperial scus, could count not only on agriculture and sh-breeding,104 but also on the local quarrying of gray granite,105 widely used in Roman times at least locally. At Tor Caldara, 5 km north-west of Antium, the establishment and life of an elegant maritime villa in the rst century a.d. was connected to the exploitation of the nearby deposits of sulphour.106 On Elba Island, in addition to the quarrying of granite, which has been identied in monuments in Rome,107 at least two of the known maritime villas appear to have been built and used in conjunction with the commercial exploitation of the iron mines. Next to the so called Villa delle Grotte and the Villa di Capo Castello, built on one side of the island’s main harbor, areas with concentrations of iron slag were discovered. Moreover, both sites show a phase of abandonment in the late rst century a.d., when mining activity (or metal-processing) on the island was reduced.108 Another industrial activity that could potentially take place in villas and their fundi, although we do not have direct archaeological evidence in this sense, is the production of glass, provided the right natural resources were available. Interestingly Pliny reports that in Campania the sand for the glass production which came from the Volturnus River was found

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Bastianelli 1939. Judging from the middling size of the existing remains belonging to the piscina, it seems that in this case the pond was intended just to provide sh for the villa itself. See Catalogue: T20. 105 Bronson and Uggeri 1970: 204. The granite was used for architectural elements in the various villas of the Argentario peninsula. Possibly, as for the case of Elba below, it was also exported to Rome, but currently no analysis aiming at identifying the granite of Giglio outside the Monte Argentario area has been conducted. 106 See Catalogue: L303; and Quilici and Quilici Gigli 1984. 107 Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996: 20–23. 108 Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996: 26 and Casaburo 1997. According to Strabo (5.2.6), the metal could no longer be processed on the island for lack of fuel, and was sent to Populonia. 104

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either along the coastline or six miles between Cumae and Liternum, where several villas stood.109 In addition to these activities—and especially on small islands ill-suited to agriculture and lacking in other natural resources—the owner of a coastal villa could raise small game and birds, particularly peacocks. These birds began to be regarded as a culinary delicacy in the Late Republic, when Quintus Hortensius introduced them to the Roman table.110 Animal husbandry, of this kind, fell into the category of pastio villatica, to which Varro dedicates his entire third book. It was an occupation that could be extremely remunerative, even if the estate was not very large, and even more so when the property was located not too far from Rome. Indeed, as we have seen already, the occasions when one could sell large numbers of birds or sh at high prices were public banquets and collegial dinners.111 Even the cultivation of owers could take place at a maritime villa, in particular if it was located near an urban market.112 At Bagni Sulfurei, near Mondragone (Caserta, in the territory of ancient Sinuessa), a maritime villa was partly excavated, whose garden, dating to between the mid-second century b.c. and the early rst century b.c., incorporated a very sophisticated drainage and irrigation system, with devices to prevent seawater from rising to the surface. On the basis of the large dimension of the garden, of the complex hydraulic system and the transportation of fertile soil from another location, the excavators of this complex believe that the garden was used for the cultivation of owers for the city market.113 In fact, the garden occupied four different

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Plin., NH 36.194. Lafon 2001: 149 does not nd a direct correlation between artisan activities and the diffusion of coastal villas, but notes that a possible connection could be seen in the case of Minturnae, were several villas belonging to elite members were built in the late second century b.c., and where in 135 b.c. slaves revolted (artisans according to Toynbee; shepherds and farmers for Frederiksen and Musti; bibliographical references in Lafon, ibidem). 110 Columella Rust. 8.11: Itaque genus alitum nemorosis et parvulis insulis, quales obiacent Italiae, facillime continetur. 111 E.g., Varro (Rust. 3.2.15–16) reports a prot of 60,000 sesterces from the sale of ve thousand thrushes raised on his aunt Ficella’s villa on the Salaria, only 36 km from Rome, for a triumphal banquet. 112 Obviously, the cultivation of owers for the market was not a prerogative of maritime villas only, but took place in rural villas as well, depending on the climate and villa location. The excavators of the villa at Posto, Francolise, suggest the possibility that ower cultivation took place in the area in Roman times (based on modern practices); see Cotton 1979a: 69. 113 Gasperetti and Crimaco 1993. See also Pagano 1995: 216 ff.

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articial terraces, ending only a few meters away from the present shoreline. A thick layer of humus, brought from the foot of nearby Monte Petrino, was placed on a preparation layer made of earth and amphora fragments. Many channels made of tiles and tubuli formed a complex irrigation and drainage system. The channels irrigated the garden, while the pottery fragments in the preparatory layer helped the retention of humidity. The problem of underground saltish water was solved with a sophisticated device: below the two layers described above, were two layers of whole Dressel 1-A amphorae, held together by a thick layer of mortar; the amphorae of the rst layer, closer to the surface, were lled with soil; the ones of the second layer were empty, sealed with a mortar stopper. Indeed, Cicero mentions in one of his letters prots from a ower garden in his villa at Tusculum.114 In the letter, addressed to his freedman Tyro, Cicero discusses the letting of the garden, alluding to improvements he made, and mentioning that from another property he had a yield in owers that exceeded expectations: Parhedrum excita ut hortum ipse conducat; sic holitorem ipsum commovebis. Helico nequissimus HS  dabat, nullo aprico horto, nullo emissario, nulla maceria, nulla casa. Iste nos tanta impensa deriderat? Calface hominem, ut ego Mothonem; itaque abutor coronis.115

We lack sufcient information to fully comprehend the passage, but it is clear that Cicero is discussing a garden in his villa in Tusculum which yielded some capital return either in the form of rent or of direct sell of its product. It is assumed that owers for the market of Tusculum were cultivated in the garden, since Cicero makes the parallel with another of his gardens that yielded abundant owers (coronis). Whether the one thousand sesterces that Helicus used to pay refers to the rental

114 For the study of hydraulic infrastructure in villas, possibly related to the irrigation of orchards and ower gardens see Thomas and Wilson 1994; Wilson forthcoming. 115 Cic. Fam. 16.18.2: “Urge Parhedrus to hire the garden for himself. In this way you will give the present gardener a shaking-up. That hopeless rascal Helico used to pay 1000 sesterces, when there was no sunny garden, no water drainage, no wall, no shed. Is he to laugh at us, after we took over such expenses? Warm the fellow up, as I do Motho here, with the result that I have abundant owers for garlands”. The details are difcult to understand for us, since the letter only alludes to transactions and business well-known to Tyro, but it is clear that Cicero spent money to improve the garden and that he was not satised by the offer (presumably for the purchase of the owers) received from Parhedrus, hence the suggestion to have Parhedrus hire and manage the garden himself (conducat).

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of the garden or to the price paid for the owers it is not clear. The improvements to the property are intended to increase the productivity of the garden, especially the creation of an emissarius, which must refer to an irrigation system, probably fed by the Aqua Crabra, since in the letter Cicero moves on to ask about what is happening with the Crabra.116 Flowers had many uses in antiquity, from the making of garlands to be used in banquets and ceremonies, to the scenting of wine (especially with roses, violets, and lilies), and the manufacture of perfume and unguents.117 Varro mentions the benets of the large-scale cultivation of rose and violet in the vicinity of a city.118 Greenhouses, although not yet articially heated, were already being used to cultivate owers in the rst century a.d.119 Since in Italy olive oil was used as a base for perfumes, their production proved lucrative, during the entire Imperial age, for the owners of olive groves and rose-elds in addition to perfumers.120

Real-Estate Speculation In the previous sections, I focused on the various economic enterprises attested for maritime villas. To complete the picture, I should also mention that a villa could be a protable venture per se, since it was highly valued on the real-estate market. This fact is true both for country villas in sought after locations and for maritime ones. The rapidity with which properties were bought and sold, this being a “licit” business for

116 Cic. Fam. 16.18.3: de Crabra quid agatur, etsi nunc quidem etiam est aquae, tamen velim scire. The same opinion is expressed by Thomas and Wilson 1994: 147, footnote 39. 117 For instance, see the perfume laboratory/shop excavated in the forum of Paestum or workshops at Pompeii. The area around Paestum is described in poetic texts (Ovid Met., 3.15.708; Prop. 4.4.69; Mart. 4.42.10; 5.37.9) as being rich in rose-elds that owered twice a year. On this, see Brun 2000. The author correctly points out that the vocabulary used in the texts (rosaria) and the emphasis on the high productivity seem to indicate large-scale cultivation rather than pure horticultural decoration. Campania was renowned for the production of the best rose perfume. See D. Mattingly, “Paintings, presses and perfume production at Pompeii”, OJA 1999, 9: 71–90 for analysis of a particular type of oil press, the wedge press, used in perfume making. 118 Varro Rust. 1.16.3. 119 Sen. Ep. 90.25; Mart. 8.14. 120 Brun 2000: 300. Certain olive oils, such as the Venafrum, were particularly sought after for their qualities in the perfume-making process.

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the elite, was quite surprising.121 The transactions involved senators and rich freedmen alike. We know that one villa in Tusculum changed ve owners within 50 years: the freedman Sotericus Marcius, L. Crassus, Vennonius Vindicius, Q. Metellus and L. Cornelius Balbus.122 For this reason, the desire to own a maritime villa and the location of the villa itself resulted in part from the prospect of reselling the estate at a prot. C. Sergius Orata, famous for breeding oysters on a large scale in Lake Lucrinus, was also known for being the rst to install “hanging baths”123 in the villas he built on the “deserted” shores of the lake. The reference to balnea pensilia is interpreted by some scholars to mean the use of suspensurae in the caldarium.124 What seems to emerge from the case of Orata is that he built villas equipped with the latest conveniences in order to sell them at a large prot. Speculation of this kind greatly increased the prices of villas.125 Cicero mentions a legal case regarding Orata in his De Ofciis, in a discussion of the bona des principle in sale transactions. Marcus Marius Gratidianus had sold a house back to Orata, which he had bought from the same Orata a few years earlier. But Gratidianus had not stated in the sale transaction that the house, or part of it, was subject to easement, and the case was brought to court.126 What is interesting about this passage in this context is the fact that Orata is buying back the house he himself had sold. Cicero does not tell us the price paid or any other details about the sale, as he is interested only in the bona des in the act of mancipio. But it seems reasonable to assume that Orata proted from the transactions, or else he would not have sold the house in the rst place. As far as we know, he had no compelling reason, such as a pressing need for cash, to do so. As for his motives in buying the

121 For a study of this phenomenon at the time of Cicero see E. Rawson in Finley 1976: 85–102. 122 Valenti 2003: 59. 123 Val. Max. 9.1.1: C. Sergius Orata pensilia balnea primus facere instituit. Quae impensa a livibus initiis coepta ad suspensa caldae aquae tantum non aequora penetravit [. . .] Aediciis etiam spatiosis et excelsis deserta ad id tempus ora Lucrini lacus pressit, qui recentiore usu conchyliorum frueretur. Also Pliny NH 9.168: balineas pensiles. 124 On the development of baths in domestic architecture in Italy, see Fabbricotti 1976, Lafon 1991 for important discoveries at Villa Prato (Sperlonga), and Papi 1999. 125 Pliny NH 3.15.3: Sergius Orata primus pensiles invenerit balineas ita mangonicatas villas subinde vendendo (bold mine). See also Gros 2001: 290. 126 Cic. de Off. 3.67.

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house back from Gratidianus, one could either speculate that he was overcome by sentimentalism and attachment or see behind this act a businessman, who foresaw the possibility of enhancing the value of the house and maybe reselling it later at a higher price. Cornelia, Sulla’s daughter, was able to sell the villa at Capo Miseno to L. Licinius Lucullus for 10 million sesterces. She had bought the villa, which belonged to Marius, for only 300,000 sesterces.127 Although that low price was the result of conscation relating to the proscriptions of 82–81 b.c., Cornelia must also have enhanced the property, if she was able to sell it for 10 million some time later. One of the gures who emerges from Cicero’s epistolary in relation to his search for a property, where to built the funerary monument in memory of his daughter Tullia, is a certain Silius,128 a landowner in the territory of Ostia. Silius was known for his sense for business and had invested in buying large properties in order to parcel and re-sell them at a high prot. In Imperial times, Juvenal mentions in his Satire 14 two other potential speculators: Posides and Creticus. Posides, who was a freedman of the emperor Claudius,129 built, possibly in the area of Baiae,130 luxurious villas, which surpassed in luxury the palaces on the Capitoline Hill. Creticus owned and built many villas on the coast of Formiae. Literary sources do not explicitly state that these two characters engaged in real estate speculation, but it seems plausible that such was the purpose of their intense building activity.131 As part of this discussion, it must be remembered that the furnishing of the villas was an important aspect of the speculation. Lavish furnishings could not only be a delight for the owner, and a matter of self representation in society, but they could also improve the market value of the property. From Pliny the Younger we learn that a rich

127

Plut. Mar. 34.2. This Silius was the father of Silius Nerva, cos. 20 b.c., maybe related to P. Silius, praetor in 58 or 52 b.c. 129 Suet. Claud. 28. 130 Pliny NH 31.2 reports that at Baiae there were thermal springs called aquae Posidianae after a freedman of Claudius Caesar. Posides has also been proposed as a candidate for the ownership of the Roman villa in Positano, very partially investigated by Weber in April 1758. M. Della Corte (1936) made this suggestion based on linguistic evidence (the place-name Positano exhibits the typical ending for names derived from adjectives naming a Roman praedium. 131 See the general comment on building activities in villas by Purcell 1985: 9, note 39: “aedicatio was a popular way of adding to the market value of a villa”. 128

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landowner like Domitius Tullus, who left to his wife amoenissimas villas, had innumerable ancient works of art (original pieces, not copies) in his storehouses, ready to be used for furnishing the gardens of newly bought villas.132 Statuary was an important part of the furnishing of a villa and its garden—the types of works and narrative themes selected could communicate to others how the villa’s owner wanted to be perceived by his peers and subordinates.133 The passage in Pliny the Elder about Agrippa objecting to the private display in villas of statues and pictures, which he considered public goods, is a famous quotation, frequently used to illustrate the degree to which villas were furnished with works of art.134 The demand for luxury goods was certainly signicant, as shown by the case of the aristocrat Damasippus, who after losing the family’s properties was active as an art merchant, probably taking advantage of old acquaintances interested in furnishing their villas and town houses.135 Although not every villa received a precisely planned decorative program according to the owner’s personal tastes and beliefs (as in the case of Cicero’s Tusculanum, the Papyri Villa at Herculaneum, or Herodes Atticus’ villa near Eua, in the Peloponnese),136 gurative decoration was what made a villa luxurious and fashionable, and it ultimately helped to increase the value of the property. Goods to the value of 30 million sesterces, including all the excess items intended

132 Pliny Ep. 8.18.11: Expectatur auctio (of the statues, since Tullus died): fuit enim tam copiosus, ut amplissimos hortos eodem quo emerat die instruxerit plurimis et antiquissimis statuis; tantum illi pulcherrimorum operum in horreis, quae neglebantur. 133 See especially Neudecker 1988. 134 Plin., NH 35.26. 135 He was probably the son of L. Iunius Damasippus, the praetor of 82 b.c., who was killed by Sulla. F. Zevi, “Cicero and Ostia”, in Gallina, Zevi and Humphrey 2004: 23. 136 On the decorative program of the Papyri Villa—possibly a property of Calpurnius Piso, Caesar’s father-in-law, but this is really hypothetical—a vast bibliography exists; see, in particular, Neudecker 1988 and Wojcik 1986. Herodes Atticus’ villa (covering a surface area of 20,000 m2, with a central garden decorated with sculptures on a plan similar to that of the Papyri Villa) has been under excavation since the 1980s, under the direction of Teodoro Spyropoulos. The sculptures, including original fth-century statues, have been recently published in G. Spyropoulos, Drei Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik aus der Villa des Herodes Atticus zu Eva/Loukou. Frankfurt am Main 2001. The mosaic and sculptural decoration of the peristyle garden were conceived as one decorative program, linking the themes of the mosaics with the sculptures placed in front of the porticoes. For example, in the north portico, in front of a mosaic depicting Menelaos holding Patroclos’ body, fragments of a statuary group representing the same subject were found (“Pasquino” type). For an account of the villa see T. Spyropoulos and G. Spyropoulos, “Prächtige Villa, Refugium und Musenstätte”, Antike Welt 34.5, 2003: 463–464 and G. Ieranò, “I tesori di un intelletuale”, Archeo (6) 2001: 48–53.

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for the scaenae frons and the set of the theater that he had built, were destroyed when Scaurus’ villa in Tusculum was set on re by his angry servants.137 The fact that Domitius Tullus found it more convenient to buy works of art in advance (as a result of wholesale purchases, auctions, or ofcia held in the provinces), indicates the frequency with which he bought (and sold) properties and the necessity of being able to furnish the villas decorously and quickly. It is not by chance that at Baiae, the famous vacation spot where many maritime villas were located, several plaster casts of Greek statues were discovered; the casts were intended for the manufacture in series of bronze statuary and must have related to a workshop that produced furnishing for the villas in the area.138 Statuary is not the only furnishing for villas that could be bought in advance or moved between various estates. While other types of objects, such as furniture and metal objects, do not usually survive in the archaeological record, we can get an idea of their existence by looking at the Vesusvian area, where the eruption of 79 a.d. “froze” the picture. The villa excavated in the 19th century at Boscoreale in Contrada Pisanella presented in the courtyard not only wooden chests and wardrobes containing metal toilette implements, surgical instruments and vessels, but also two bronze bath tubs, while stored in the granary were large wooden and bronze doors, pertaining to a main gateway.139 Whether these objects originated from the same villa and indicate that works and restorations were taking place at the site—as it has been postulated for most of the habitations in the area—or whether they were moved/bought from another estate to be reused when needed, we cannot determine. This evidence reminds us, however, that the furnishings of villas were not static and in some cases objects were placed in a much less orderly fashion than we like to imagine, even if we accept that the evidence of the area around Vesuvius is exceptional because it reects on-going restorations and refurnishing caused by the earthquake of 62 a.d. (a position, however, that several scholars are starting to attenuate). Extreme cases of prot-making in real estate usually concern a villa being sold to demolitores, who would take and resell all the building

137 Pliny NH 36.115: relicus apparatus tantus Attalica veste, tabulis pictis, cetero choragio fuit ut in Tusculanam villam reportatis quae superuebant cotidiani usus deliciis, incensa villa ab iratis servis concremaretur HS | CC¯C|. 138 Landwehr 1985. 139 Carandini 1989b: 166–168.

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material that was reusable, from marble crustae and columns to ashlar blocks. The senatus consultum “de ediciis non diruendis,” passed in 44 a.d., must have been intended to put a stop to this widespread practice.140 The law forbade the buying and selling of urban houses and villas in order to prot from their demolition, penalizing both the buyer and the seller. As we know from another senatus consultum, passed in 56 a.d., the earlier law must have been enforced on most occasions, if special deliberation of the senate was needed for those cases that might be considered exceptional.141 It is possible that despite this legislation, the practice continued or was resumed in later ages. In some cases, excavated villas appear to have been stripped of all reusable building material before becoming a ruin.142 The twenty thousand individual mosaic tesserae, stripped from several rooms and stored in the courtyard of the villa discovered at La Befa (Siena) while the mansion was being remodeled into an unrened farm, might have been the last batch of precious building material to be sold.143 But selling was not the only way to gain revenue from real estate. In my opinion, we should also consider the possibility that villas were rented out. Although E. Rawson144 observed that the readiness to sell properties among the Ciceronian aristocracy was also probably caused by the rarity of renting among the upper classes, evidence pertaining to the urbs suggests quite the opposite. Many members of the senatorial elite rented a domus in Rome. Information about renting is presented systematically nowhere in the sources, but it does exist. From Suetonius, for instance, we learn that Tiberius took away the latus clavus of a senator upon learning that he had moved to the country around the calends of July, when rental contracts were stipulated, so that he could

140 There are three known epigraphic examples of this senatus consultum, the so-called Hosidianum. See CIL X.1401 and S. Riccobono, et al., Fontes Iuris Romani antejustiniani, Firenze 1940–43: 288–89: [. . .] debent apstinere se omnes cruentissimo genere negotiationis, neque inimicissimam pace faciem inducere ruinis domum villarumque, placere: si quid negotiandi causa emisset quod aedicium, ut diruendo plus adquireret quam quanti emisset [. . .]. 141 Riccobono op. cit.: 289–90: Alliatoria Celsilla asked and obtained an exemption for some old buildings on estates her father bought at Campi Macri. 142 For instance Elba, Villa della Linguella. See Catalogue: T15. 143 It is also possible that the tesserae were recovered to be used again at the same site, but the type of restorations occurring during this phase transform the aristocratic residence into a simple farm (rooms that received new oors were paved with large, at stones, with no evidence of sophisticated décor). 144 E. Rawson in Finley 1976: 85–102.

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obtain a better price after that date.145 Dio, on the other hand, reports that the triumviri of 43 b.c. were planning to raise money by imposing a roof-tile tax on senators living in rented houses.146 If this habit had not been common among the upper classes, the triumviri would have had no need to introduce such a tax. In light of these pieces of evidence for the urban market, it is worth asking whether villas, too, could sometimes have been rented out. Literary sources, in particular the letters of Cicero, often mention the “exchange” of invitations among peers to spend vacations in various villas. It is possible that we are simply not informed of cases when the “invitation” was really a rental.

145 Suet. Tib. 35.2: Senatori latum clavum ademit, cum cognosset sub Kal. Iul. demigrasse in hortos, quo vilius post diem aedes in urbe conduceret. 146 Dio 46.31.3.

CHAPTER THREE

VILLAE RUSTICAE 1 AND THE IDEOLOGICAL REALM

In contrast to the ambiguous picture literary sources present of villae maritimae, the country villa consistently occupies a privileged place in the ideological constructions of the Roman elite. Landowning and agriculture, deeply rooted in tradition, were considered the source of income par excellence for Roman senators.2 Agriculture was socially respectable and was generally judged to be a safe and secure pursuit from an economic standpoint, especially when compared to the uncertainties of commerce. Clearly, the position of the sources on this topic shows some degree of idealization, as agriculture in the Mediterranean climate, with a wide range of variation in rainfall, can be a rather risky investment, especially in the case of viticulture.3 Archaeological evidence from North Africa indicates that landowners tried to put off the risk of crop failure, caused by hail, by invoking the gods’ protection.4 Cicero in his de Ofciis comments that those who are engaged in commercial activities deserve respect if, once satised with the fortunes made

1 In this chapter the term villa rustica is used to indicate an elite villa in a rural setting, in contraposition to the villae maritimae discussed in the previous chapters, and not, as in Varro, Rust. 3.2.1, to indicate a farm without residential part. 2 For an analysis of Roman juridical sources in relation to attitudes towards agricultural estates as source of income see Kehoe 1997, with particular focus given to legislation on tenancy and legacy. This study stresses the fact that in the jurists’ treatment agricultural estates are counted as providing xed revenue, often equated to the value of the annual rental. 3 A passage stressing the risks involved in cash-crops agriculture is Hor. Odes 3.1.25– 32, which contrasts these troubles with the serenity of those who content themselves with little: desiderantem quod satis est neque/tumultuosum sollicitat mare (. . .)/non verberatae grandine vineae fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas culpante, nunc torrentia agros sidera, nunc hiemes iniquas. See also Pliny’s letter (4.6) on the grape harvest in his estate damaged by hail. The risk of harvest failure could be avoided in the case of crops sold before the actual harvest, a possibility envisaged by Cato for grape and olives, when the buyer was responsible for harvest, process, transport and also shouldered the losses if the harvest failed (Morley 2000: 217). 4 Brun 2004: 208, giving also an example of an inscription on a press counterweight against the ‘evil eye’ of the envious; p. 273 for two counterweights from Spain with dedication to I(ovi) O(ptimo) M(aximo)/S.I.E.P. and Libero/S.I.E.P., read by Brun as S(acrum) I(ulius) E(ros) P(osuit).

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through commerce, they move from the “port to the country estate”; in other words, if they start investing in land property, since “nothing is better than agriculture.”5 The importance of agriculture in the ideology of the upper class was directly connected with the weight given to the idea of self-sufciency: one should produce all that is needed on the estate, and this means an engagement in agriculture to provide both basic—and less basic—foodstuffs. As early as the second century b.c. the sumptuary laws passed in Rome stressed the idea of self-sufciency by allowing the use of the agricultural products of one’s estates, thus emphasizing the importance of agriculture as a way for the elite to invest their capital.6 Incidentally, this deep-rooted idea may also have contributed, later on, to the downplaying of other economic activities that occurred in maritime villas, such as sh-breeding: a villa owner who invested in intensive sh-breeding may have been making good money, but he did not produce the agricultural products he needed. The idealization of agricultural activity, symbol of the old times when the “good citizens” were farming their land, and the importance this concept had for the Roman elite is evident also in poetry, such as Virgil’s Georgics. As argued by Reay, the Georgics offered to the elite audience, composed of estate owners, a mirror image of their ideal Roman self.7 From the very beginning, the word villa was used to refer to establishments outside the city walls that included land ( fundus or praedium), and which were engaged in various kinds of agricultural production. The term villa rustica is less a product of the ancient mind than a specication used by the modern reader to differentiate country villas from their coastal counterparts, which I discussed in the previous two chapters. As a matter of fact, the term villa alone, not modied by either rustica or maritima, referred in primis to the country villa. As in the case of coastal villas, the rural villa developed principally in certain geographic areas not far from Rome. The Colli Albani—particularly Tusculum, and Lanuvium—and the hills around Fidenae, Tibur

5 Cic., de Of. 1.151: Mercatura autem, si tenuis est, sordida putanda est; sin magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans multisque sine vanitate inpertiens, non est admodum vituperanda; atque etiam si satiata quaestu vel contenta potius, ut saepe ex alto in portum, ex ipso se portu in agros possessionesque contulit, videtur iure optimo posse laudari. Omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid adquiritur, nihil est agri cultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius. 6 Both the Lex Fannia (161 b.c.) and the Lex Licinia (130 b.c.) allowed the use of the products of the earth (but the Fannia prohibited imported wine): Clemente 1981. 7 Reay 2003.

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and Praeneste turned out to be the favored spots for members of the elite to own a country villa, most likely followed in popularity by Lake Bracciano (Sabatinus). In fact, this last area was richer in villas than the extant archaeological evidence suggests, since only three major villas have so far been identied in the area. Because villas were built right on the shore, and the water level of the lake is now higher than it was in antiquity, it is difcult to locate and investigate the ancient ruins that are now underwater. Geographic areas closer to Rome were highly valued because they could be reached by a short trip from the urbs, and therefore made even a short stay not impractical. Indeed, in the Late Republic and the Imperial period, all the hills around Rome and the above-mentioned centers were considered part of the suburbium.8 Senators, at least until the Late Republic, tended to concentrate their properties in the areas surrounding Rome, leading to price increases for the better properties.9 This fact does not rule out that most of the elite members had properties and villas scattered in different areas of Italy. But the areas just mentioned, in particular Tibur and Tusculum, were the rural equivalent of Antium or Baiae, where many villas were established, starting in the Republican period. Abundant literary evidence underlines the ideological constructions and projections relating to rural villas, which were places to cultivate the mind as well as the elds. Here, too, the ideological framework was built in opposition to reality, although the gulf between ideal and reality is not nearly so wide as in the case of coastal villas. Even the works of the agronomists, which should have offered useful, practical advice about the management of rural villas, provide an articial and literary construction of the “idea” of the villa. On the other side of the scale, we have the physical testimony of the archaeological evidence. As we will see in the next chapter, the case of Pliny the Younger’s villa is exemplary. The remains excavated near Città di Castello reveal building activity at the site concerned with the improvement of the function-

8

The ancient conception of what fell into the category of suburbium was rather exible and imprecise, and of course it changed over time, according to the city’s development. Even the coastline between Antium and Fregene could be referred to as suburbium. For Pliny, the whole of Central Italy was suburbana Italiae regio (Volpe 2000: 183). For the settlements of the suburbium, see also Quilici Gigli 1994; Mayer 2005 for a study of villas in the suburbium, with particular focus on how the term is dened in literary texts. 9 For studies in elite properties and their commercialization, see Rawson in Finley 1976; Andermahr 1998.

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ality of the service quarters and maximizing the villa’s productivity, whereas in his letters Pliny refers only in passing to the management of this estate.

The Villa Rustica in Ancient Literary Sources The fact that, in the ideology of the Roman elite, the word villa referred rst and foremost to what we now call the villa rustica, which yielded revenues through cash-crop agriculture, is shown by the works of such writers as Cato, Varro, and Columella. Their books on agriculture, addressed primarily to members of the senatorial elite, amount to a theorization and conceptualization of the moral superiority of farming over other activities. Consequently, the unit that allows for this type of endeavor—i.e., the country villa—is subject to the same conceptualization and becomes part of the same theoretical framework. The ideal of the villa is set forth in the agronomists’ recommendations concerning the best location for a villa, its orientation, and architectural typology. The line that can be drawn between the three authors shows an evolution from a relatively small, simple villa to a larger and more elegant mansion, comprising a pars urbana, a pars rustica, and a pars fructuaria (in Columella’s ideal description), wherein the agri cultura is joined to pastio agrestis and pastio villatica (Varro’s idea of the villa perfecta).10 In particular, the works of Varro and Columella, produced in a time when rich villas were widespread in the Italian countryside, offer the best picture of what was felt to be proper, for a wealthy landowner, in regard to the appearance of his villa and the activities conducted in it. Although the three books of Varro’s De Re Rustica also deal with traditional stock-farming and the farming of poultry, bees, and sh,11 it is Columella’s De Re Rustica, in twelve books, that offers detailed, at times even technical information on different aspects of villas, such as how to build shponds. One must not forget, however, that the works of the agronomists, although very technical on various details pertaining planting, grafting, etc., do not treat every aspect of the estate management, such as accounting and book keeping. This is not a shortcoming of Roman accountancy notions, which were actually

10 11

For an analysis of the ancient agronomists’ works, see Martin 1971. Stock-farming: book 2, De re pecuaria; other: book 3, De villatica pastione.

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rather sophisticated, as Egyptian documentary evidence suggests.12 The main scope of such literary works was to satisfy their audience’s interest in how to invest capital while remaining within the boundaries set by ideological and social constructs. In other words, giving details about starting a vineyard satised the expectations of their audience because it tted within the nostalgic ideology of the elite. Being good citizens equals being good farmers and agriculture is the only pursuit in which one can get directly involved without moral stigma.13 One element common to both Varro and Columella is the critique of (contemporary) excessively lavish villas that neglected agriculture, thus remaining unproductive. It is precisely by contrasting the unproductive (inutilis) villa of Appius Claudius Pulcher, lled only with works of art and dened as deliciis sumptuosa, with the “productive” villas in the Italian landscape that Varro constructs the dialogue between the various characters in his third book. One of these characters, Q. Axius, stresses the concept that a country villa must retain its original function as a unit of agricultural production. He, indeed, contrasts Pulcher’s villa with his own, which, although opulent and elegant, has pigs, donkeys, and horses for breeding. While one mansion displays only works of art by Greek artists, the other has real traces of the husbandman and the shepherd.14 Similarly, the highly productive fundi of Cn. Tremellius Scrofa, with their aporothecae, offer a more pleasant spectacle to the eyes than the mansions built like royal palaces, adorned with art collections.15 Because of their protability, Varro tells us, villae rusticae initially had a higher market value than villae urbanae—exactly the reverse of the situation experienced by Varro’s characters in their own time.16 By the rst century b.c., the fashion for luxurious mansions, equipped with beautiful gardens and located in the immediate Rome, had caused an increase in the market value of villae urbanae. Columella also targets

12

See Rathbone 1991. The reality was quite different as discussed in D’Arms 1981. 14 Varro Rust. 3.2.4 and 5: vestigium ubi sit nullum Lysippi aut Antiphili, at crebra sartoris et pastoris. For an analysis of this passage and of the ideology of production, see Purcell 1995. 15 Varro Rust. 1.2.10: Fundi enim eius propter culturam iucundiore spectaculo sunt multis, quam regie polita aedicia aliorum, cum huius spectatum veniant villas non, ut apud Lucullum ut videant pinacotheca, sed aporothecas. 16 Varro Rust. 1.13.6: Illorum villae rusticae erant maioris preti quam urbanae quae nunc sunt pleraque contra. 13

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excessive luxury, but what he denounces as the cause of decline in the Italian agriculture is the indifference of landowners toward their estates, the inefcient management of latifundia, and the fact that the “farmer” does not receive proper training. Agriculture as the “good” occupation of the forefathers of the Roman Republic nds its way into the De Re Rustica through allusions to the idealized gures of early Rome, morally superior to their descendents, who divided their time between agriculture and politics. Nonetheless, Columella envisions the residential part ( pars urbana) of “his” villa complete with a series of comforts and luxuries not in line with the frugality of ancient times, but well attested in villa-establishments by this period. It is, in fact, an elegant and comfortable pars urbana that will lure the absent dominus to go and visit his estates.17 Since the rural villa was originally the productive unit in land use, when the habits of the elite shaped themselves to the practice of otium, the idea of the rural villa as the place for vacation and leisure remained attached to the idea of agriculture in the collective imagination.18 The conubium between the social practices of otium and the daily life of a farm is, for instance, evident in Varro’s description of the aporotheca in Scrofa’s villa,19 a dining room in a storeroom for fruit. Under the Empire, too, the idea of engaging in agricultural chores in the countryside as a kind of retreat is well attested. Marcus Aurelius wrote to his tutor, Fronto, daily accounts of his sojourn at a country villa with his father, Antoninus Pius. The future emperor spent time harvesting grapes and reading Cato’s De Agri Cultura, and then at night enjoyed 17 Columella Rust. 1.4: proportione etiam facultatum quam optime paterfamilias debet habitare, ut et libentius rus veniat et degat in eo iucundius. 18 In various areas around Rome a change in land management was observed for the third century b.c., with the constitution of homogenous fundi (size varies between 12/18 ha in the area of Centocelle, along the Via Casilina and 20/25 in the area of Vellerano, between the Via Pontina and the Via Laurentina) with villae usually located on a hill (see Volpe 2000, 188–192). In most cases these early villas continued to be occupied until the Imperial or late Imperial periods, becoming more and more architecturally elaborated. However, the excavation of the Auditorium villa has revealed the existence, as early as the fth century b.c., of a villa/farm provided with oil press and storage rooms (second phase of the villa, which was built in the second part of the sixth century b.c.). In the mid-third century b.c. the architecture of this villa displays a clear separation between a pars urbana and a pars rustica, featuring tablinum with alae, the plan arrangement that is canonical in houses and villas of the Republican period; see Carandini et al. 1997. The practice of otium and the embellishment of rural or maritime villas emerged in second century b.c. and it is largely attested, both literarily and archaeologically, by the early rst century b.c. 19 Var. Rust. 1.59.2.

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dining in a rustic setting like the press room.20 Recent archaeological excavations at the site of Villa Magna (S. Pietro di Villamagna, Anagni) have been uncovering the remains of the villa discussed in the letters, and may have already identied the press room where Marcus Aurelius dined. A cella vinaria with many large dolia for the storage of wine was excavated. The room, unlike any parallel known so far, presents an opus spicatum oor made with tiles of the valued Numidian marble and had marble veneer on the walls as well.21 This sensational discovery shows the degree of luxurious ostentation that dwellings of the Imperial family could have and the degree of idealization that agricultural life had reached. Marcus Aurelius wanted to experience what he was reading in Cato’s treatise, but the processing of grape into wine took place in surroundings t for an emperor. Vitruvius himself, in his treatise on architecture, recommends that the parts of the villa built in a lavish way should not impede its utilitas, in particular the existence and functionality of stables, storerooms, and other facilities connected to production.22 This concept—the necessary coexistence of utilitas and elegantia—is embedded in another topic that characterizes the philosophical discussion about villa-agriculture, the idea of self-sufciency.23 A villa must at least be able to produce everything its owner needs; the opposite, censurable situation is when the dominus of a country estate is forced to supply his kitchen from the city market, an inversion of the usual movement of goods from place of production to place of distribution/consumption. This state of affairs is the object of many satirical works. Martial, for example, wrote several epigrams satirizing villa-owners who behaved in this way.24 As a category, pastio villatica included various occupations “subsidiary” to agriculture. Q. Caecilius Metellus Scipio introduced the practice of

20

Fronto Ep. 4.6. (Bibliotheca Teubneriana edition). The project started in summer 2006 under the direction of E. Fentress et al. Besides the literary reference the villa was also know from CIL X.5909, dated to 207 a.d. and referring to the paving of a road going from the villa to Anagni. See Fasti On-line: www.fastionline.org/php/content.php?item=4&lang=en&site_id=185. I thank A. I. Wilson for informing me about this discovery. 22 Vitr. De Arch. 6.6.5: Qui autem fructibus rusticis serviunt, in eorum vestibules stabula, tabernae, in aedibus crypta, horrea, apothecae ceteraque, quae ad fructus servandos magis quam ad elegantiae decorum possunt esse, ita sunt facienda. 23 See Purcell 1995. 24 E.g., 3.58, with its famous closing: at tu sub urbe possides famem mundam/et turre ab alta prospicis meras laurus (. . .) et vinitorem farre pascis urbano (. . .) rus hoc vacari debet, an domus longe? 21

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fattening ducks and raised them for the market at his villas, presumably also including the one he had in Tibur.25 Statius, in praising the villa of Manilius Vopiscus at Tibur, mentions his pomaria 26 as noteworthy. In this same area, archaeological remains of ponds at some villas27 show the practice of sh-breeding, well attested in other large villas of the suburbium, such as the villa of Casal Morena.28 As we saw in the discussion of maritime villas, most of the ancient sources have references to sh-breeding of marine species. Varro, however, explains that there are two kinds of shponds, one using fresh water and the other salt water, and interestingly he attributes the exploitation of the rst to the common people, the latter to the nobility.29 It seems that ideological considerations about gain coming from commercial transactions not related to agriculture proper dictate, in this case, the distinction between plebs and nobiles as “exploiters” of the two kinds of shponds. Forced to admit that sh-breeding can be remunerative, Varro limits the protability to freshwater ponds, declaring that the maritime ones, where the amount of capital investment in their construction and maintenance is higher and more evident, belonged to the elite and were mainly unproductive. Fish-breeding at country villas was probably quite common in the area around Rome. It has been noted how several circular and rectangular water storage basins recorded in Latium, with no permanent covering and associated with nearby cisterns, may have been shponds, if not for breeding at least for the rearing and stocking of fresh water sh.30

25 Pliny NH 10.52 is uncertain whether the “invention” of foie gras has to be attributed to Metellus Scipio or to the contemporary knight M. Seius, who had a protable maritime villa engaged in pastio villatica near Ostia, (see below): Nec sine causa in questione est quis tantum bonum invenerit (i.e. duck-fattening), Scipio Metellus vir consularis an M. Seius. Varro, Rust. 3.10.1 mentions both gures as involved in breeding gooses. 26 Stat. Silv. 1.3.81. 27 For instance, in the so-called villas of Quintilius Varus, of Vopiscus, and the villa at Colle Vitriano; see Mari 1983: 44 and Catalogue: L279; L294; L299. 28 See the Catalogue: L42 and De Rossi 1979: 86; Carandini 1985b: 115. 29 Varro, Rust. 3.17.2: Reliqua enim fere mihi sunt nota, quod, cum piscinarum genera sint duo, dulcium et salsarum, alterum apud plebem et non sine fructu, ubi Lymphae aquam piscibus nostris villaticis ministrant; illae autem maritimae piscinae nobilium, quibus Neptunus ut aquam et piscis ministrat, magis ad oculos pertinent, quam ad vesicam, et potius marsippium domini exinaniunt, quam implant. 30 Thomas and Wilson 1994: 164–165. The authors note that the size of these ponds corresponds to medieval stew ponds and to modern tanks for intensive sh-rearing in Asia, although in some cases one cannot exclude that they were drinking reservoirs for cattle. In this section the authors offer a useful analysis of pond topping-up and water storage requirements in relation to evaporation.

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Cicero himself, when considering the re-organization of his brother’s estate, the Fudianum, thinks of building a vivarium.31 The recovery at some sites of the special dolia for fattening dormice, much appreciated in Roman cuisine, points to another potentially protable activity that took place in these estates.32 The raising of honeybees should not to be forgotten in this context, particularly when a property was not large enough to allow “traditional” agriculture, as in the case of the Veianii brothers, who had many alvaria on their small property in the ager Faliscus.33 The model presented by Varro for a villa protably engaged in the pastio villatica is the maritime villa near Ostia34 where the knight M. Seius raised everything from birds, wild boars, and sh to bees and dormice. The yield from this property was 50,000 sesterces, more than what some others earned from entire fundi comprising more than one villa.35 As noted by Purcell, a distinction is made in the work of Varro and other Latin authors between the serious economic investments of the noblemen and the greedy proteering of the plebs.36 In this context, the intentional negation of self-sufciency by the great can become a gesture of pride in their self-representation, an ultimate display of

31 Cic., ad Q. fr. 3.1.3: Ego locum aestate umbrosiorem vidi numquam; permultis locis aquam prouentem, et eam uberem: quid quaeris? iugera L. prati Caesius irrigaturum facile te arbitrabatur; equidem hoc, quod melius intelligo, afrmo, mirica suavitate villam habiturum, piscina et salientibus additis, palaestra et silva virdicata. 32 For instance nds near Lecinone hill, at Scalzacane. See Catalogue: L290. 33 Varro Rust. 3.16.10. The Veianii served in Spain in the army under Varro. The property is dened as parva villa et agellus non sane maior iugero uno, hos circum villas tota alvaria fecisse et hortum habuisse. 34 See also Chapters 1 and 2 on maritime villas, and Varro Rust. 3.2.7. 35 Varro Rust. 3.2.13: ex ii pastionibus ex una villa maiores fructus capere, quam alii ex toto fundo. It is interesting that, as noted by Kolendo 1994: 63, the Seii were active on Delos, an island famous for the breeding of poultry. Maybe M. Seius himself was inspired by Greek models for his “farm” in Ostia. According to the same passage in Varro, Seius knew the works of Greek agronomists through the writings of Mago and Cassius Dionysius of Utica. M. Puppius Piso Frugi, who raised peacocks on the island of Planasia, had also spent some time in Greece, in the lucus of Juno on the island of Samos, where peacocks were raised. On the commercial interests of the gens Seia see F. Bertrandy, “Les relations entre l’Afrique du nord et l’Italie. L’example des Seii à la n de la République et au début de l’Empire”, Epigraphica 57, 1995: 61–85. On the connection with Delos: E. Deniaux, “Les gentes de Délos et la mobilité sociale à Rome au Ier s. av. J.-C.: l’exemple de M. Seius et des Seii” in C. Müller and C. Hasenohr (eds.), Les Italiens dans le monde grec, BCH Suppl. 41, 2002: 29–39. 36 Purcell 1995: 155.

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power.37 It is true that for the third century we have legal sources testifying to the existence of praedia voluptuaria, estates devoted entirely to pleasure.38 The reference appears in the context of the application of the law of usufruct. Unlike the usual scenario in the law of usufruct wherein the fructuarius is allowed to improve the property, in the case of a praedium voluptuarium, any changes—for example, the removal of “amenities” to create a vegetable garden, or anything else that will yield a return—are illegal. The very fact that the special status of these estates under the law of usufruct needs to be pointed out, indicates that the totally unproductive estate is considered an extreme case, outside the general practice. Therefore, if in the Roman collective imagination the coastal villa represents a display of luxuria and a privileged place for otium, uncoupled from the idea of production, the country villa is, on the contrary, part of the “landscape of production,” to use Purcell’s words. This is a constant feature of references to villae rusticae, from the Republic down to the Empire. Literary and iconographic sources attest to the privileged views the master has from his villa in the countryside—the sight of the estate’s fertile elds and of people laboring to harvest crops, make wine, and press olives. For instance, Cicero, who owned several country villas (in his home town of Arpinum, at Tusculum, and in Pompeii), mentions in one of his letters that from his Pompeianum he can enjoy the view of people busy attending to their everyday activities.39 Pliny the Younger, in the description of his estate at Tifernum Tiberinum, celebrates the views of fertile elds he can enjoy from various carefully oriented parts of the villa.40 In the fth century we nd the same topic still operating in Cassiodorus, who praises a villa whose many rooms offer a view of people “charmingly laboring.”41 Iconographic media inside villas would also represent and mirror, in a celebratory way, the real work that took place on the estate. The best examples of this practice are the large mosaics depicting agricultural chores from the villas of North Africa, but one exceptional nd from a

37 Purcell 1995: 163 states that “(. . .) the rejection of productivity (. . .) is a highly specialized gesture whose existence and elaboration depend on and prove a general passionate interest in the maximization of returns . . .”. 38 Dig. 7.1.13.4, quoted by Purcell 1995: 165. 39 Cic. Fam. 7.1.1. 40 Pliny Ep. 5.6. The hills around the villa are “pingues terrenisque colles neque enim facile usquam saxum etiam si quaeratur occurit.” 41 Cassiod. Var. 12.15.

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villa in the area of Bovillae provides a similar document for Italy.42 Indeed, in the northern section of this villa, the courtyard features paintings depicting agricultural work, dated to the third or fourth centuries a.d. In addition to being the focal point in this “landscape of production,” the villa is also, both in reality and in the projected image, the place where the fruits of this production are accumulated, the visible center to which the landscape’s yield is gathered, then distributed for consumption. It is not by chance that Varro proposes an etymology for the term villa from the verb vehere, since “the crops are hauled in to it.”43 Furthermore, an estate was not only a place where a landowner might keep assets and documents, but also a place to transact business, since income was derived from forms of business other than agriculture, such as money lending. Jurists often addressed such circumstances in adjudicating the bequests of estates.44 The idea of the villa as the center of production, as well as the proprietors’ desire to have their estates viewed as the focal point of their management of the environment, helps to explain why, in some cases, technological improvements to a villa are put on display.45 For example, it might strike us as odd that a landowner thought it worthwhile to put an inscription bearing the consular date on his olive oil—settling vat.46 This act conveys multiple meanings. The construction of such a facility was worth commemorating as if it were a public event, using the ofcial consular dating system. It follows that the act was important to the owner as a sign of his ability to invest capital in the amelioration of the processing facilities of the villa, in view of maximizing the returns 42

See Catalogue: L42. Varro Rust. 1.2.14. 44 Kehoe 1994: 52. 45 Juridical sources do not systematically take into account the necessity on the part of the landowner to contribute resources on a continuing basis to keep the estate productive (for instance, Scevola), but they do discuss the obligation to maintain the xed capital of an estate, comprising such things as oil and wine presses and storage buildings, especially in the case of disrepair that prevents the production and processing of crop; see Kehoe 1997: 101–105. 46 Carandini 1985b: 150–151. The inscription, dated to 55 b.c. when Pompey and Crassus held the second consulship, reads: Cn. Pom(peio). M. Lic(inio). Co(n)s(ulibus). II. The settling vat, in peperino, was discovered in 1968 on the Via Praenestina (Tor Angela). A similar case is represented by the travertino vats, whose provenance is unknown, displayed in the square of S. Maria della Libera in Aquino. The vats, perhaps for purple dye-works and dated to the late rst c. b.c., have inscribed the name M. Barronius Sura, an eques and duovir quinquennalis of the city of Aquino. Many peperino vats like the one above mentioned, but with no inscriptions, were found around Rome, for instance at Montergiardino, Castelluccio dell’Osa, Passo Lombardo, Zagarolo. 43

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from his agricultural endeavors (whether successful or not); and that, therefore, it was meant to be seen, by his peers, as an indication of his right to belong to the upper class, and, by his subordinates, as a sign of his power and wealth. In fact, sources refer to improvements made on agricultural estates for the purpose of increasing the yield in an explicit way and with no moral condemnation, unlike the veiled allusions to the protability of coastal villas. The acquisition of a press indicated a substantial investment, which aimed at producing a surplus for the market.47 A similar, but chronologically later, case of an inscription on a settling vat comes from North Africa. In the area of Tipasa in Mauretania Caesarensis, in a suburban villa discovered in the late 19th century, the oil settling vat was engraved with an inscription giving the name of the estate, the name of the person responsible for the amelioration and the date, counted according to the provincial era.48 Even landscape improvement works to create irrigated meadows in one’s country estate could be proudly recorded on stone for the information of passers-by. An inscription located on the tufa stream bank by the Via Fallerese, which has been related to masonry dams and channels identied in the Ager Faliscus, south of Corchiano, proclaims that a C. Egnatius invested in the creation of meadows.49 As we are going to see in the next section, archaeological evidence pertaining to rural villas indicate investment both in production facilities, such as presses, and in infrastructure aimed at improving the production, such as water supply infrastructure used for irrigation. Pliny the Elder mentions a certain fundus, located by a diverticulum of the Via Nomentana, the yield of whose vineyards was increased so much by the owner, the grammarian Remnius Polemon, that Seneca, 47 See Amouretti and Brun 1993: in various contributions gathered in this volume the presence of presses is considered an indication of production of surplus for the market even in the case of simple farms, since other simpler systems of processing agricultural produce were available (treading the grapes, for instance). 48 Quoted in Brun 2004: 239. In his praediis M(arci)/Hortensi(i) Gaudenti(i)/et liorum eius/Gaudentiis/Restitutus Prov(inciae) CCXXXVIIII (year 239 of the provincial era = 278 a.d.). For the worthiness of being remembered for olive tree planting see two cases also discussed by Brun (ibidem: 206; 209). In one case, the fth century a.d. mosaic marking the tomb of a certain Pudion, who died at age 80, also reports the information that he had planted 4000 trees. The second example refers to the conductor of the Fundus Audianus, who in the 3rd century a.d. was proud of having grafted a large number of olive trees. 49 CIL XI.7505: C Egnatius Sex f prata faciunda coiravit. Two small Roman dams diverted the water from the Fosso di Fustignano into rock-cut channels. Thomas and Wilson 1994: 142.

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famed for his good business sense, bought it for four times the initial price.50 In his biography of Polemon, Suetonius reports that just one vine planted by him yielded 360 bunches of grapes.51 The economic success of this property was the result of a combination of factors. First of all, it was located just ten miles from Rome, which offered a good market for wine and also allowed for the sale of grapes on the vine, if one preferred not to bear the expense of wine-making. Also, Polemon took advantage of a favorable moment to buy, since the price he paid for the as-yet uncultivated land was low52 and he had sufcient capital to invest in the development of the estate. It is, however, indicative of the way that the Roman elite represented itself in the late rst century b.c. and in the Augustan period that despite the recommendations about protable activities for an estate given by Varro and Columella, they offer no discussion on marketing of the produce, whereas Cato had included in his work discussion of the contracts for the sale of produce. As Morley put it: By Varro’s day, they (i.e., the landowners) had clearly either stopped paying attention to such things, or had started to pretend that it was not part of their business. (. . .) Apparently, the more the villa system was rened as a market-oriented, prot-motivated enterprise, the more important it became to mark a separation between prots of agriculture (which the

50 Pliny NH 14.49 ff.: Sed maxima, eiusdem Stheneli opera, Remmio Palaemoni . . . in hisce viginti annis mercato rus DC nummum in eodem Nomentano decimi lapidis ab urbe diverticulo . . . pastinatis de integro vineis cura Stheneli . . . ad vix credibile miraculum perduxit, intra octavum annum CCCC nummium emptori addicta pendente vindemia . . . novissime Anneo Seneca . . . tanto praedii huius amore capto, ut non puderet inviso alias et ostentaturo tradere palmam eam, emptis quadriplicato vinis illis intra decimum fere curae annum. From Columella Rust. 3.3.3 we learn that this vineyard owned by Seneca produced 40 hectoliters of wine/iuger. Kolendo 1994: 62 believes that prestige, and not economic considerations, prompted Seneca to buy. As observed by Kolendo 1994: 61 Licinius Sthenelus, a neighbor landlord of Polemon, who had an excellently cultivated vineyard, was probably the conductor for the works necessary for the planting of the vines. 51 Suet. Gram. 23: et agros adeo coleret ut vitem manu eius institutam satis constet CCCLX uvas edidisse. 52 Pliny NH 14.50 says about the price of suburban properties that: Est autem usquequaque nota vilitas mercies per omnia suburbana, ibi tamen maxime, quoniam et neglecta indiligentia praedia paraverat ac ne in pessimis quidem elegantioris soli. Kolendo 1994: 61 observes that this must be understood as price-uctuations in response to a precise moment, probably connected to the conscations of properties by Nero in the 60s, although he himself admits a chronological problem with the date of the purchase, which, from internal references in the different texts, should have taken place in 55–57. For land prices in Italy see Duncan-Jones 1982: 48–52 and 377–378; De Neeve 1985.

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agronomists constantly emphasise) and the means by which those prots were realised, and to gloss over the latter.53

The element of competitive ostentation sometimes present in a villa’s construction per se, is of course also attested for rural villas, in the same measure as for coastal villas. Such competition did not exist only among members of the senatorial elite; their tastes provided a model that members of the municipal elite wished to emulate in turn. The amount of “conspicuous consumption” could reach high levels. From Pliny, we learn that L. Taius Rufus (cos. 17 b.c.) spent 100 million sesterces “agros coemendo et colendo in gloriam.”54 Archaeological evidence, in many cases, conrms the reported grandiosity of rural villas, which present impressive basis villae 55 and other architectural features, such as the monumental natatio of the “Villa dei Centroni” outside Rome, which measured 33 m in length, had three different levels of depth and jets of water pouring into it from the arches of the retaining wall above the pool.56 (Figure 9) The rural villa is also depicted as the ideal retreat from the stresses of city life, where one might have peace, silence, and rest. Martial used to ee to his Nomentanum whenever he “wanted to sleep,”57 escaping from the noise of Rome. Juvenal contrasts the precarious living conditions in Rome with villas in Praeneste, Volsinii, and Tibur.58 The poet Horace, too, who received as a gift from Maecenas a villa in the Licenza Valley, loved to go there to rest and seek inspiration for his poetry. Catullus, Horace, and Quintilius Varo, a literary critic and friend of Virgil, also had villas in Tibur or nearby. The Augustan poets’ predilection for villas in this location may have been dictated by Augustus himself, who used regularly to go to Tibur and to the sanctuary of Hercules.59 But for a member of the elite actively engaged in political life, sojourns at one’s villa(s) were always conceived of as temporary, a moment of otium

53

Morley 2000: 215. Pliny NH 18.37: “Buying up estates and farming them in search of fame”. 55 For instance, the platform of the villa at Frascati, Fontana del Piscaro, possibly owned by L. Licinius Lucullus, measures 27,139 m2. See Catalogue: L332. 56 See Catalogue: L43. 57 Mart. 12.57, with the closing: Dormire quotiens libuit, imus ad villam. 58 Juv. 3.190 ff. At ll. 222 ff., the city life, whose only attractions are the games at the circus, is contrasted with the ideal situation of owning a farm and a piece of land, where one can live bidentis amans et culti vilicus horti. 59 Suet. Aug. 72.2–3; 82. The sanctuary had a rich library, at least in the second century a.d.: Gell. NA 9.14.3; 19.5.4. 54

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Figure 9. Villa dei Centroni, axonometric reconstruction of the natatio (after Cozza 1952).

balancing the negotium carried on in the city. Indeed, in the sources we nd examples of people retiring permanently to their estates, both in cases of intentional retirement from public life (e.g., Scipio Aemilianus and Sulla) or in cases of old age and/or inrmity. It was only under these circumstances that residing in one’s villa, and caring only for its management, was admissible and not morally reproachable.60 As the country villa was the center of agricultural production, so the leisure time spent there had to be productive, devoted to the exercise of mind and spirit. Villas were provided with porticoed courtyards, which alluded to gymnasia and palaestrae and to their role in Hellenistic cities as educational centers for the mind as well as the body. Many villa owners kept libraries in their various villas, where they carried on serious 60 Pliny Ep. 3.1, praising Spurinna’s behavior in his retirement, after years spent in public ofce; the epistle closes saying: Nam ille (i.e. Spurinna) quoque, quoad honestum fuit, obit ofcia, gessit magistratus, provincias rexit, multoque labore hoc otium meruit.

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reading and writing. Famous examples include Lucullus, who had in his villa in Tusculum a large library derived from booty collected during his military campaigns in northern Asia Minor; Sulla, who had a library in his villa in Cumae; and Cicero, who kept libraries in four of his villas.61 It is within this ideological dimension of the villa as a place for culture and philosophy that we can explain why so many literary works in dialogue form are set in villas. Cicero set the dialogue of the De Oratore in Licinius Crassus’ villa in Tusculum, explaining that the place is well suited to cultural discussions because the portico, palaestrae, and benches are reminiscent of the Greek gymnasia and of the debates that took place in them.62 Horace expresses the same idea in Satire 6 when he observes that the gymnasium and the palaestra created the proper atmosphere for literary activity.63 These spaces were furnished in accordance with the ideological identication of the space, even if the majority of villa-owners were not as demanding as Cicero about the suitability of the subject of works of art to the function of the space it which they were displayed.64 From the rich corpus of Cicero’s letters, we learn of his precise requests to Atticus, then in Athens, regarding the purchase of ornamenta gymnasiode; Cicero asks his friend to buy those which “tibi gymnasii xystique videbuntur esse.”65 In other letters, he remarks on his dissatisfaction with somebody who has purchased on his behalf some statues of Bacchus and Mars, which do not t in the context of a palaestra.66 Seeking to re-create the idea of the Athenian Academy, seat of the Platonic school, Cicero called his gymnasium the Academia, as in another villa he had a Lyceum, seat of the Aristotelian school.67 The connection between the villa and the pursuit of cultural renement is still present after Cicero’s time. After a visit to the eques Terentius Iunior,

61 On libraries in villas, their arrangement and organization, with reference to ancient literary sources see Casson 2001: 69–71; 73–75 and Rawson 1985: 40–42. 62 Cic. De Orat. 2.9.10. 63 Hor. Sat. 6.72 ff. One needs not to forget that in the late republic members of the elite completed their rhetorical and philosophical education either in Athens or in Rhodes. 64 For studies on the sculptural display and decorative programs in the context of villas, see: Bartman 1991; Neudecker 1988 and 1998; G. Becatti, Arte e gusto negli scrittori latini, Firenze 1951. 65 Cic. Att. 1.8.2: “those statues that in your opinion are suitable for a gymnasium and xystus”. 66 Cic. Fam. 23.1: Ea enim signa ego emere soleo, quae ad similitudinem gymnasiorum exornent mihi in palestra locum. 67 Cic. Tusc. 2.9; Pliny NH 31.7.

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who retired to his villa preferring quiet leisure to public honors, Pliny says that “Athenis vivere hominem, non in villa putes,”68 on account of the great knowledge acquired by the knight through reading and study. The association between literary production and the idealized provision of certain spaces within the villa surfaces again in Cicero’s plan to build a sacellum to Amalthea in the family villa at Arpinum. Interested in what his friend Atticus had achieved at his villa in Epirus, Cicero asks not only for a description of the sacellum and its gurative decoration, but also for literary works on Amalthea. This ideological and cultural dimension attached to villas is probably the best known aspect of “villa culture,” since the works of literature that survive from antiquity were written by precisely those “intellectuals” interested in practicing this highly rened conceptualization of otium. Gardens were not only the setting of works of art and philosophical conversations, but also had a symbolic value as an element of social status and self-representation. When Cicero vehemently evokes, in the speech De Domo Sua, the conscation and destruction of his mansions upon his exile, he recalls how Gabinius, the consul of 58 b.c., who owned a villa next to his in Tusculum, transferred not only instrumentum aut ornamenta, but also arbores from Cicero’s estate to his own. This remark is not just exaggeration or rhetorical crescendo.69 In the same way as the villa was deprived of all its valuables—furniture, works of art, and all that the word instrumentum implied—the garden was stripped of its trees. Such an act nds explanation not only in the desire of Cicero’s enemies to destroy all that belonged to and represented him as a public gure,70 but also in certain practical considerations. Trees took time to grow, and whether in this case they were fruit trees or just

68 Pliny Ep. 7.25.4: “One would think that the man lives in Athens, not in a villa”. 69 Cic. Dom. 24.62: (. . .) cum domus in Palatio, villa in Tusculano, altera ad alterum consulem, transferebatur, scilicet eos consules vocabant, columnae marmorae ex aedibus meis inspectante populo Romano ad soerum consulis portabantur; in fundum autem vicini consulis non instrumentum aut ornamenta villae, sed etiam arbores transferebatur, cum ipsa villa non praedae cupiditate—quid enim erat praedae?—sed odio et crudelitate funditus everteretur. 70 On the garden as a place of self-representation for the owner see the extreme cases of Nero, who had a painting of himself, 120 feet high, in the Horti Maiani, and of Pliny the Younger, who in his garden at Tifernum had hedges trimmed in the shape of the letters of his name. M. Beard, Imaginary horti: or up the garden path, in Cima and La Rocca 1998: 23–32.

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ornamental plants, like plane-trees,71 it was more convenient to take possession of older trees than to plant young trees and wait for them to reach the proper height or bear fruit. The trees from Cicero’s garden in Tusculum had the same appeal as the marble columns taken from his house on the Palatine. The trees in question could have also been rare and exotic species. The rst century b.c. is indeed the period when new trees are introduced to Italy from the newly conquered territories: peach, cherry, lemon trees—to mention a few—were all introduced by victorious generals coming back from military campaigns. Even in the Imperial period the interest in rare trees to plant in one’s villa garden was still strong. Lucius Vitellius, the father of the emperor Vitellius, while in Syria as governor, collected exotic species of g trees for his Alban estate.72 On the value that trees could add to a house an anecdote about L. Licinius Crassus is illuminating. Crassus had an extremely lavishly house on the Palatine hill, provided with a garden with 6 or 10 nettle trees.73 Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Crassus’ colleague in the censorship in 92 b.c., was ready to buy the property for six million sesterces, but estimated the property to only three million when Crassus asked what price he was ready to pay if he removed the trees.74 This anecdote may be indicative also of the fact that it was not uncommon practice to sell a house excluding valuable plants from its garden, in the same way that in certain cases emblemata were removed from the mosaic oors by the previous owner.

71 Plane-trees were often planted in peristyle gardens to provide shade, as in the case of Villa S. Marco at Stabiae, where root cavities were found permitting the identication of the plants. 72 Plin. NH 15.83. 73 European hackberry, scientic name Celtis australis. See next footnote for the different number of trees that appears in the sources. 74 The anecdote is given in two sources, Plin. NH 17.1–5 and Val. Max. 9.1.4, in the context of the frequent quarrels that occurred between the colleagues to the censorship. In Pliny, Domitius rebuked Crassus for living on such a lavish scale when holding the ofce of censor and offered to buy his house for 1 million sesterces; when Crassus agreed, but said he would keep six lotus trees, Domitius refused, giving Crassus the opportunity to make a witty comment on who was really setting the bad example about luxuria. In Valerius Maximus the dispute starts with Domitius reproaching Crassus for having in his house a portico with hymettian marble columns; Crassus asks him to give an estimate of the house value, which Domitius puts at 6 million sesterces. When asked again what the house value minus ten trees (arbusculae) would be, Domitius says three million, thus Crassus rhetorically replies: “ ‘uter igitur luxuriosior est, egone, qui decem columnas centum milibus nummum emi, an tu, qui decem arbuscularum umbram tricies sestertii summa conpensas?’ ”.

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Besides agriculture and otium, another activity attested more often for country than for coastal villas is hunting. The ideological implications of hunting as a royal and aristocratic practice, from the Near Eastern civilizations to the Hellenistic kings, are well known, and there is no need to go into them in detail here. It is really in the second century a.d., with the Antonine dynasty, that hunting acquires a strong ideological dimension and becomes a fundamental part of “villa life” in the Roman world.75 The shift can be seen both in art and literature, for instance with the widespread diffusion, in the second and third centuries, of sarcophagi and mosaics with hunting scenes. Before the time of Trajan, literary references to this practice in the context of rustic sojourns are sporadic. Varro suggests the breeding of game animals as another potentially protable aspect of the pastio villatica—he cites the example of Q. Fulvius Lippinus, who raised deer, hares, goats, and sheep on his fundus of 40 iugera near Tarquinia76—but does not mention the creation of private game reserves. In the second century, however, we nd the example of an Imperial villa built by Trajan in the area of Arcinazzo, which was primarily intended for hunting retreats, and whose grounds perhaps also provided game for the Imperial banquets.77 It is also in this period that the “Imperial hunt” is praised in panegyric works as a means of warding off evil and as a sign of the emperor’s quality.78 The spread of this practice among the elite, then, in imitation of the emperor’s behavior, is hardly surprising. Because of their location, country villas tended to offer a better environment for hunting than coastal ones, although we know of vivaria built for game animals at maritime villas, too, like the vivarium at the Imperial villa at Centumcellae, where Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius used to hunt.79 Pliny the Younger mentions both study and hunting as occupations typical of his sojourns at the villa near Tifernum Tiberinum.80 The

75

For an exhaustive study on hunting in the Roman world see Aymard 1952. Varro Rust. 3.12.1: Q. Fulvius Lippinus dicitur habere in Tarquiniensi saepta iugera quandraginta, in quo sunt inclusa non solum ea quae dixi (id est lepores, cervi et caprae), sed etiam oves ferae, etiam hoc maius in Statoniensi et quidam in locis aliis. Also Pliny NH 8.211: vivaria eorum ceterarumque silvestrium primus togati generi invenit Fulvius Lippinus; in Tarquiniensi feras pascere instituit; Lippinus was also apparently the “inventor” of snail-breeding; Pliny NH 9.173: Coclearum vivaria instituit Fulvius Lippinus in Tarquiniensi (. . .). 40 iugera = 10 ha. 77 Lissi 1960; Fiore and Mari 2003, 39, with previous bibliography on the villa. 78 E.g., Pliny Paneg. 81.1–3. 79 Fronto 1.172 H. 80 Pliny Ep. 5.18: ego in Tuscis et venor et studio. A different stand was taken early on by Sallust, when, at the opening of his de coniuratione Catilinae, he stated his intention 76

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strange association of intellectual activity with hunting is also present in a letter from Pliny to Tacitus, in which Pliny describes how he was armed with tablets and stylus while waiting for wild boars to fall into his nets, so that even in the event of a poor hunt he could write and have something to take back home.81 Since hunting became so popular in villas in the mid-Empire, it is not surprising that the Digest includes slaves assigned to the hunt (venatores) in the list of the instrumentum domesticum.82 If we consider that according to Ulpian’s denition the instrumentum of a fundus included equipment stored permanently on the estate, which had some direct bearing on the production of a crop,83 we might view hunting as more than an occasional hobby for the dominus. As we will see in the next chapter, interest in the improvement of the production of one’s rural villa that permeates the agronomists’ works and the audience they were writing for is reected, in the archaeological record, in the wealth of traces of capital investment in agriculture, such as land-works, drainage systems, collection of water for irrigation, and multiple wine presses. The central role of agriculture in the ideology of the Roman upper class as the proper form of capital investment “allowed” writing about ways of increasing one’s capital by investing in various forms of activities in rural villas. If in literary texts the maritime villa was depicted as the seat of unproductive and even corrupting otium, country villas in the ideological realm embody the seat of production, be it of agricultural produce or literary works.

to write history in order not to socordia atque desidia bonum otium conterere, neque vero agrum colundo aut venando, servilibus ofciis (4.1). 81 Pliny Ep. 1.6. 82 Dig. 33.7.7.12. 83 Ibid.: quipped instrumentum est apparatus rerum diutius mansurarum, sine quibus exerceri nequiret possessio. Some jurists dened the “crop” produced on an estate in a very broad way, recognizing special categories of estates.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF RURAL VILLAS

Many rural villas and farms are known in the area under examination, especially in the regions of Latium and southern Tuscany. Even if relatively few villa sites have been excavated, eld survey projects have gathered abundant data about settlement types, their chronology, patterns in land exploitation and occupation. However, it is worth remembering that one of the crucial problems faced by survey archaeologists concerns site denition. In a eld survey a site is usually only a surface scatter of material varying in size and complexity and each site has not only a different history in its use, but also in the post-abandonment transformation caused by natural or anthropic actions, e.g., a site only recently exposed by mechanical plowing yields very different information from a long exposed one.1 Although the limitations of eld survey investigations are an acknowledged problem, and scholars have started to ask questions about the methodology applied and ways to improve it,2 eld survey is the only way to gather data on a large area relatively quickly, especially if development or other threats constitute a risk to the preservation of the archaeological record. The South Etruria Survey Project is probably the most famous of the survey projects carried out in Italy and one of the rst large scale investigations of the territory in the aftermath of World War II. The information gathered was rich and stimulated scholars to rethink many aspects of Italian landscape history in ancient times. As we are going to see in Chapter 8, data collected in these survey projects are being re-analyzed and re-interpreted, since a more

1 Dyson 2003: 39 ff. Attempts have been made to create a common language for describing sites located during survey (Attema et al. 2002)., but on the difculty of comparing results from different surveys see R. Osborne, “Demography and Survey”, in Alcock and Cherry 2004: 163–172. 2 See for instance the recent volume edited by Alcock and Cherry (2004); Ikeguchi 2000 for an attempt to compare different surveys carried out in Italy in order to reconstruct settlement patterns.

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rened chronology of pottery types is now available.3 The variations that may occur in survey data when using different sampling strategy, site classication or chronology are exemplied in the case of the Ager Cosanus, where different survey projects identied different patterns in settlement size and chronology of occupation.4 Physical evidence recorded either during excavation or in surveys (recovery of stone elements of presses, such as press-beds, lapides pedicini or parts of olive-mills)5 shows that in Italy many of the Republican and Imperial rural villas were equipped with presses, either for the production of wine, olive oil, or both.6 A recent study suggested that in Central Italy the agricultural landscape presented a similar situation to that observed by Mattingly and Hitchner in North Africa, where the ratio production facilities/territory was approximately one (oil) press every 2 km2.7 The processing of these agricultural products took place on the estate, although the production of small independent farms may have been processed at facilities located in towns and villages and operated by artisans. This suggestion rests on epigraphic record indicating the existence in various towns of collegia capulatores, oil makers, since no presses are yet known from urban contexts.8 In the area of the suburbium of Rome, the re-modeling of the villa complexes in the late Republican and early Imperial period, usually marked by the addition of bath-suites, peristyle gardens, etc., is accompanied by an intensication and increase in the numbers of trenches for vineyards dug in the tufa plateau and attested as early as the fth–fourth

3 Within the framework of the Tiber Valley Project, undertaken by the British School at Rome and directed by H. Patterson; see Patterson et al. 2004. For a study revaluating some of the South Etruria Survey data, focusing on analysis of the occupational history of settlement that developed into villas and those that remained farms see H. Di Giuseppe, “Villae, villulae e fattorie nelle Media Valle del Tevere”, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005: 7–25. 4 Morley 1996: 129. 5 For instance, Bastianelli 1939 recorded the presence in the territory of Civitavecchia of more than 50 villae rusticae, all of which had presses. 6 For a study of the kind of archaeological evidence pertaining wine and oil production see Brun 2004. See Catalogue for sites with evidence of presses, bearing in mind that farms (i.e., sites with no evidence of luxurious residential part) have not been included in the Catalogue. A list of sites in Rome’s hinterland with evidence for production of wine and/or oil, some of which were farms, can be found in E. C. De Sena, “An assessment of wine and oil production in Rome’s hinterland”, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005: 135–149. 7 De Sena, quoted above: 140. 8 Brun 2004: 8; the presses known on the Via degli Augustali at Pompeii and in the forum of Paestum related to perfume making (see Mattingly 1990 and Brun 2000).

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centuries b.c.9 Of course not all the villas of the suburbium were producing wine or preserved grape (dried, in syrup, etc.); production of oil is also attested and to this we need to add pastio villatica and, as we are going to see below, fruit, vegetables and owers.10 If it is difcult to attempt an estimate of the size of properties in the suburbium in this period—in some cases, as for the plateau of Centumcellae to the east of Rome, remains of large villas are located only 700 m from each other—11 one can however say that it was a time of intensication of agricultural exploitation of the land. The “invisibility” in the archaeological record of containers for wine and oil that can be attributed to the agricultural production centers in the surroundings of Rome has been explained by suggesting widespread use of containers in perishable material, such as barrels and skins, together with the possible re-use of amphorae originally coming form elsewhere.12 In the whole region covered by this study it is not rare to nd villas equipped with double presses, even coastal ones as in the case of villa Prato, near Sperlonga, but we do not have many examples of sites equipped with more than two presses, and certainly nothing comparable to examples in Istria or in North Africa, where we have rural installations with six, nine, or even twenty olive presses.13 This is in part the result of the nature of the archaeological record resting on partial excavations. Some Italian rural villas, however, show facilities consisting of multiple presses for production on large scale. The partially excavated villa of Granaraccio, near Tibur (Tivoli), was engaged in the production of olive oil (Figure 10). An olive mill, two complete presses and four settling vats for oil were excavated in 1953. The positioning of the vats suggests that there were at least two more olive presses in the room, making a total of four presses.14 No other part of the villa was excavated and we do not know if there were other processing facilities.

9

Volpe 2000: 198; Quilici Gigli 1987; Bedini 1997; Gioia and Volpe 2004. Some of the trenches and holes related to cultivation cut in the tufa plateau may have referred to other types of cultivars beside vines; for an example of a complex network of trenches, showing phases spanning from the Archaic to the Imperial period see De Blasi 1999. 11 Volpe 2000: 199. 12 De Sena, cit. n. 6: 140. 13 In Istria, the rst century a.d. villa of Barbariga, Pola had 14 double presses (but there were probably more, since there was room for 24 presses). In modern Algeria, the late antique site at Tebessa Khalia had six presses; in Tripolitania the impressive rural villa at Henscir Sidi Hamdam is equipped with nine presses. 14 See Catalogue: L286. 10

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Figure 10. Granaraccio, olive presses and olive mill (after Faccenna 1957).

Figure 11. Orbetello, Via della Fattoria: wine presses (after Brun 2004).

Near Cosa we have two sites provided with multiple presses. The rst site was only very partially investigated and the remains no longer exist (Figure 11).15 It featured at least four wine presses arranged in a row, clearly indicating considerable wine production.

15

Orbetello, Via della Fattoria Site, see Carandini and Cambi 2002: 150; 156: the site is discussed only in passing; see also Brun 2004: 42.

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The other site is the famous villa of Settenestre, one of the very few examples of villas in Italy extensively excavated and comprehensively published.16 The villa, which the excavators have connected to the family of the Sestii, known to have engaged in the sea-borne wine trade from the harbor of Cosa, had one olive press and three wine presses. The juice from the grapes would ow from the wine presses into a large rectangular vat (11 u 1.5 m) and from there, through an opening in the middle of the vat, would ow into a second vat, 200 hl in capacity, placed in the cryptoportico below the processing area. The must would then be transferred to dolia defossa placed in the cryptoportico for the fermentation process. In more than one instance the same facilities were probably used for the production of oil and wine. This is theoretically possible since the harvest times for grape and olives do not coincide: late August/ September for the former, December to February—depending on olive type—for the latter, although the production of oil requires settling vats to separate the oil proper from the amurca and the cleaning of press bed and vat must have been difcult. The large maritime villa of Varignano, located near La Spezia, had two presses in the production quarters which were probably used for oil and wine.17 The limestone elements of the presses show, in fact, signs of corrosion by oleic acid, but the fact that no olive mill was found and that there was a storage area with dolia defossa seems more characteristic of wine production.18 The study of the territory of Tibur, a popular vacation spot from the Republic to the Empire, has yielded interesting results in regard to villa types and distribution.19 In fact, there is a difference between the types of villas found in the western part of this area and those found closer to the urban center. The western section of the territory, which presents a very early development of villae rusticae, maintains fundi ranging in size from 55 and 100 iugera (13.75–25 ha) for the whole rst half of the second century b.c. In the same period, the area closer to Tibur, where villas were owned both by senators and by the rising urban

16

Carandini 1985a; Catalogue: T3. The villa, 9 km south of La Spezia, was in use from the late second century b.c. to the sixth century a.d., and had an area of ca. 8000 m²; see F. Tinè Bertocchi (ed.), Roma e i Liguri, Genova, 1986: 54–56. 18 Brun 2004: 43–44. 19 Mari 1991. 17

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elite of Tibur,20 shows examples of large villas built on a basis villae (in opus polygonale and opus incertum), the size of whose fundi corresponds to the gures given by Cato of 100 iugera for vineyards and 120–240 for olive-groves.21 Different sources mention the wine produced at Tibur, from Pliny the Elder’s references to Tiburtine grapes, to Athenaeus and Galen.22 Production of quality wine continued also in the late Imperial period; indeed, the Diocletian edictum de pretiis rerum venalium recorded the wine from Tibur among the more expensive ones. The production of oil, too, was typical of the whole Sabine region, but the area around Tibur was mostly planted with vineyards.23 It does not seem that the villas just next to the center of Tibur, which can be classied as suburbanae, had any fundi adjacent to them, no doubt because of the high concentration of buildings. A similar pattern emerged in Tusculum, the other popular vacation spot for the Roman elite, where villa distribution was extremely dense around the town; the sites did not seem to have production quarters, which are attested for villas located on lower and atter ground.24 Mari labels these Tibur villas as “pure otium villas,” in the sense that they seem to have had no production quarters, serving only a residential purpose. However, these mansions were not entirely dissociated from land management. They controlled other villas, most often smaller in scale, which were directly engaged in agricultural production, as indicated by the recovery of many pieces of torcularia.25

20 Many inscriptions recovered from the sanctuary of Hercules list local nobles, equites, and freedmen as magistrates and patrons (for the period after the municipalization of Tibur in 87 b.c.). Important records also come from funerary inscriptions: Mari 1991: 44. 21 Mari 1991: 36, equal to 25, 30 and 60 ha. 22 Pliny NH 14.38; Ath. 1.26 e; Gal. De Sanitate Tuenda 5.5. Horace (Carm. 1.9.5–6, 1.20.1) mentions vinum sabinum, possibly the product of his villa in the Licenza Valley, not far from Tibur, if the old attribution of the villa to the poet is to be credited. 23 Strab. 5.3.1 gives as the chief cultivars of Sabina olive-groves and vineyards. From Pliny NH 15.13 we learn that the type of olive cultivated in the area was called “sergia” or “regia.” Very few olive mills were found around Tibur; for this reasons the many pieces of presses recovered are interpreted as wine presses. Mari 1991: 37. 24 Valenti 2003: 61; see Catalogue under Tusculum. It is to be remembered however that most of the villas of the Ager Tusculanus were not excavated and that Tusculum is in the literary sources mentioned for ower cultivation (Mart. 9.60) and onions (Plin. NH 19.105), the cultivation of which is not so easy to detect as in the case of remains of wine or oil presses. Also Tibur was renowned for fruit such as mulberries, apples, gs and owers (Plin. NH 15.97; 15.70; Columella Rust. 5.10.11; Hor. Sat. 2.4.70; Mart. 9.60, references given in Morley 1996: 107). 25 Mari 1991: 38, g. 17.

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Vineyards and olive groves were not the only types of plantation to be found in rural villas. Brief mention must be made of ornamental gardens, orchards, and vegetable gardens. The importance of gardens in the architectural layout of villas has been well explored, and there is no need to repeat here what is already common knowledge.26 Gardens had an ornamental aspect; as discussed in the previous chapter, they were often decorated with works of art, with the aim of offering a locus amoenus for strolls, conversation, and dining al fresco. The kiln discovered in 1984 on the Via Flaminia, specializing in the production of ollae pertusae, the pots used in Roman gardening, is a sign of the importance of ornamental gardens in urban and suburban villas.27 Pliny the Elder comments in passing on the diffusion at his time of ornamental gardens, “even on the roofs of our houses”, expressing appreciation for the ornamental qualities of two plants introduced to Italy by Sex. Papinius (cos. 23 a.d.).28 Gardens and parks, however, could also serve more utilitarian purposes. I pointed out in a previous chapter how cultivation of owers for an external market could take place at villas. A portion of the garden could be dedicated to the cultivation of vegetables and spices, and not solely for the kitchen of the villa. If the villa was located in the suburbium either of Rome or of another urban center, horti could be cultivated with that urban market in mind.29 Cato clearly stated in his work that an irrigated vegetable garden was the second most protable use for land, after vineyards.30 In Horace we nd reference to orchards around Tibur irrigated by a diversion of the Aniene.31 For the commercialization of this kind of perishable goods (owers, vegetables and fruit) it is intuitive that the closeness of the estate to the urban centre is very important, although fruit was commercialized not only fresh, but also dried or preserved in syrup, and in this form could travel far.32

26 Grimal 1969; MacDougall 1987; Jashemski 1979–93 and Jashemski (ed.), Gardens of the Roman World (forthcoming). 27 Carandini 1985b: 152, km 12.800 of the Flaminia. 28 Plin. NH 15.47. 29 For an analysis of the production of the horti in suburban villas around Rome, see Carandini 1985b; Wilson forthcoming. 30 Cato, Agr. 1.7. 31 Hor. Carm. 1.7.13–14: et praeceps Anio ac Tiburni lucus et uda mobilibus pomaria rivis. 32 Various ancient authors mention a variety of methods to preserve fruit and refer to certain productions as typical of given areas; the commercialization of preserved fruit is archaeologically attested; for instance see the nds from one of the ships of S. Rossore, the ancient harbor of Pisae, where amphorae (Dr. 6A and Lamboglia 2)

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The theoretical models that have been used to predict land usage around urban markets take into account the inuence of location on production costs, transport and prot. It is such a model, derived from von Thünen’s study, that Carandini applied to the ancient territory around Rome, dening the optimum radius for the presence of vegetable gardens.33 For what concerns physical remains of this activity, orchards and vegetable gardens per se leave very scarce traces, but a study of water supply structures in the Tiber Valley has pointed out several cases in which physical remains must refer to irrigation infrastructure for horticulture.34 Since much of the water need for the pars urbana of a villa related to the bath quarters, which become a common feature in villas in the Imperial period, the cisterns located at an elevation lower than the baths’ must have had another function. There are cases of villas which feature a large cistern or more than one cistern on the middle of a lower terrace, with the residential part with the baths built on the upper terrace, as in the case of the Giardino villa built on the slopes of Monte Soracte.35 Clearly the water from these cisterns could not have fed the baths, placed at a much higher level, but was suitable to provide water to the same terrace on which the cistern is located, or to the lower one. Wilson points out that in these cases the cisterns must refer to irrigation of owers, vegetable gardens, and orchards. Besides cisterns, the research also looked at the evidence of other water management works, such as rural aqueducts, damns, and channels, showing a substantial investment in hydraulic infrastructure for irrigation in the whole suburbium of Rome and northwards along the Tiber valley, which, thanks to the river, was a privileged transportation corridor. Near Frascati, in the area called Cocciano, we nd an example of the tapping of a spring for the probable irrigation of a villa garden.36 A circular pond in opus caementicium was build around the spring, measuring 40 m

probably coming from Campania and carrying peaches, cherries and plums were found. S. Bruni (ed.) le navi antiche di Pisa ad un anno dall’inizio delle ricerche, Firenze 2000: 43. 33 von Thünen, Isolated State. 1966 (English translation of 1826 publication). The model argues that, under equal circumstances, perishable crops will be grown on land immediately surrounding urban centers, whereas land further away is used for products whose price on the market is more resilient to the effects of transport over great distances. On the effect that the demands of a metropolis like Rome may have had on the immediate countryside and farther away areas see Morley 1996, who also takes into account von Thünen model. 34 Thomas and Wilson 1994; Wilson forthcoming. 35 Wilson forthcoming. 36 Devoti 1978: 105; Thomas and Wilson 1994: 146. See Catalogue: L324.

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in diameter and 3 m in depth. The water was presumably used to water the gardens of the villa, of which only the substructures of the basis are visible. Similarly in the area of Tusculum a circular basin was probably used to water a garden at a lower level, while having also a decorative function.37 The villa known as Site 11 on the via Gabina38 used the overow of the plunge pool that was added in the second century to the middle of the garden to irrigate the garden itself and the elds below this terrace. Irrigation certainly allowed for maximization of agricultural yield, and its intense and diffused use in the suburban area is reected by Horace’s comments about the tasteless vegetables produced in the watered gardens of the suburbium.39 In the panorama of rural villas attested by archaeology, we are now in possession of a special, even a unique case, in which we can compare literary accounts of a villa and its management with archaeological data. The case in question is the famous villa in Tuscis owned by Pliny the Younger, and mentioned in many of his letters. In recent years, the site of this villa, already identied some time ago through brick-stamps bearing the name of Pliny, was excavated.40 Located near S. Giustino,41 “Pliny’s villa” was actually built under Augustus by M. Granius Marcellus, a member of the senatorial elite (previous phases, dating back to the second century b.c., are attested by pottery nds but not by building structures). The events of the Granii family show the economic rise, diverse economic investments, and links with political life characteristic of an average gens of negotiatores. The family was from Puteoli, but they had commercial interests stretching from the ports of the East to North Africa; their business in Umbria arose in the period of the rst triumvirate, and we can deduce that they had specic interests in Hispellum from the fact that M. Granius was appointed duovir quinquennalis there.42 The Republican villa belonging to

37 Devoti 1978: 162 (Casale di Pilozzo); Valenti 2003: 200. The pool, 29 m in diameter and 2 m high, may have been also a basin to let the impurities in the water settle before transferring the water in a cistern (one cistern is located nearby). But the terrace on which the circular pool was built is made by a retaining wall with facing in opus quasi-reticulatum with niches, a feature of gardens; it is therefore likely that the water was also used to water the garden when needed. See Catalogue L314, where the remains, following Valenti 2003, are listed under the name Casale Celli. 38 See Catalogue: L373. 39 Sat. 2.4. 40 Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999. 41 See Catalogue: U23. 42 CIL XI.5264: he also built a temple to Venus there.

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M. Granius had a simple plan, including a pars urbana with courtyard and cubicula, a pars rustica with a large threshing-oor, and a two-story building, probably a granary.43 An intermediate architectural phase between Granius’ and Pliny’s ownership, attested by brick-stamps, seems to have concerned mainly the residential part, and included the addition of a bath complex.44 Building activity that can be attributed to Pliny includes the addition, next to the cella vinaria, of a vat for grape-treading, the creation of a new covered space between the granary and the gallery running along the edge of the platform, and the addition of two buildings to the southeast, probably farmhouses with storerooms and stables. What emerged from the excavations at this site, unlike so many others, chiey relates to the pars rustica, rather than the pars urbana. The addition of the treading vat indicates that at least part of the fundus was planted with vineyards, and in fact the pottery nds from the site conrm a mostly wine-oriented production. Already during the Granii phase, an abundance of locally produced Dressel 2–4 amphorae demonstrates the production of wine on the estate for the market, probably both local and regional. With the end of the rst century and the beginning of the second, new types of wine amphorae appeared, also produced locally, and intended mostly for the Roman market, although the existence of inter-provincial trade of Central Italian wine transported in these new amphorae has emerged from the excavations at Porto Torres, in Sardinia.45

43 The pars rustica had a cella vinaria with dolia, the capacity of which has been hypothesized to have been 250/300 hl, and two vats for the fermentation of the must. 44 Granius’ brick-stamps disappear from this site around 15 a.d. It is possible, as Uroz Sáez has suggested, that this fact is to be related to the accusation of de repetundis and maiestas leveled against Granius Marcellus by his quaestor Caepio Crispinus at the end of the former’s proconsulship in Bithynia. Absolved from the accusation of maiestas, he had to respond to the charge de repetundis in front of the recuperatores and probably had to pay some pecuniary sanction. Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999: 191; Tac. Ann. 1.74. 45 The amphorae pertaining to the Plinian phase of the villa account for 50% of the whole local production recovered. Small in size (about 15–20 l) and with a at bottom (10–14 cm in diameter) they were suited for mixed land/water transportation (on carts to the Tiber and then on boats to Rome). Morphologically, they are part of the large group of at-bottomed Terraconenses (Dressel 28) and south-Gallic amphorae (Gauloise 4), were produced in the whole upper Tiber Valley and have been variously labeled according to the area of production or authors (Spello amphorae; Forlimpopoli A–D; Empoli; Ostia II-521/Ostia III-369–370; Ostia I-451); the excavators of Pliny’s villa preferred to adopt the nomenclature “anfore Altotiberine I” that refers to the generic area of production. See Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999: 104–111; Carandni and Cambi 2002: 224, note 19.

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This picture of the villa production is reinforced by nds pertaining to imported goods, which, with the exception of some types of Apulian wine during the Late Republican phase, consist of processed sh products, such as garum, and olive oil from Spain and North Africa.46 Although the references to this villa in Pliny’s correspondence deal with different aspects of its economy and production—i.e., difculties in nding coloni,47 measures to take in case of a meager harvest due to bad weather, etc.—he does not really spend time discussing the utilitarian parts of the villa.48 The letter to Domitius Apollinaris49 in which Pliny describes the estate contains no reference to the pars rustica. We gather only in passing that the estate was not only a place for the “exercise of mind and body” (i.e., through writing and hunting), but also for agricultural production, since Pliny mentions vineyards and “production of the land” sent to Rome via the Tiber. On the other hand, the archaeological record clearly shows a series of building projects aimed at increasing the productivity of the estate and its “utilitarian part.” It is possible, for instance, that the addition of the above-mentioned covered space measuring at least 3.40 by 40 m, offering more covered working areas and/or more storage areas, was in response to the need generated by the acquisition of contiguous estates (e.g., in the letter to Calvisius Rufus, Pliny lists the pros and cons of buying an estate adjacent to his own). Braconi and Uroz Sáez relate this reorganization of the villa complex to Pliny’s use of métayage in his properties: the change from a ve-year contract, with xed rent paid in currency, to rent paid in kind with part of the harvest. This type of rental contract required more storage space for the part of the fructus

46 Forty percent of imports are processed-sh amphorae from Spain (Dressel 7–11, 50% of the sh products amphorae; Dressel 14, 35%; Beltran II, 15%); the olive oil is from Baetica (Dressel 20). For the second–fourth centuries, North African amphorae for both olive oil and sh products were recovered. For the nds of the excavation see Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999. 47 Pliny Ep. 3.19. Kehoe 1997: 112, note 77. Or, according to another interpretation, penuria colonorum alluded to the economic difculties of the coloni. (E. Lo Cascio, “The Economy of Roman Italy according to Pliny the Younger,” paper delivered at the symposium in honor of J. D’Arms, Columbia University, New York 10/26/2002). A printed version of this paper appeared in Gallina Zevi and Humphrey 2004. 48 For the discussion of Pliny’s strategy in managing his estates see De Neeve 1990; Kehoe 1988 and 1989. 49 Pliny Ep. 5.6.

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that was owed by him and also dictated the need, on Pliny’s part, for a procurator and various actores to oversee the works.50 There are other known villa-sites in the modern region of Umbria, but with the possible exception of the site at Lugnano in Teverina,51 none has been systematically excavated, with the result that data pertaining to them are incomplete and rather fragmentary. Nonetheless, comparison with the nds from Pliny’s villa can be illuminating. I believe that, in some cases, the interpretation of the data reveals some preconceptions about villas and Italian agriculture in the second century, which the results of the excavations at S. Giustino help to correct. For instance, a villa in the territory of ancient Ameria (Pennavecchia),52 built sometime in the rst century b.c., is thought to shows signs, towards the end of the rst century a.d., of “crisi nel sistema di queste ville a conduzione schiavistica.”53 Leaving aside for now the problem of the slave-based mode of production, the signs of crisis in this specic case would be: a) The removal of the dolia from the cella vinaria, which is lled in to allow the construction of a colonnade, thus indicating the cessation of vine production and the substitution of imported wine. b) The increased importation of foodstuffs from the provinces, as attested by amphorae nds, a sign of the competition on the market of products from the provinces and of the progressive disappearance of Italian products. But if we combine this report with the more complete one coming from S. Giustino, different conclusions are possible. First of all, the removal of the earlier cella vinaria need not imply the total cessation of wine production on that estate or in Umbria in general. Only part of 50 Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999: 36, probably a portion similar to the gures given in the lex Manciana, CIL VIII.25902: one-third each of grain, oil, and wine, a bit less for other goods. On the need of procurator and actores, Pliny Ep. 9.37: medendi una ratio, si non nummo sed partibus locem, ac deinde ex meis aliquos operas exactores, custodies fructibus ponam. 51 See Catalogue: U7 and Soren 1999. 52 As we have seen in the case of Pliny’s villa, the establishment of most villas in Umbria dates to the rst century b.c. In the territory of Ameria, this timeframe also coincides with the municipalization and urbanization of Ameria and with the Augustan land allotments attested in the Liber Coloniarum (I: 224 Lachmann). The major villas were distributed along the Tiber and its tributaries. From literary sources we know that the owners of these villas were both members of the local elite—e.g., Sextus Roscius Amerinus, who had thirteen fundi (Cic. Rosc. 7.20)—and members of the “Roman aristocracy” from other regions—e.g., Pliny and his father-in-law, Calpurnius Fabatus (Pliny Ep. 8.20). 53 Monacchi 1991: 183.

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the villa has been excavated, so it is possible that the cella vinaria was simply moved someplace else. Architectural restorations and changes in the plan, sometimes even drastic ones, were quite common—as we shall see below for the villa at Ossaia—and it is difcult to understand them fully when only part of the complex is known. At Pliny’s villa, for instance, the hypocaustum of the thermae is abolished and lled in with debris from other parts of the complex. In this case, we know that the production of wine on the estate not only continued, but probably increased in size, if the thesis is correct that the new calcatorium was double the size of the previous one.54 The amphorae recovered in the villa at Pennavecchia show the same pattern for the movement of goods as that observed at S. Giustino: imported from the provinces are olive oil, olives, and garum.55 No provincial amphorae for wine were recovered, and this fact makes me doubt the conclusion that wine was no longer produced at this site. Pliny’s villa has shown that a new type of locally produced wine amphora appeared in the second century, at-bottomed and smaller in size. Since we know that wine was a fundamental part of ancient dietary and social habits, the lack of wine amphorae at Pennavecchia might be explained in various ways. The above-mentioned amphorae could have also been in use at Pennavecchia, containing wine either produced on the same property or bought from local estates, but they eluded identication—possibly the shards were too small to be identied, or those amphorae just weren’t preserved in the archaeological strata. Or the estate could have used wooden barrels, which by their very nature would not have survived this long. In any case, it seems to me too much of a stretch to infer from importation of oil and garum that the villas were in crisis. After all, these products were never typical of the region. In the literary sources, for instance, the territory of Amelia is praised for the production of apples, pears, and willows,56 not oil. The presence of garum and olive oil from Spain and Africa ts in with the general movement of goods toward Rome. For an area that used the Tiber as a major transportation route, it is logical that whatever merchandise reached Rome could easily be redistributed along the Tiber

54

Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999: 35. The amphora-types discovered at this site are Africana I, Africana II-A, and spatheia. 56 Columella Rust. 4.30.4; 5.10.19; Pliny NH 15.50.55; 58; 59; 16.177. Willows branches were used in the manufacture of baskets and to tie vines to stakes. 55

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valley. It would then be easier to buy olive oil from Baetica or Africa than, say, from Apulia. The boats would bring foodstuffs up the Tiber and return with wine for Rome. This type of exchange, emphasizing the acquisition of provincial foodstuffs, would also explain why in Umbria we do not nd abundant African red slip ware, which was used to ll up the cargo ships transporting oil and garum from Africa. Imported table wares and other sorts of pottery were replaced by local products: in fact, a great variety of red slip ware, manufactured in imitation of African shapes, is attested all over Central Italy.57 The same types of observations are valid for the site of Poggio Gramignano at Lugnano in Teverina. The results of the pottery analysis at this site show that most of its wine came from Italy, with no signicant importation from abroad, whereas for oil, garum, and other sh products, the pottery analysis indicates the opposite. The large number of nds, as pointed out by Martin, also indicates that the community on that site was still able, in the fourth and fth centuries, to participate in a wide-ranging commercial network, which points to the necessity of reassessing the idea of the “decline of the villa” in the late Empire. Not far from Tifernum Tiberinum, another recently excavated villasite has yielded interesting data—the villa at Ossaia, near Cortona.58 In this case, it is remarkable to note the exibility with which owners regarded the use and distribution of space at their villas. At Ossaia, sometime between the rst and third centuries a.d., several rooms of the residential part were converted into some sort of workshop. This is not a sign of the villa’s “decline” or its ceasing to be used as an elegant residence, for elegant mosaics chronologically contemporary with the workshop phase were discovered in other parts, and a beautiful opus sectile oor was added in a subsequent third-century phase. On the contrary, these facts demonstrate how changes in ownership59 or in the

57 See also the same scenario in Tuscany (Chianciano Terme, Mezzomiglio, D. Soren (ed.), The site of Mezzomiglio, BAR Series). Martin in Soren 1999: 361 notes that the attestations of African red slip ware at Lugnano, especially up to the third century, partially attenuate this argument. On the study of ceramic assemblages as indicator of relationship to trade routes see Martin 2005, where imported cooking ware emerge as indicator of the importance of a location as trading node: imported amphorae and ne ware reach inland centers, such as Chianciano or Lugnano, but cooking ware are absent in favor of locally produced ones. 58 See Catalogue: T14. 59 For this villa, on the basis of the brick-stamps recovered, ownership by the Vibii Pansae, a family native to Perugia, has been suggested, possibly followed by members of the Augustan family, should the brick-stamp Caesarum refer to Gaius and Lucius

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demands of the market could lead to changes in the use of space in a villa, eventually affecting also a conversion of the residential quarters but not a substantial change in the nature of the property. It remained a unit fundamentally devoted to economic enterprises, but at the same time providing the dominus with a pleasant retreat. Archaeological data for areas closer to Rome, although somewhat fragmentary as a result of increasing anthropogenic impact, show that, in many cases, the extension of villa-buildings of the rst–second centuries a.d. obliterated older trenches for vineyards, which are often found dug into the tufa plateau.60 However, the reduction or disappearance of this type of agricultural production does not indicate a total indifference to productivity in suburban properties or the emergence of villas devoted solely to the display of elegance and luxury, so lamented by the agronomists. Rather, it shows that other types of production, which were more remunerative and which required comparatively little labor, were preferred, such as the breeding of poultry, thrushes, dormice,61 etc. Proximity to Rome was the key to the success of this type of enterprise. The production of wine in the suburbium did not completely disappear either,62 but only the most fruitful fundi and most highly valued varietals continued to be cultivated, such as the Nomentana grape.63 In some cases, the architectural solutions employed in the pars rustica were both original and monumental. In the area of Viterbo, at Asinello, a building used for oil production was discovered and dated to the mid-rst century b.c. The complex was located close to the Via Cassia, about midway between Rome and Clusium, and also close to a bridge

Caesar. The excavators note that it is very tempting to relate the installation of the workshop in Phase 2 with a stamp naming a freedman of Aulus Gellius. 60 Quilici Gigli 1987. 61 Characteristic pots for fattening dormice, the gliraria, were found in some villas of the suburbium, such as in the villa on the Via Casilina (see Carandini 1985b: 151), but also outside the suburbium as in the case of the site of Castelluccio, near Siena. 62 For evidence of villas of the suburbium equipped with presses in the early Imperial period see Catalogue: L212 or L213, for instance. 63 See Pliny NH 14.49 ff.: Sed maxima, eiusdem Stheneli opera, Remmio Palaemoni . . . in hisce viginti annis mercato rus DC nummum in eodem Nomentano decimi lapidis ab urbe diverticulo . . . pastinatis de integro vineis cura Stheneli . . . ad vix credibile miraculum perduxit, intra octavum annum CCCC nummium emptori addicta pendente vindemia . . . novissime Anneo Seneca . . . tanto praedii huius amore capto, ut non puderet inviso alias et ostentaturo tradere palmam eam, emptis quadriplicato vinis illis intra decimum fere curae annum.

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Figure 12. Viterbo, Asinello (after Broise and Jolivet 1995).

on the river Fosso dell’Olmo.64 The peculiarity of this construction, which makes it so far unique, is the use of an octagonal plan for such a utilitarian building. Each side of the octagon measures 9 m; the interior is divided into four (Figure 12) rectangular rooms in a cross-shaped plan, plus four polygonal and four triangular rooms. Carts could get directly inside the building, since the doorway was 2.05 m wide, and thus the olives could be unloaded in the central room. The other rooms held the press, vats for decantation of the oil, storage space with dolia, and

64 Catalogue: L375. Broise and Jolivet 1995 suggest that the use of the peculiar plan indicates a desire to render the building a landmark due to its location at the midpoint of the Via Cassia.

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more.65 The building was very likely part of a villa, possibly belonging to a rich local landlord. It is interesting that the complex was erected on terrain previously planted with vineyards. As archaeological investigations have shown, a regular grid of trenches belonging to a vineyard was cut into the tufa below the level of the foundation.66 The construction of the oil mill might indicate a change in the cultivation on the fundus from grapes to olives. This is of course hypothetical, since we do not know whether the rest of the land around the complex was rst cultivated with grapes and then changed to olives. But the size and monumental structure of the oil mill, as well as its proximity to major communication routes, are signs of the prevalence of olives as a crop. If the complex was indeed conceived from its rst phase (mid-rst century) as an oil mill, then cultivation on this fundus followed a different trend from that observed only 8 km away, in the area surrounding the ancient center of Musarna, where a regular grid of trenches for vineyards has been discovered across the whole countryside, contemporary in date to the construction of the oil mill.67 However, it must be noted that Jean-Pierre Brun in his recent study on archaeological evidence for wine and oil production in the Roman world seems to think that this complex relates to the production of wine not oil, probably on the basis of the dolia defossa that generally indicate wine storage.68 Regardless of the different conclusions that can be drawn about the production of this fundus, it is clear that the architectural typology of the structure marks a strong statement by the owner. By utilizing a monumental form, very often employed for mausolea, this building conveyed the same proud message declared by the dominus who put the consular date on an olive oil-settling vat, as seen above. This indicates,

65 Barbieri 1995: 248 ff. The complex was about 500 m west of the Via Cassia and was excavated in 1981–82. The building technique is opus reticulatum, the pottery nds date to the Late Republic Early Empire and to the third–fourth centuries a.d. It is therefore also possible that the building was not conceived from the beginning as an oil mill, but only subsequently. 66 Broise and Jolivet 1995: 114. 67 Broise and Jolivet 1995. The authors see in the completion of such work evidence for the availability of abundant labor, substantial funds, and the desire to regularize and control the various operations pertaining to viticulture. On the use of these types of trenches for vineyards, see Columella Rust. 4.18. 68 Brun 2004: 42, “l’Asinello (. . .) incluait un pressoir et deux magasins à dolia pobablement pour le vin.” Also, the caption to the plan of the complex dates it between the rst and the fourth centuries a.d.

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in the rst place, the worthiness of that type of production and the magnitude of the investment which made it worth monumentalizing in grand architectural forms, just as the octagonal structure of the villa of Torre Gianola, convincingly interpreted as nymphaeum/musaeum, dramatically dominated the landscape from its position on the highest terrace of the villa, at the axial point of the entire complex.69 It also signies the importance, that the owner is claiming for himself, in the social hierarchy. It has been suggested that we may be dealing, in this case, with a member of the emerging local elite, rather than with a senator from Rome, because homines novi seem to have been more inclined to nd eccentric architectural solutions in order to assert their membership of the upper classes.70 Another possible example of utilitarian functions framed in an unusual architectural form comes from the villa della Muracciola, on the Cassia Nuova.71 Here a villa, in part excavated in the 1920s, contains a calcatorium for grape processing in a room with a large apse at one end; a series of dolia were found regularly placed along the wall of this apse. However, the extremely scanty excavation documentation does not offer any indication of the various phases of the villa and its chronological evolution, and I suspect that this structure in fact represents a later conversion of a previously residential part of the villa into an area of production, a trend observed in several villas of the suburbium. Although rural villas were the privileged place for agriculture, this type of production was not the only one that could occur. As Plutarch points out in his biography of Cato the Elder,72 among the different forms of economic investment such as sh-breeding, pitch production, logging, and pastureland, there was also the exploitation of hot springs. The connection between thermal waters, bathing, and villas should not be underestimated. As various authors have suggested, the great and early diffusion of villas along the bay of Naples might have been in part a consequence of the presence of hot springs in the area.73 Villaowners would have had a double personal interest in thermal bathing: personal enjoyment and economic interest, especially if one takes into account the many people who went to Baiae for therapeutic reasons,

69 70 71 72 73

See Catalogne: L111 and Ciccone 1990, specically 21 ff. Broise and Jolivet cit. See Catalogue: L227. Plut. Cat. Mai. 21.5. More recently Lafon 2001: 192–196.

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as argued by Lafon.74 In some cases, we know of villa-owners in a given area who built thermal baths that were open to the public (not in their villas, but in a different location), and who therefore, besides deriving great social prestige from offering such facilities, may have beneted from the entrance fee, as in the case of M. Licinius Crassus Frugi (cos. 64), whose baths on the Pompeian littoral advertised pools with sea water as well.75 A probable example of a villa built in a particular location in order to take advantage of mineral springs is the so-called “Villa dell’Acqua Claudia”.76 Located in Anguillara Sabazia, this villa was built immediately next to springs still owing today; the mineral water is bottled commercially with the label “Acqua Claudia”. Unfortunately, this Late Republican villa was not fully excavated, and we lack complete data on its different chronological and architectural phases. The villa’s most prominent architectural characteristic is a large hemicycle with an ambulatio, which looked onto a garden. Another villa possibly associated with mineral springs has recently been discovered in Chianciano Terme (Chiusi), a town well known in modern Italy for its therapeutic springs. In this town, excavations at Mezzomiglio have uncovered a large pool fed by a mineral-water spring. The pool is linked to a small bath complex, Trajanic in date. This complex could have been either part of a public establishment or part of a villa. David Soren, director of the excavations, believes it was a public complex, the famous Fontes Clusini celebrated by Horace; but it is not unlikely that it was instead a country villa,77 whose location was chosen not only for the fertile land of the Tuscan hills but also for the presence of the thermal waters.

74

Lafon, Ibidem: 195. It is not clear whether the entrance fee would have been sufcient to cover the expenses of running the baths, plus some margin of nancial return. CIL X.1063: Thermae/M. Crassi Frugi/aqua marina at baln[eum]/aqua dulci. . . . On his coastal villa see D’Arms 1970: catalogue II.23. 76 Catalogue: L12. For gurative representations of the “bottling” of mineral water (from sacred springs) see the silver cup of Castro Urdiales, depicting an attendant emptying an amphora into a large barrel on a cart, and the stele of Q. Veiquasius Optatus, illustrated in Fr. Baratte, “La coupe en argent de Castro Urdiales” in R. Chevallier, Les eaux thermals et les cultes des eaux en Gaule et dans les provinces voisines. Actes du Colloque 28–30 Septembre 1990. Caesarodonum 26: 43–54. 77 Catalogue T11; Soren et al. 1998, and Soren 2006. Only part of the complex was excavated, in several seasons, by a University of Arizona team and by the author, so the interpretation of the site is not denite. 75

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Wool and Textile Production Another activity that could take place in villas, especially rural villas, was the production of wool and the manufacturing of textiles, both from wool and from other natural sources. Although anecdotes in ancient literature remind us that every Roman household produced textiles for internal “consumption”—witness the topos of the proper matrona and her maidservants chastely spinning and weaving in the “good old days,” as well as Augustus’ revival of this custom in his own household—it is extremely difcult to nd evidence for the “industrial” production of textiles for an external market in the archeological sources. In the body of sites assembled in the catalogue, only a few may offer some evidence to support the idea of the production of textiles in a considerable quantity on the basis of the loomweights recovered; it is however to be remembered that with the introduction of the two-bar loom in ca. 100 a.d. loom-weights were no longer used. Signicantly, though, these few examples are almost all of rural villas located on hills, at an elevation suitable for the breeding and pasture of sheep. Only in one case, among those examined in this study, was the recovery of a considerable number of loomweights recorded at a maritime villa built on the spot of the ancient town of Regis Villae, not far from Vulci; but in this case the number of loomweights is not indicated.78 Among the country villas, one of the sites where loomweights were found is Horace’s villa in the Valley of Licenza.79 Several bone needles, loomweights, and spindle-whorls were recovered there in the early twentieth-century excavations, and are now kept in the local Antiquarium. I was unable to locate any information on the exact spot where these objects were found, in order to see if any association could be made with a specic room of the villa. The same uncertainty applies to the chronology of the objects, which remains unspecied. We know that changes occurred in the layout of the villa, in either the mid-rst century a.d. or the early second century, including the partition of the

78 Romanizzazione 1985: 53. This villa has not been included in the Catalogue, since the data reported in the publication are too scanty: surface presence of abundant ceramic material, indicating a chronological span from the rst century b.c. to the fth a.d., marble fragments belonging to architectural decorations, mosaic elements, loomweights. 79 The villa has been traditionally identied with the one owned by the poet in the area, and the label Horace’s villa is currently used, even if it is not certain that this is indeed the poet’s property. See Catalogue: L127.

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long side of the portico into a series of rooms; most likely these rooms served some utilitarian purpose, but it is not possible to determine its nature. Another villa which offers evidence for textile production is that at Ossaia, mentioned in the previous discussion. Several rooms, paved with mosaics in black-and-white tesserae, were excavated in Area 2 of this villa. The objects recovered within these rooms included a great quantity of loom-weights,80 hairpins, and clips. Undoubtedly, the data remain too scanty to allow any quantication or further speculation, but there seems to be a difference between the pictures offered by the sites I have examined and villas in Southern Italy and in Istria. In the ancient region of Lucania, two examples of large villas involved in the industrial production of textiles have been explored in recent years. The site of Masseria Ciccotti was occupied by a monumental villa with phases ranging from the rst century b.c. to the fth century a.d. From the rst phase up until at least the third century, a fullonica was in use in the pars rustica of the villa, evidently in connection with the weaving of textiles; whereas at the villa of S. Pietro di Tolve, a site only 10 km distant, a large number of spindle-whorls was recovered in one room, including one stamped Cn. Domiti Cnidi, a freedman of Domitia Lepida, Nero’s aunt.81 Similarly, archeological evidence of fullonicae or weaving on a large scale is known for villas in the Augustan regio X, comprising Venetia and Histria.82 One such example is the maritime villa of Brioni, in Val Catena, where four

80 The exact number of loom-weights recovered is not indicated in the publication, nor is their weight (Fracchia and Gualtieri 1996). 81 Gualtieri in Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino: 75–105, esp. 85–88. See also in the same volume G. Volpe on the site of S. Giusto (324–326), where rooms paved with terracotta tiles and provided with channels were interpreted as working areas for the washing and treading of wool and hides (since the liquid that ran in the channels corroded the bottom part of the walls it could have been ammonia and other chemical agents used in processing wool and hides). 82 De Franceschini 1998: 768–770. The author reports that nine sites show evidence for animal raising either on the basis of the large number of bones recovered (the kind of animal is not specied), the presence of stables or scissors to cut the wool (Vivaro 3, in the territory of Concordia); ancient sources mention various centers known for animal breeding and market, such as Aquileia that already in the second century b.c. was known for the forum paquarium. De Franceschini lists fourteen villas, mostly in the area of Tergeste-Istria (eleven sites), showing evidence of fullonicae and dye works; of these fourteen sites, eight are maritime villas, and the author suggests they might have produced purple dye (769). The sites where loom-weights were recovered are 31, but only one belongs to the area of Tergeste-Istria, where the majority of the fullonicae were identied. Probably the two-bar loom was used, since most of these sites date to the second or third centuries a.d.

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stone circular basins measuring ca. two m in diameter, and sockets for parts of a torcular used to wring the textiles attest to dye-working, perhaps the production of purple dye, or to washing and bleaching cloth produced in the fundus.83 It is possible that this discrepancy between the evidence for Central Italy and that for the Southern and Northern regions is not simply the result of chance nds. In fact, it seems that regions like Latium or Etruria had a high density of collegia centonariorum in their cities and towns, while such collegia are rarely attested, for instance, in Southern Italy.84 It is conceivable that the industrial production of textiles took place predominantly in villas located in areas with a low degree of urbanization, where artisans capable of running similar activities were lacking; in the opposite of Latium, a region with a high degree of urbanization. Overall, villae rusticae do not present the same striking contrast between the picture given by the literary record and the evidence of archaeology as in the case of maritime villas, where the otium element is stressed while the production aspect remains hidden in the background or apologetically discussed, as in Columella’s discussion of sh-breeding. Agriculture had a central place in the traditional ideology of the Roman elite and this ensured that one would declare more freely and publicly, in writing and in inscriptions, the investments made to improve one’s estate and its protability. The archaeological evidence from the countryside in the area examined shows the density of settlements in Roman times, from small to large establishments, the considerable investment in works aimed at improving the production of the land, such as terracing, irrigation and drainage infrastructure, and in production facilities, such as multiple presses. Not all the production activities that are attested in country villas are strictly speaking agricultural, but as the writings of the agronomists show, the Romans had a large and exible understanding of what was to be included under the term agriculture, which comprised such diverse activities as bricks and pitch making. However, country villas were also idealized. As centers of agricultural production, they are regarded

83

De Franceschini 1998: 624–626. Two basins are fully preserved. Oral communication by Dr. Jinyu Liu. An example of a rural villa, where a high concentration of loom weights was recovered is the villa Vittimose at Buccino (Campania); at least part of the cloth produced there may have been sold on the local market; see Dyson 1992: 142. 84

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also as ideal seats for the production of the mind, where to engage in studies and literary composition. As we have seen in the case of Pliny the Younger, his letters dealing with the estate at Tifernum Tiberinum give only some details about its production and management; Pliny, as any other member of the elite, does not judge worthy of writing the fact that a new larger treading vat was added in his villa, as we learn from the excavation at the site, but does write about his daily routine, comprised of reading and writing, even while he was hunting.85

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CHAPTER FIVE

THE “VILLA SCHIAVISTICA” MODEL

When historians talk about the “villa system” as a mode of production, they are referring to the type of villa rustica that initially appeared in the Italian countryside in the time of Cato and then developed into the villa theorized by Varro and Columella—that is, a villa with both a pars urbana, for residential purposes, and a pars rustica, which exploited slave labor for the concentrated cultivation of cash crops, such as vines and olive trees. It is generally accepted that the “Roman villa” was the manifestation of a specic socioeconomic system, which, in the aftermath of the Hannibalic war, had both new capital and a considerable number of slaves at its disposal.1 Whether the “villa-system” in Italy was adopted from Greece via the colonies of Magna Graecia, or from the Punic (Carthaginian) world, via Sicily, as the discoveries on the island of Jerba suggests, or even whether it evolved in Central Italy from Etruscan palace-structures is still an open debate.2 Whatever its “origins”, this type of villa is said to have developed in Tyrrhenian Central Italy, specically in the regions of Latium, northern Campania and southern Tuscany (Etruria).3 The scholarly denition of the villa system, and the construction of the economic models it implies, rests heavily not only on literary sources like the works of the Latin agronomists, but also on the results of various archaeological investigations. The work directed by Andrea Carandini in the Ager Cosanus and at the site of Settenestre has, for example, been very inuential in this sense. At Settenestre, Carandini and his team4 excavated a large country villa, with at least three major phases: original construction in the

1

Volpe 2000: 195. Lafon 2001; Carandini 1989b: 113 and Fentress 2001; Terrenato 2001a. Carthage had certainly an important role in the development of agricultural “enterprises”: one needs not to forget that the agricultural treatise of the Carthaginian Mago was the only literary work translated into Latin in the aftermath of Carthage’s destruction in 146 b.c., and constituted the basis for the works of the Latin agronomists. 3 Carandini 1989b: 102–103. 4 Carandini 1980; 1985a; 1989b; Catalogue: T3. 2

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mid-rst century b.c.; additions and changes to the oor-plan in the rst century a.d.; and decline leading to abandonment in the late second century a.d. The villa has been associated with the Sestii, in particular to the senator L. Sestius, since the site is located in the immediate hinterland of Cosa, from where the shipment of wine to Gaul in amphorae stamped “SES” took place. The reason why the published study of this villa became so inuential on works relating to Roman agriculture and the economy of Roman Italy is that, in its second phase, the site seemed to exemplify Varro’s villa perfecta: an elegant pars urbana, a pars rustica equipped for the production of wine and oil, and a pars fructuaria for storage, comprising also a granary. The villa had two courtyards surrounded by rooms belonging to the rst and second phases, which the excavators determined to be slave quarters (alloggi servili). This evidence, in combination with the results of the eld survey of the region around Cosa and the villa of Settenestre,5 showed that a radical change in the mode of land ownership took place around Cosa in the rst century b.c., namely a shift from small farms belonging to coloni to villas at the center of large estates. The progressive concentration of the land in the hands of fewer and fewer landowners, along with the creation of the slave-staffed villa perfecta, would have caused a serious crisis for small farms and free labor, causing the disappearance of small- and medium-sized settlements. The archaeological data recorded at Settenestre provided the evidence for a situation already attested by literary sources in Etruria and elsewhere for the second century b.c.6 In order to explain the diffusion, by the rst century a.d., of large latifundia7—not only in Italy, but also in the provinces—historians applied these considerations on

5 Intensive survey was carried out in the Valle d’Oro, Valle dell’Albegna, Valle del Chiarone and Valle del Tafone: Celuzza and Regoli 1982; Carandini and Cambi 2002 (long-overdue presentation of the survey results and smaller in scope than the original two volumes planned, the book presents interpretative work up to the 1990s). For a review of this volume see Wilson 2004. 6 According to Plutarch (Ti. Gracch. 8), when Tiberius Gracchus traveled through coastal Etruria in 137 b.c., he found it deserted and farmed by imported slaves. See also App., BCiv 1.1.7–9 on the exploitation of public land by the rich by means of slave labor and on Tiberius’ speech on these topics on the occasion of the vote on the Lex Agraria. On the impoverished conditions of coloni in Etruria in the rst century see Sall., Cat. 28.4. 7 The famous passage in Pliny, NH 18.35 is often quoted in this context as evidence of the diffusion of large estates in the rst century a.d.: latifundia perdidere Italiam, iam vero et provincias sex domini semissem Africae possidebant, cum interfecit eos Nero princeps.

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the mode of land ownership and exploitation to the rest of Italy, supporting the theoretical model with the archaeological evidence offered by Settenestre. According to Kuzišoin, the latifundium was a large, centrally managed agricultural enterprise, measuring 1,000 or more iugera (= to 250 ha), using mostly slave labor, which reached its height in the rst century a.d.8 However, it is difcult to reconstruct the actual size of large estates from the references given in literary sources and juridical texts. Apart from a few instances where the extension in iugera is explicitly indicated—for example the suburban praedium measuring 1000 iugera mentioned by Varro9—passages are generalizing, with a moralizing undertone, as in the case of Pliny the Elder’s statement that latifundia ruined Italy. The only conclusion that one can reach is that upper class estates must have been very large, but we are not able to quantify their size, or to say whether they were continuous estate or, more likely, scattered properties.10 The survey carried out on the occasion of the excavations at Settenestre identied the probable size of the fundi belonging to the larger villas for the territory of Saturnia, Heba and Cosa. For Saturnia, villas probably controlled an area of three centuries each, ca. 150 ha, since the centuriation module for this area was probably 20 u 20 actus; in the territory of Heba, the survey found one villa-site/km2 to the west of the town, in contrast with the two sites per 1 km2 identied in the eastern portion of the territory.11 In the case of Settenestre and the surrounding area, an estimate of the average size of the fundi was inferred from the distance between

8 Kuzišoin 1984; references to property measuring 1000 iugera are found in some literary texts, see footnote below. The units given as examples by the ancient agricultural writers are: 100 iugera (25 ha) for a vineyard and 240 iugera (60 ha) for an olive grove in Cato and Varro; in Columella, 200 iugera (50 ha) of arable land forms the basis for computation of labor-input in grain and vegetable production. On large properties and land management, see also Corbier 1981. 9 Varro, Rust. 2.3.10; the same size is given in Cic., Att. 13.31.4 for a hortus and Hor. Epod. 4.13. See De Neeve 1984, 217–219 for a discussion of attempts to calculate property size on the basis of the monetary value of the property or number of animals the fundus could support. 10 For instance in the case of T. Vettius, who is said by Diodorus, 36.2, to have owned in 104 b.c., on his property in Campania, 400 slaves, it is assumed that the gure referred to various scattered properties and not to one large continuous estate. For an example of generic references to large portions of land owned by few see Cic., Leg. Ag. 2.78, mentioning that the Ager Praenestinum was owned by pauci. 11 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 124–131.

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large villas, identied through the combination of eld survey and photo aerial interpretation with the study of the terrain morphology. The estates controlled by the villa of Settenestre and the other large villas identied in the area seem to have measured on average 250/ 300 ha.12 Since the Settenestre villa was fully excavated, a more precise calculation of the extension of cultivated areas, at least in the case of the vineyard, was based on the wine production capacity shown by the number and volume of dolia in the cella vinaria. Carandini considers that the cryptoportico had room for 80 dolia, which on average have 10 hl capacity, equal to an annual production of 800 hl of wine. Adding to this gure the wine possibly stored in amphorae, Carandini suggests a production of 1000 hl of wine and a vineyard of 125 iugera (= 31 ha).13 Tchernia renes the calculation according to the different possible yield of grape, noting that wine yield could go from 35 hl/ha to 60 hl/ha; the vineyard would have therefore measured between 15 and 31 ha.14 Finally, Brun’s calculation further reduces the extension of the land cultivated with vines at this site, noting that in the cryptoportico there is room for only 75 dolia and that wine stored in amphorae is irrelevant for the calculation of the production, since wine was transferred in amphorae only at the end of the fermentation process. He therefore thinks that, at the most, the possible wine production was 750 hl, equal to vineyards measuring, according to variation in grape yield, between 12 and 22 ha.15 The labor force used in the running of this estate would have consisted of slaves, as indicated by the identication of slave-quarters in the villa and by the paucity of small and medium size settlements around Settenestre that could have belonged to free farmers, who could then have been hired by the owners of the larger estates.

12 13 14 15

Carandini 1985a: 53. Carandini 1985a: 165–166. Tchernia 1995: 389. Brun 2004: 41–42, with discussion of Carandini and Tchernia.

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Reinterpreting the Archaeological Data The identication of slave quarters at Settenestre which, in the secondphase of the complex, would have housed about a hundred slaves,16 has also given archaeologists excavating elsewhere in Italy a key to interpreting the function of similar structures (i.e., courtyards surrounded by a series of rooms). Using this parallel, many scholars interpret features such as the courtyard of the Volusii villa at Lucus Feroniae and the series of rooms in the villa on Giannutri Island as slave quarters,17 engaging in speculation about changes in the types of cultivars (grain versus olives and grapes),18 about the decay of villas belonging to absentee landowners, and, last but not least, the replacement of independent farmers with slaves. The case of Settenestre has generated such a well articulated economic model of the rural Roman villa that, although it is recognized that in Republican times peasant small-holdings and slave-staffed villas were mutually dependent and shared similar modes of agricultural production,19 no one has really doubted either the presence of hundreds of slaves at Settenestre or the identication of the courtyard as slave

16 The calculation was made on the basis of a military text of the Trajanic era (Hyg. De Munit. 1), reporting that six or eight legionaries could sleep in a tent measuring 10 u 10 Roman feet (ca. 3 u 3 m). This is the same size as the twenty-three cellae at Settenestre (for the excavators, including two cellae ostiariae and one cella monitorum). 17 For these sites, see Catalogue: L106; T19. The fact that in Rosati 1992: 92 the ruins known today as Conventaccio are referred to as an ergastulum is the more striking considering that: a) It seems unlikely that the seven or eight rooms located on the upper terrace (and in an amazing panoramic position) were slave quarters. From what is known of the plan of the villa, this complex does not seem to be next to any “service part” of the villa, such as the kitchen, but on the contrary is close to the heart of the rich residential part. Even considering that we are missing part of the upper story of the main residential complex one may wonder where the owners and their guests would sleep during their visits. b) Even if we accept that the rooms were reserved for the household servants, the term ergastulum should not be used since it indicated a space for fettered slaves. On this topic see below. 18 For an overview of the theory that viticulture and olive growing, requiring intensive labor, were more suitable for slave labor whereas grain cultivations suited best independent farmers/tenants see De Neeve 1984: 215–217; Morley 1996: 122–129 for discussion of modern opinions on productivity and cost of slave vs. free labor in villas and on the organization of labor. 19 Garnsey 1980; Skydsgaard 1980. Ikeguchi 2000 for a discussion of approaches to using the archaeological evidence as informative of type of labor and management of estates.

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quarters.20 However, as early as 1981, D. W. Rathbone, in a study on the development of agriculture in the Ager Cosanus, warned against “easy acceptance of a simple notion of the villa system being a straightforward slave mode of production.”21 And in order to explain the presence of small farms and villages in the Albegna Valley, an area on the outskirts of the economic center of Cosa and its harbor, it has been suggested that proprietors had always rented their land in marginal areas to free peasants, instead of using intensive slave labor.22 The apparent discrepancy between the eld survey evidence, showing that rural territory was occupied by numerous small settlements in addition to large estates, and the remarks about the predominance of large slave staffed villas attributed to the literary sources to Tiberius Gracchus23 can perhaps be explained if we consider that Tiberius Gracchus, who was probably traveling along the coastal Via Aurelia Vetus, may in fact have reported just what he saw from the coastal road, in the vicinity of which the larger villas like Settenestre were located.24 Tiberius Gracchus’ remarks, charged with political connotations in the debate on ager publicus and land assignment, did not necessarily reect the general settlement pattern of the whole of Etruria. If we turn to the archaeological evidence for slave quarters, in reality, we do not know much about their architectural typology. Schumacher points out25 that in the ancient world slaves were a large, heterogeneous group (highly-specialized household slaves existed alongside agricultural manpower), a fact that makes it difcult to identify specic typologies for servile dwellings. It is assumed that small, uniform rooms were intended for servile use, but, as Whitehead puts it, “archaeologically the slaves are invisible [. . .] there is no accepted way of recognizing slave dwellings.”26 Ultimately, this problem relates to the broader issue in ancient

20 Recently, Schumacher 2001: 101 noted in passing that no archaeological evidence proves the use of this space as slave quarters, although some architectural features t, and that the rooms could have been used for other purposes, such as housing for free workmen, storerooms, etc. 21 Rathbone 1981: 13. 22 Cambi and Fentress 1989: 82. 23 See above. 24 Wilson 2004: 573. 25 Schumacher 2001: 238. For an overview on the archaeological evidence relating to slaves in the ancient world see Thompson 2003. 26 Whitehead 1994: 196. A new and stimulating approach to the study of slave dwellings, focusing on material culture (or the lack of ) has been presented by Webster 2005, applying New World studies approaches to Roman Britain.

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architectural studies about the degree to which architectural typology is a secure indication of the function of spaces, (especially in cases such as this one) when trying to determine the social status of the “users.” In the case of slave quarters in rural villas, architectural features have been “questioned” through the lens of ancient literary accounts.27 It is no accident that the only archeological evidence (Settenestre) for the typology of slave quarters was discovered in Etruria, the very region indicated in the literary sources for an early diffusion of the extensive use of slave labor. The use of courtyards surrounded by rooms is fairly common in villas; however, it is interesting to note that in modern scholarship on villas in Italy, this same architectural feature is interpreted differently according to geographic region. Indeed, while the possible function of villas as inns is strangely absent from the analysis of villa-sites in Etruria, the “center” of the slave mode of production, it occurs relatively frequently for sites in other geographic areas. For instance, at sites in the northern regions a courtyard surrounded by rooms is never interpreted as slave quarters, but most usually as the bedrooms of a mansio, even when this interpretation forces one to reconsider known data on the road network, as in the case of the complex at Le Verne.28 (Figure 13) Even for complexes built on a smaller scale, like the villa at Matrice (Molise), the interpretation of an inn is put forward.29 It seems to me that this type of interpretation of the archaeological data is the result of preconceived notions about the predominant economic conditions in a given area and the mode of agricultural production. In Northern Italy, on the basis of Pliny the Younger’s testimony concerning the lease of his lands to coloni, the presence of slave quarters in villas is never assumed, whereas it is expected in Central Italy. Therefore, in collecting and examining the archaeological data pertaining to villa-sites in

27 Similiter see Purcell in his review to the Settenestre publication (1988: 197) on the slave-quarters: “It is important to remember that that is a supposition, and that Varro and Columella are in the end behind it.” 28 Le Verne is considered to be the mansio of Rigomagus, but most likely was a large villa. As Robino 1999: 249 points out, the typology of the structures (large courtyard with modular rooms) could refer to either a villa or a mansio—in the former case, the rooms may have been storerooms and service areas (but not slave quarters!); in the latter, bedrooms. 29 For this site, being close to the intersection between a north-south tratturo and an east-west road, the excavators hypothesize that the villa also functioned as an inn and think that it probably belonged to one of the local domini nobiles. See Lloyd and Rathbone 1984.

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Figure 13. Trino, Le Verne (after Robino 1999).

Central Italy, along with the results of various eld surveys, I became more and more aware of the necessity of reassessing the archaeological evidence for this discourse and the role played by both slave labor and free labor in the “villa system.” In fact, the archaeological evidence quoted so often to prove the widespread use of slaves in Roman agriculture in the Republic, in primis the data from Settenestre, is not so clear as to be indisputable. Following the numbering of the plans in the 1985 publication, the rst-phase slave-quarters at Settenestre would be Courtyard 42. On the west side, this court presents rooms labeled as cellae for slaves, a cella vinaria,30 and a stable, kitchen, etc. Each of the cellae measured 3 u 3 m and had a doorway 1 m wide. The identication with slave rooms made by the excavators was based not on specic nds recovered within the

30 Surprisingly, the attribution of the given space to a cella vinaria rested not on any material nds (sunken dolia, for instance), but on Varro’s indication (Rust. 1.13.1) that the cella is to be built on the ground oor, facing north.

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rooms,31 but on two other considerations. First, they judged the rooms to be too small for the storage of goods. Second, the 1 m wide doorways seemed too narrow for stables.32 The third option left to explain the use of those rooms was, following passages in Cato and Columella,33 to think of them as cellae familiae for the servi soluti. This same line of thinking led to the identication of the function of the twenty-one rooms of the second larger courtyard to the south-west of the rst one (i nuovi alloggi servili): poor nishing of walls and oors—considered a sign of inadequacy for the storage of foodstuffs34—and doorways too narrow (1 m) for stables (Figure 14). Carandini suggested that each of these rooms could have housed a family of slaves, proposing also that “slave-breeding” may have been actively encouraged by the owner of the villa. In 1981, excavations carried out by the local Soprintendenza at Villa Arianna, at the site of ancient Stabiae (modern Castellammare di Stabia), unearthed the stables belonging to this large, luxurious villa. The excavation, which also recovered the bronze components of two carts, identied ten box stalls as well as an inscription bearing the name of the horse housed in one of them: Repentinus.35 (Figure 15) The doorways of these stalls measured between 0.85 and 0.90 m. This fact shows that, in the case of Settenestre, 1 m wide doorways do not preclude the possible use of the rooms as stables. 1 m is also the current standard doorway width for a standing stall for horses. The nds of the stables at Stabiae also remind us that the breed of horse used in Roman Italy was smaller in size than many of the breeds we encounter today, being probably more similar to the Arabian.36 31 Many of the cellae (nos. 38, 41, 48, 108, 115, and 201) were not excavated down to the oor level (where one would expect to recover most of the interesting data in a stratigraphic excavation). 32 The thresholds were made out of monolithic blocks of limestone; the doors, in both quarters, had one leaf and could be closed only from the outside. 33 Cato Agr. 14.2; Columella Rust. 1.6.3. 34 Where the oor level was reached in the excavation, the ooring consisted of beaten earth or earth and lime. In many rooms a number of nails were recovered, possibly an indication of wooden oors or upper stories; in this case, the storage of foodstuffs seems conceivable. 35 Miniero 1987. Miniero suggests that some of the rooms were stalls, and some were probably rooms for household servants (but not eld slaves: 177). The inscription, a grafto in large letters on the wall plaster next to Room 6, runs: Repentinu[s]/Rimi [-]e[. . .]. The excavation uncovered only the central courtyard and the front of the stalls opening into it, but did not unearth any stall in its entirety, so that we do not have their total measurements as a comparison with the Settenestre cellae. 36 It should be added that if one wants to follow at all costs the norms given by the agronomists, the size of the rooms is closer to what was recommended by Columella

Figure 14. Ansedonia, Settenestre: detail (after Carandini 1985a).

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Figure 15. Castellammare di Stabia, plan of Villa Arianna and detail of the stables (Miniero 1987).

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Apparently, at Settenestre and in the surrounding territory, several horse harnesses were found.37 If we add to this the fact that donkeys and mules, both smaller in size than horses, were commonly used in the countryside for overland transportation, the likelihood of all of the Settenestre cellae housing slaves diminishes greatly. Indeed, we should remember that the Digest included mules in the list of the instrumentum fundi,38 since they were used for transportation, either as pack animals or to pull carts.39 As Schumacher observes, no archaeological evidence proves that the Second Complex at Settenestre was slave quarters, and the cellae could just as easily have been used as storerooms, as housing for free workmen, or for some other purpose.40 In addition to this, we should also remember the possibility that various structures on rural estates, including slave dwellings, may have been built using perishable materials, such as wood, which, due to the nature of the Italian climate and soil, leave no trace in the archeological record. E. Regoli, in discussing the data gathered by the survey in the Albegna valley and the Valle D’Oro, has noted that identication of the dwellings for the work force of the various known estates of Imperial date is in most cases unsuccessful and cannot be attributed to scarce preservation of perishable material, since the poor dwellings of the third century b.c. coloni left identiable traces. However, she also notes the possibility that workmen lived in habitations located very close to the main villa, the traces of which are therefore blended into a single large surface scatter picked up by the eld survey. The presence of small necropoleis with simple tombs alla cappucina near the villas, in use until the fourth century a.d., may support this suggestion.41

for the bubilia: Lata bubilia esse oportebit pedes decem vel minime novem, quae mensura et ad procumbendum pecori et iugario ad curcumeundum laxa ministeia praebeat (Rust. 1.6.6). Much later, Palladius (1.21) talks of a space measuring 8 u 15 ft for each pair of oxen. 37 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 220. 38 Dig. 33.7.12.1: ea quae exportandorum fructum causa parantur, instrumenti esse constat, veluti iumenta et vehicula et naves et cuppae et culei. 39 Agronomists and other sources stress the importance of mules in agricultural works and transport by discussing their breeding; see Varro, Rust. 2.8.1–3, who was from Reate, an important center for mule breeding; Columella, Rust. 6.35.1–37.11; Plin., NH 8.272. It was also possible to lease mules and/or muleteers and all the other equipment necessary for transport and the Digest has various sections dealing with locatio/conductio of muleteer slaves and responsibility for damages: see Martin 1990. 40 Schumacher 2001: 101. He adds however, with circular reasoning, that the architectonic characteristics point somehow in the direction of slave quarters, an opinion that I do not share, considering that it was the excavation at this very site that caused the courtyard/cellae typology to be seen as indicative of slave quarters. 41 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 227.

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In noting the weaknesses of the interpretation of the excavation data at Settenestre, I intend neither to deny in toto the presence of slaves in the complex, nor to propose that the rooms surrounding the two courtyards were necessarily stables. But I would like to underline the fact that the data offered by one of the best excavated villas are not as unproblematic as is often assumed and should be used with more caution when applied to other sites or to the elaboration of a general economic theory of Roman Italy. It seems to me that the function of those rooms should be considered as manifold—storage (not necessarily for foodstuffs alone), slave dwellings, stables, etc.42 Cases of animals and servants sleeping in the same room are, for instance, well attested in some Vesuvian villas, like Oplontis, where skeletons have been recovered. In the case of Settenestre, the interpretation of the archaeological data was inuenced by preconceived ideas, generated through readings of literary sources. We should also remember that Roman rural slavery has often been seen and reconstructed through the lens offered by the realities of slavery in the American South.43 As has been written, in studies of Roman rural slavery, “concentrated slave labor organized around a plantation system is the model that continues to be cited. This has led to an overenthusiastic search for ergastula.”44 The dangers of nding in the archeological record what one “wants to nd” are always present and have been clearly analyzed by Hodder in his studies proposing a theoretical system for archaeology.45 Another idea arising from the data offered by Settenestre and the surrounding region—namely, that large villas determined the disappearance of medium-sized properties belonging to free farmers—cannot be generally applied either. Some areas show the presence of small and medium-sized villas under the Empire as well, both close to Rome (e.g., Ostia) and far from Rome (e.g., the Cecina valley). The small and medium-sized farms identied near Ostia (Acilia) present phases dating from the Republic to the mid- and late Empire; each has access to aqueducts and a necropolis. The majority of the tombs that appear to

42 See Rathbone 1991 for a reconstruction of a multipurpose rural complex on the basis of indications from Egyptian papyri. 43 See for instance studies such as C. A. Yeo, “The economics of Roman and American Slavery”, Finanzachiv n.s. 13.3, 1952: 445–485. It is not by chance that the publication on Settenestre comprises a section on American plantations. On the necessity to consider American slavery as a separate phenomenon from ancient slavery: Schiavone 1989: 49. 44 Dyson 1992: 131. 45 For instance Hodder 1991.

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be related to the various farms date to the second century a.d.,46 and this fact can probably be related to the settlement of veterans in the Ager Ostiensis during the Imperial period, as stated in the Liber Coloniarum.47 In this respect, we should also mention that the construction date for the villa of Settenestre proposed by the excavators has been questioned by Dyson, who pointed out that the date “derives more from their reconstruction of the historical circumstances that led to the foundation of the villa than from the recovered archaeological evidence.”48 In his opinion, the desire to link the villa with the Sestii family, known to have been proprietors in the Ager Cosanus, was one of the reasons for emphasis being placed on the historical reconstruction rather than on the archaeological data. As discussed above, the “appearance” of the great villa of Settenestre—and of the other grand villas of the area—has been connected to the decline of the town of Cosa, since the senatorial proprietors of these slave estates undermined the local community in which they had no interest, accelerating the crisis of small landowners. However, if Dyson is correct in positing the construction date for the luxurious villas of Le Colonne and Settenestre in the late second century b.c.—and it seems to me his argument rests on strong basis—then the villas would be contemporary with the height of prosperity of Cosa, while the decline in the rst century b.c. would coincide with a break of occupation at Le Colonne also.49 The pottery data from the eld survey in the Albegna valley, mentioned earlier, also seem to offer a more complicated picture than the slow, progressive decline in the number of sites posited as general model of land occupation in Italy. Datable African red-slip forms recovered in this area indicate a peak in the period from the late rst century a.d. to the mid-third century, followed by a drop and a new concentration of nds for the

46

See Catalogue: L1. Lib. Col. 234 L; 236 L. 48 Dyson 2002: 224–225; he considers the mid-rst century b.c. date too late in the light of the hundreds of black glaze sherds recovered in the excavation and of the substantial group of third/second century b.c. coins, in addition to the fact that dating on the basis of wall painting style (Pompeian IIA, considered to belong to the original decoration of the villa and dated to 40 b.c.) is not a reliable criterion. The nearby villa of Le Colonne (T1), very similar in architectural typology to Settenestre, has been dated to the late second century b.c. 49 Ibidem: 226. Dyson also observes that some of the villas may have belonged to locals, since some in the local community must had reasonable wealth, as indicated by a coin hoard discovered in one of the houses in Cosa, including more than 2,000 Republican denarii. For the chronological phases of Le Colonne see also the discussion in Chapter 8. 47

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years 320–400 a.d. If these data relate directly to the export of African ware, they also have some value for determining settlements’ history and their involvement in an import-export market economy.50 Another famous archaeological example used to demonstrate the widespread diffusion of slave labor in villae rusticae is the well known villa of the Volusii Saturnini at Lucus Feroniae (Fiano Romano), just north of Rome. This villa was possibly built around 50 b.c. by Q. Volusius Saturninus.51 Under Augustus, L. Volusius Saturninus, the consul for 12 b.c., redecorated the original mansion and added to it a large peristyle surrounded by rooms. Moretti and Sgubini-Moretti, who followed the emergency excavation of the complex in the 1970s, think that the rooms constituted an ergastulum52 for “hundreds” of slaves, thus revealing a radical change in the villa’s mode of production, from coloni to slaves.53 To quote Sgubini Moretti, the courtyard is “un esempio dei Tusca ergastula, sinonimo dell’efcienza del modo di produzione schiavistica in Etruria.”54 The change in the type of labor would also have reected a change in the type of production—from wine and oil, produced at the Republican villa, to grain55—in response to the market crisis of Italian wine under pressure from imports from the provinces.56 But if one scrutinizes the

50

Ibidem: 226. The Volusii were homines novi from Cingulum in Picenum, who reached considerable wealth and prestige with Augustus. The rst member to obtain the consulate was L. Volusius in 12 b.c. 52 The term ergastulum is often used improperly by modern authors to refer to slave quarters in general. On this issue see below. 53 There is no single good publication on this villa, which was excavated hastily on account of the construction of the highway and not following the stratigraphic methodology. The only monographs on the villa are: Moretti and Sgubini-Moretti 1977; Sgubini-Moretti 1998; Volusii Saturnini 1982. 54 Similar opinions on the Volusii complex include Torelli’s (Bianchi Bandinelli and Torelli 1986, scheda 65: “Il peristilio bordato di stanzette, sulla cui funzione non esistono dubbi: è il quartiere servile, uno dei Tusca ergastula di cui parlano le fonti”) and Carandini’s (1989b: “forse il più grande ergastulum che no ad oggi conosciamo . . . potrebbe trattarsi di un grande allevamento di schiavi per Roma con una famiglia per ogni stanza . . .”). On vernae as a source for the slave supply see Bradley 1987. 55 The wine and olive presses belong to the rst-century b.c. phase of the villa. Strangely in this case the authors reverse the usual association between vines/olive treesslave labor and grain-free tenants discussed by modern authors; see supra note 18. 56 The existence of the crisis of Italian wine and oil production is controversial. As has been remarked (Panella and Tchernia 1994; recently Tchernia 2006, also remarking the lack of a general study on the chronology of villas in Italy), the decrease in wine and oil exports from Italy indicates only a change in the distribution patterns of the products. And even if there was such a crisis, some scholars are starting to separate the phenomenon from the alleged decline of the villas, denying that the end of viticulture meant also the end of villas (Lafon 1994; Métraux 1998). 51

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Figure 16. Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: detail (Sgubini Moretti 1998).

reasons for identifying the complex at Lucus Feroniae as an ergastulum, one discovers that they are basically twofold: rst, the mention in literary sources of the existence, in Etruria in general, of latifundia and ergastula; and second, comparison with the architectural typology of the courtyard excavated at Settenestre. These two architectural complexes are not, after all, so very similar in their typology. While at Settenestre the second courtyard is an enclosure separate from the residential part of the villa, in the Volusii villa the supposed “ergastulum” unfolds around an elegant peristyle attached to the residential part (Figure 16). Furthermore at the center of the supposed slave quarters at the Volusii villa, there is an elaborate lararium (labeled 41 in the plan), featuring an elegant mosaic oor of sophisticated design, a marble mensa, marble busts of members of the

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Figure 17. Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: lararium (photo: A. Marzano).

gens, and a long inscription recording the funerary honors voted to L. Volusius Saturninus (L. f., cos. 3 a.d.)57 by the senate (Figure 17). The label Lararium, as applied to this room, may be misleading for someone who does not know the complex and has in mind the Vesuvian lararia consisting of nothing more than an aedicula next to the kitchen. In contrast, the lararium of the Volusii was elaborate and clearly intended to be seen. We should ask ourselves for what audience such elegance 57 The inscription (AE 1972.174; for the text see below n. 60) is a copy of the senatus consultum conferring great honors to this member of the Volusii family upon his death. Another copy of this decree (of which a fragment is known) was placed in the Forum in Rome, on the base of one of the many honoric statues erected for Lucius Volusius. The historian Tacitus remembers the death of the famous Volusius at Ann. 13.30. See also Pliny NH 7.14.12.62. This lararium was completely different from the small, coarse aediculae we nd next to the kitchen in many Pompeian houses. In this case we have an entire room, prominently located right in the middle of the west side of the peristyle. The mosaic oor has an elaborate decorative pattern, depicting a kantharos in each of the four corners. The back wall of the room presents a masonry support, once revetted with marble slabs, where the statues of the family’s ancestors were placed. On the right wall two inscriptions once hung, the long one regarding the funerary honors decreed by the senate, and a shorter one dedicated to Q. Volusius Saturninus, younger son of L. Volusius Saturninus. This second, shorter inscription (AE 1972.175) reads: Q(uinto) Volusio L(ucii) f(ilio) [L(ucii) n(epoti)]/[S]aturnino co(n)[s(uli)] (56 a.d.),/[s]odali Augustal[i, sodali]/[T]iti, frati Arval[i, legato]/Caesaris at (sic!) census a[ccipie]ndos/provinciae Belgicae.

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was displayed. It is generally assumed that the lararium was intended for the slaves housed there, who needed a proper space for the performance of rituals addressed to their masters,58 thus offering an ultimate sign of the wealth and power of the gens. But the characteristics of this lararium make me doubt the identication of the courtyard as an ergastulum for eld slaves.59 For one thing, the marble inscription for L. Volusius Saturninus is a completely unexpected nd for a villa. As has been noted, if we had not known the provenance of such an inscription, we would have assigned it with no hesitation to a public space or building.60 It is also crucial, in order to assess the nature of the architectural complex around the courtyard, to determine whether it is correct to talk about a lapse in the use of the mansion as a residence by the Volusii during this early Imperial phase, and about “absentee landowners.”61 This is in fact a circular argument: an ergastulum right next to the pars urbana is possible since the Volusii did not often reside in the villa; yet the explanation for their absence is the transformation of the property from a “otium” villa to a highly productive farm, as attested by the ergastulum itself. It should be remembered, too, that the addition of the peristyle with modular rooms is not the only building activity dated to the Augustan period. In the pars urbana, indeed, most of the mosaic oors were redone and Rooms 7, 8 and 10, once used for activities related to production, were integrated into the residential part.62 These facts conict with the idea that the owners visited their villa less often during this time. To this we have to add that L. Volusius Saturninus, the builder of the peristyle, was the patronus of Lucus Feroniae, as an inscription on the

58

Sgubini Moretti 1998: 40. See also Salza Prina Ricotti’s study on slave quarters and kitchen in Roman houses; she observes that servants quarters open on small courtyards, are never surrounded by columns and are characterized by long corridors (1978–1980: 297). 60 It is worth quoting here the text of the inscription (AE 1972.174): [L Volusio L f Q n Sa]turnino. Cos/[augur, sodalis Augustal]is, sodalis Titi, proc[os Asiae]/[legatus divi Augusti et Ti Caesa]ris Aug pro praetore in [provinciis]/[- -et Dalmatia, pra]efectus urbis fuit [annos XVI?, in quo]/[honore, cum nonagesimum tertium] annum agens dec[essisset, senatus],/[auctore Nerone Claudio Augusto Germa]nico, funere publico [eum efferri]/[censuit, vadimoniis exse]q[ui]arum [ei]us causa dilatis, item statuas ei/[ponend]as tr[ium]fales (sic!) in foro Augusti aeneam, in templo novo div[i Au]gussti (sic!)/[m]armoreas [du]as, consulares unam in templo divi Iuli, alteram [i]n/[P]alatio intra tripylum, tertiam in aria (sic!) Apolinis (sic!) in conspectum (sic!) curiae/auguralem in regia, equestrem proxime rostra, sella curuli residentem at (sic!)/theatrum Pompeianum in porticu Lentulorum. 61 Sgubini Moretti 1998: 39. 62 Ibid.: 28. 59

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base of a statue voted to him by the decuriones tells us.63 He himself and his homonymous son (the person honored in the long inscription from the lararium) built and dedicated, between 14 and 20 a.d.64 the temple to divus Augustus in the forum of Lucus Feroniae.65 Considering the position of these two members of the gens Volusia within the local community, it is highly unlikely that they did not visit their villa (which was also not far from Rome) as often as before; thus the idea of a lapse in the residential use of the villa does not really hold up. All this considered, I am skeptical about the identication of the series of rooms as an ergastulum. Daniele Manacorda spoke against this theory as many as twenty years ago, proposing for the space a combined usage as housing and storage (horreum).66 The analogy in the size of the rooms between this space and the complex on the north side of the villa, which was used for storage,67 supports his suggestion. And in fact, Carandini himself, referring to this complex in the Settenestre publication,68 wrote at rst that it was a horreum, in part because literary sources report that the Volusii preferred coloni to slaves.69 Carandini subsequently changed his views—in a contribution

63 AE 1978.304: L(ucio) Volusio Q(uinti) f(ilio) Saturnino/co(n)s(uli), ((septem))vir(o) epulon(um)/ex d(ecreto) d(ecurionum) public(e) patr(ono). 64 Lucus Feroniae was an important cult center from archaic times. The rich sanctuary, plundered by Hannibal in 211 b.c., was dedicated to the Sabine goddess Feronia. As in the case of other sanctuaries, the cult center was also the seat of an important regional market (Livy 1.30.5; Cass. Dio 3.32.1), still functioning at the beginning of the Empire (Strab. 5.2.9). Lucus Feroniae was able to develop this commercially strategic role thanks to the presence of the Tiber, which offered a transportation route from the upper Tiber valley down to Rome. Of the many harbor installations that L. Quilici (1986) detected along the Tiber, one is located in correspondence to Lucus Feroniae. The center became a real town in the rst century b.c., after the settlement of a colony of veterans, and took the name of Colonia Iulia Felix Lucoferonensium. It seems that the colony fell into slow decline starting in the third century a.d. 65 [L(ucius) Vo]lusius Q (uinti) f(ilius) Sa[turninus ((septem))vir epulon(um). Co(n)s(ul) ((trium))vir]/[c]enturis equ[itum recognoscendis cens(oria) pot(estate)]/[L(ucius) Vo]lusius L(ucii) f(ilius) Sa[turninus co(n)s(ul), augur, proco(n)s(ul) Asiae]/[te]mplum divo Augusto [ faciendum curaverunt idemque dedicaverunt]. 66 Volusii Saturnini 1982: 57. Schumacher 2001: 99 also thinks it was a horreum. 67 Some dolia bases have been found in situ. 68 Carandini 1985a, vol. I: 177. 69 L. Volusius’ opinion reported at Columella Rust., 1.7.3: felicissimum fundum esse, qui colonos indigenas haberet. See also Manacorda in Volusii Saturnini 1982: 68; Corbier 1981: 443 expressed caution in considering the Volusii villa as typical of villas based on slave labor.

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on the villa schiavistica, he presents this part of the Volusii complex as an ergastulum for “hundreds of slaves (centinaia di schiavi).”70 This matter is not merely a useless mental exercise, but has some weight in the recent historiographical debate about the crisis of the Italian economy as a whole, seen also through the crisis of the villa and its peculiar “slave mode of production.”71 Only relatively recently have some scholars admitted that it is not legitimate to apply to the whole of Italy the villa model (which is, ultimately, the Settenestre model) and its evolution in Central Italy, introducing into the debate the idea of a “villa periferica” with different regional manifestations.72 However, the old model is still accepted for Central Italy, and no one has really questioned the presence of hundreds of slaves at Settenestre or at other large villas in the area. In the case of the villa at Lucus Feroniae, there is no incontrovertible archaeological evidence73 that at the beginning of the Empire a shift took place from the cultivation of grapes and olives to that of grain. If, as I believe, it is highly improbable that all the rooms around the courtyard were cellae for eld slaves, the main reason for supposing such a change in the type of cultivation disappears.74 The only two other

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Carandini 1989b. On villas and the second-century economic “crisis,” see Chapter 8. For a clear and synthetic elucidation of the status of the historiographic debate about this issue, see Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino 2001: 5–12. The debate goes hand in hand with the debate about the sources for slaves in the Roman Empire and their quantication. See Lo Cascio 2003; Harris 1999; Scheidel 1997 and 2005. On slave traders see Bodel 2005. 72 This theorization is the result of a rich body of archaeological data that presents, particularly for the southern regions, a situation very different from that which was postulated earlier. Some interesting material about these archaeological investigations is presented in Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino 2001. For the idea of the “villa periferica,” see Carandini 1994, with critiques by L. Capogrossi Colognesi and D. Vera in the same volume. A very fragmented scenario about Italian villas, made up of distinct regional situations, has been proposed by Giardina 1997. 73 It must also be noted that since the excavation took place in haste, using bulldozers, no stratigraphic data are available. Furthermore, we do not know what type of ooring the peristyle court had (this could be a good indication of its usage), nor is it possible to investigate it now, since the space is kept as a meadow and many modern irrigation pipes run through it. In many cases, the reconstruction of part of the elevation of the walls was done in such a way that it is difcult to determine what is ancient and what is new. 74 Many scholars have pointed out that for the tending of olive trees and vines it is better, from an economic point of view, to employ seasonal workmen than to keep slaves year round. Therefore, it is assumed that slave labor would have been required only by extensive grain cultivation. However, the cultivation of grain also requires workmen 71

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elements that could somehow support the theory of a shift to extensive grain cultivation are a rectangular building with pillars, located along the wall enclosing the villa and the garden, which may have been a granary; and the existence in Rome of the Horrea Volusiana,75 which some believe were used primarily to hold grain. To make the analysis more complex, it must be added that in some publications there seem to be very vague boundaries, when talking about slaves and slave quarters, between household servants and eld slaves. Even when considering household servants alone, there were many possibilities for their housing. In fact, although in many cases, according to the literary sources, servants had their own rooms,76 in Pompeii it seems that slaves did not have their own rooms,77 and we have evidence from other Vesuvian houses/villas that servants often slept in the stables or kitchen. It is also possible that personal attendants slept on the oor in front of their master or mistress’s door, as Sidonius Apollinaris describes in one of his letters,78 or at the foot of his or her

seasonally, and less manpower than other cultivations; I do not nd this to be a strong argument in support of the idea of extensive use of slave labor. See also n. 18. 75 These horrea may have been the former horrea Seiana on the Testaccio hill. If this is correct, then it was L. Volusius Saturninus, L. f., who bought them after the death of Seianus in 31 a.d. 76 For instance, in Vitr. De Arch. 6.7.2, Varro Ling. 5.162, and Sen. Controv. 7.6.4, a clear distinction is made between the master’s cubiculum and the slaves’ cellae. Of course it all depends on the richness of the house/villa and on the level occupied by the slave in the social hierarchy of the house: it was one thing to be a qualied slave, such as an accountant, teacher, or doctor, and another to be “general” manpower. Pliny Ep. 2.17, about his villa in Laurentum, mentions servants’ quarters so elegant that they can be used to house guests (reliqua pars lateris huius servorum libertorumque usibus detinetur, plerisque tam mundis ut accipere hospites possint). On the other hand, the criteria followed to identify slave quarters are not univocal if we change geographic location. Again an example from the Bay of Naples comes in handy, owing to the exceptional quality of the archaeological record there. At Villa Arianna at Stabiae, the “slave quarters,” in the east part of the villa, include rooms of differing quality. Some are quite simple in their décor, with cocciopesto ooring (W1 and W2 in the Weber plan), but others, such as W3 and W15, have mosaic oors and ne wall decoration. The array of objects recovered in these rooms includes pastry moulds (W1), bone and metal decoration elements probably pertaining to pieces of furniture, metal masks, glass vases, the famous tower-shaped samovar now in the Naples Archaeological Museum, and some iron pieces thought to be slave fetters (W15). The variety and quantity of objects stored in these rooms (and in other villas excavated in the area) led scholars to believe that the villa was under repair and that part of its interior decoration had been stored in these rooms. 77 George 1997. 78 Sid. Apoll. Epist. 2.13 (about his villa at Avitacum, possibly to be located on the shores of the Lac d’Aydat): [. . .] interiecto consistorio perangusto, ubi somnulentiae cubiculatiorum dormitandi potius quam dormiendi locus est. Similarly Salza Prina Ricotti 1978–1980: 267

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bed, a practice well attested in colonial India and Africa. Overall, the whole idea that household slaves required their own rooms is dubious. In the case of agricultural manpower it is more likely that they were housed in subsidiary buildings, built in perishable material such as wood, rather than in the main residence of the dominus. Besides Manacorda’s suggestion that the Volusii peristyle complex was used as a horreum, I would like to make another suggestion to explain the construction of this new part of the villa. Varro, in talking about villas located next to a well traveled road, asserts that one can build tabernae deversoriae offering lodging and refreshments to travelers, in order to prot economically from the villa’s location. Other literary sources, such as Horace and, later, Ammianus, refer to this practice as well.79 If one considers the importance since the Republic of Lucus Feroniae and its sanctuary as a regional market, and its location along the Via Tiberina,80 it is possible that the Volusii villa offered services as an inn.81 The presence in the northwest corner of the peristyle of a latrina paved in opus spicatum and of a possible kitchen may support this hypothesis. A paved road, which leads into a paved courtyard, provides access to the so-called ergastulum, an important feature mentioned in sources for inns or mansiones as a way to avoid the dust raised by carriages. If we compare the architectural features of this complex with the villa of Alba Docilia in Liguria,82 a mansio along the Via Iulia Augusta, we notice several similarities in their oor-plans (Figure 18). In order to fully assess the use of this part of the villa, it would be necessary to know how the central space of the courtyard was arranged. The lawn that one currently sees at the site is not based on any archaeological evidence. The area could have been a garden, maybe with trees as some have suggested, or it could have been paved. This aspect is simply unknown,

thinks that in most cases household slaves did not have their own rooms and would sleep wherever they found a place, as in some eastern countries. 79 Hor. Sat. 1.5.45; Amm. Marc 29.6; Rut. Namat. 1.377. 80 Various port-installations along the Tiber, identied by Quilici 1986: 205–06, could have been used by Lucus Feroniae for the transport of goods. The town was located in front of the port of Cures, at the conuence of the Capenas and Tiber rivers. More recently another port has been located 3.5 km northeast of the center, near Baciletti. See Fontana 1995: 569. 81 De Franceschini 2005: 284 also rejects the idea of slave quarters and suggests the space was used to hold nundinae in the villa. 82 Grassigli 1995. On the identication of mansiones on the basis of archaeological data, see also Mezzolani 1992.

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Figure 18. Alba Docilia, mansio (after Grassigli 1995).

and will remain so, due to the careless nature of the excavations. But what we can say is that if some of the rooms around the courtyard were used to house family guests and/or travelers, then the presence of the lavish lararium in such a prominent position is understandable as a powerful self-assertion of the family’s importance. A family as well known as the Volusii Saturnini were in the rst century a.d. must have sought means of self-display in their own mansion, along with their involvement in the construction of public buildings in the colony of Lucus Feroniae. They restored and renewed the villa according to the latest fashion, installing new mosaic oors in the rooms; they added a large garden area with an exedra housing ne marble statues. In the context of this general refurnishing, a lararium of this kind made sense whether it was viewed by paying guests or guests of the household. If the rooms were servants’ quarters, visitors to the house would have had no reason to circulate in that part of the villa,

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leaving one to ask why such an elegant setting was erected in the rst place. More statues than those hitherto recovered must have stood in the lararium or in the portico outside it. In fact, another inscription was recovered in pieces not far from the lararium. It belonged to a statue dedicated by a certain Didymus to Q. Volusius, son of Quintus.83 Didymus, whose name reveals his servile status, was perhaps the vilicus of the villa. According to some scholars, this dedicatory inscription by a slave would indicate that the “users” and “recipients” of the lararium were, as stated above, the slaves housed in the “ergastulum.” In my opinion, this type of dedication does not unequivocally imply a slave audience to read the inscription and react to the social status of the dedicans Didymus. Leaving aside the question of the extent to which we can expect agricultural slaves to be literate,84 Didymus’ dedication would have been more signicant for the glorication of the gens and of his own person if it was placed in a “public” section of the mansion, visible to visitors, clientes, and guests of the owners.85

“Ergastula” in Country Villas As I have already mentioned, the term ergastulum/a is often improperly used, particularly in archaeological publications, to refer generally to slave quarters of what we will call the “courtyard type,” meaning a courtyard surrounded on some or all sides by modular rooms. If, following Robert Étienne’s research,86 we examine what the Romans meant by

83

AE 1972.176: Q. Volusio Q. f., L. n./Saturnino/auguri, salio Pal[atino],/IIIviro a. a. a. f. f., preafecto [urbi],/centurioni eq [Rom.]/[tu]rmae pr[imae]/[Di]dymus [-]. 84 See W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy, Cambridge Mass. 1989: 199 on literate slaves attested as supervisors. An isolated document—two short Republican inscriptions, in Oscan and Latin, on a tile from Pietrabbondante (Samnium)—shows that two slave girls (Amica and Deftri, possibly around twelve years old, given the size of the footprints left on the tile) were not only physically involved in the brick production but were also able to write (the inscriptions are discussed in Aubert 1994: 224 ff.) But this is an exceptional document, which does not allow the inference of widespread literacy among slaves. On the basis of the very fact that the girls were literate, Aubert suggests they may have been more than handworkers, perhaps part of the clerical staff of the workshop. 85 The need for rooms to accommodate guests should not be underestimated. A rich domus (“House of Aemilius Scaurus”) excavated in Rome next to the intersection of the Via Sacra and the Clivus Palatinus presents in its large substructures bath quarters and cubicula (in many of them a masonry bed-base was found), presumably for guests and clientes as well as the house servants. See Papi 1999: 714. 86 Étienne 1974.

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the word ergastulum, we discover that this term did not have a univocal meaning in Latin. The word was used to signify a workshop or room where workers (operarii; compare with the Greek ergasterion), sentenced to perform a certain task, were chained.87 In many texts, from Cicero to Livy, and particularly in Columella, ergastulum is used to refer to the place where chained slaves were housed for the night.88 Finally, ergastulum could indicate a group of people convicted to hard labor, for instance the slaves trained for gladiatorial games. The meaning that interests me most in this context is the one referring to space reserved for chained slaves on an agricultural estate. Columella gives a precise description of the characteristics of this space in his treatise, noting that it must be an underground space, but wholesome, illuminated by high, narrow windows so the slaves cannot escape. The ergastulum is presented in clear contrast to the cellae intended for the servi soluti.89 While Cato and Varro also make the distinction between fettered and unfettered slaves, they do not use the term ergastulum, nor do they envision separate housing arrangements for the two groups. In Cato, the compediti, although they do not have a proper bed like the rest of the familia, sleep in the cellae familiae, under the surveillance of the vilicus. Varro, on the other hand, mentions only a space where the familia can recover from their work.90 Thus, from the examination of Columella’s text, the inaccuracy with which the word is sometimes used in modern publications stands out—a series of cellae around a courtyard cannot be an ergastulum, because an ergastulum was an underground space. Étienne, in his above-cited study, noted that we do not have archaeological remains of underground ergastula in any villas in Italy. He explains this fact with reference to the difculty and cost of building a structure such as the one described by Columella. This explanation does not really hold up if one considers three things: rst, the high levels reached by Roman engineering and building practices, resulting in the construction of aqueducts, tunnels, and maritime structures thanks to the invention of hydraulic cement; second, the oddness of Columella describing such 87

Late testimony of Isid. Orig. 15.6.1–2. In fact, on an agricultural estate there was a distinction between chained and unchained slaves (servi vincti and soluti). 89 Columella Rust. 1.6.3: Optime solutis servis cellae meridiem aequinoctialem spectantes ent; vinctis quam saluberrimum subterraneum ergastulum plurimis, sitque id angustis inlustratum fenestris atque a terra sic editis, ne manu contingi possint. 90 Varro Rust. 1.13: ubi comodissime possint se quiete recuperare. 88

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a costly structure for the housing of fettered slaves; and third, the fact that every known villa already has a recurrent underground or semisubterranean architectural feature—the cryptoportico. Cryptoporticoes, indeed, are one of the most common features of Roman architecture, both public and private.91 When one thinks of cryptoporticoes in the context of a villa, Pliny’s letter on his Laurentine property comes to mind rst. In the description of his Laurentine villa, Pliny mentions a grand cryptoportico, a sheltered place in which to stroll during bad weather.92 Doubtless many cryptoporticoes were elegant places, decorated with frescoes and statues or provided with fountains and nymphea, for the delight and enjoyment of the villaowner and his guests. In other instances, the cryptoportico was simply a covered passage connecting different parts of the house. But not all cryptoporticoes were alike. In some cases, we can detect a change in the use of the cryptoportico through the various chronological phases of a mansion. In Pompeii, for example, the so called “House of the Cryptoportico” presented elegant stuccos and wall paintings in the Second Style, while in a second phase, the northwest part of the cryptoportico was used to store amphorae and the space was divided with rough partitions. But in many other instances the cryptoportico seems never to have been intended as a space to be enjoyed by the owner, since it is left in a semi-nished state, with rough plaster on the walls and poor quality ooring.93 As revealed by the excavations, the villa that Pliny owned in Tuscis possessed already in the Late Republican phase a very long gallery/ cryptoportico which, situated along the edge of the natural plateau of the Vadimone River, must have had some kind of utilitarian function.94 91 On cryptoporticoes in Roman architecture, see Cryptoportiques 1973, particularly the contributions of Staccioli (57–66) and Giuliani (71–81); also Lavagne 1988: 352 ff. and various contributions in Basso and Ghedini 2003, a volume focusing on domestic subterranean architecture, among which are E. Noto, “I criptoportici”, 303–338; M. S. Busana, P. Bonini and F. Rinaldi, “Gli ambienti di soggiorno”, 123–234, Z. Mari, “Substructiones”, 65–112, etc. 92 Pliny Ep. 2.17: Hinc cryptoporticus prope publici operis extenditur. 93 In light of this evidence, I disagree with Mari’s statement (see n. 95 below) that cryptoporticoes in villas rarely had only a utilitarian use. Many villas had more than one cryptoportico, one providing a rened space, while the other(s) seem to have been intended for practical purposes. 94 The gallery was 4 m wide and preserved to a length of 60 m and height of 1.60. The state of preservation is poor because of erosion from the nearby river, but in some parts the excavators did nd rubble from the upper structures (Bracani and Uroz Sáez 1999: 34).

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Such a space could have been used for any “service” activity on a country estate, from storage to functioning as an ergastulum,95 or even a working area for certain agricultural tasks. Indeed, in the villa known as “Horace’s Villa” at Grotte di Vocone in the Ager Foronovanus, (not to be confused with “Horace villa” in the Licenza Valley) the working area for the nal phases of wine production was located in the cryptoportico.96 A system of canals brought the must from the room with the torcular vinarium to the cryptoportico, a rough and unnished space. This villa, only partially investigated, had at least two cryptoporticoes. The second one was more elegant; it had a vaulted ceiling and windows, and a corridor, with a mosaic oor in Cottanello pink marble, ran over it. As we have previously discussed, the villa of Settenestre displayed a similar use of the cryptoportico space, where a large tank collected the must from the press room above and where the dolia were stored. The pragmatic decision to use the cryptoportico for utilitarian purposes rather than luxurious enjoyment is not limited to estates in the countryside far from Rome. In the case of a suburban estate, such as the Quintilii’s lavish villa on the Via Appia, the service functions such as storage space, kitchens, hypocausta, etc. were similarly located in the vaulted rooms and cryptoporticoes of the large basis villae.97 Similarly, the massive substructures of the villa “Il Parco” at Monte Porzio Catone, in the Ager Tusculanus, must have housed service quarters and storage spaces.98 A passage in Sidonius Apollinaris seems to indicate that in

95 Mari 1983: 39 n. 217 alludes to the possibility that the ergastula described by Columella should be identied with the cryptoporticoes, because of the same architectural characteristics; but he then rules this out in consideration of the cryptoportico’s preeminence in the architectural composition of villas. It also has to be noted that from Pliny Ep. 3.19 we learn that on his property in Tuscis he, like the other landlords of the area, did not use fettered slaves (vinctos). 96 Muzzioli 1980 and Catalogue: L360. Some unpublished data on this villa near Sassogrosso were presented in a poster exhibit entitled “Sabina” at the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut in Rome, Fall 2000. 97 Paris 2000: 40. 98 189 rooms have been identied so far, occupying about half of the villa’s platform; probably not all of them were accessible in antiquity. Some rooms had wall decoration and scutulatum oors, perhaps bedrooms for special household staff or guests. See Catalogue: L339. Examples of substructures used as service quarters, including household slaves rooms, are known for large houses on the Palatine in Rome, such as the above mentioned house on the Clivus Palatinus (note 85) and another house discovered between the Domus Publica and the Clivus Palatinus; see Papi 1998; 1999 and P. Basso, “Gli alloggi servili” in Basso and Ghedini 2003, 443–463 with other bibliography.

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his villa female servants and dependents of the estate would gather in a section of the cryptoportico to eat their meals and chat.99 The villa of the Volusii Saturnini itself had at least two cryptoporticoes. One belonged to the Republican phase and was located to the southwest of the original nucleus. A second one, buttressed on the southeast side the large terrace-garden, was added in Augustan times.100 Only part of Cryptoportico 1 is drawn on published plans of the villa, but it runs at least to the spot where a medieval construction still stands. There may have been another cryptoportico on the southeast side of the Republican villa, the side which has been bisected by the highway. It is not easy to assess the quality of the space offered by Cryptoportico 1, since a good part of it—toward the medieval tower—has been blocked by a wall to prevent unauthorized access to the site. The accessible portion has been used to store nds from the site, such as piles of tile fragments; built-up soil covers the original paving, while the walls are plastered with what appeared to me to be medium-quality plaster. The space does not seem particularly rened or elegant, so perhaps it was used as a service area, especially after a second, larger cryptoportico had been added.101 If we were to designate, then, a location for a certain number of slaves to be housed on this estate, this space seems to me a better candidate for an ergastulum than the courtyard mentioned above, but since the data on the cryptoportico and its relationship to the other parts of the villa are not sufciently clear, we can only speculate. The suggestion that the cryptoportico should be considered as possible candidate, if we want to identify at all costs a masonry structure for the slaves that conforms to the indication of Columella, should not be viewed as a blithe attempt to substitute one architectural model for

99 Sid. Apoll. Epist. 2.10: haec tamen aliquid spatio suo in extimo deambulacri capite defrudans efcit membrum bene frigidum, ubi publico lectisternio exstructo clientularum sive nutricum loquacissimus chorus receptui canit cum ego meique dormitorium cubiculum petierimus. It is difcult to say specically to whom Sidonius is referring with the term “clientulae.” Possibly these are the wives and daughters of coloni, of other workers on the estate, and of those men who had put themselves under the landowner’s protection. 100 The approximate measurements I have inferred from the plans are, for Cryptoportico 1, c. 4 m wide and at least 25 m long; for Cryptoportico 2 (number 63 on the plan in Sgubini Moretti 1998), c. 8 m wide and 30 m long. 101 I could not obtain access to the second cryptoportico (most of it was destroyed by the construction of the highway). In plan it appears to be about double the width of Cryptoportico 1, divided into two naves by pillars or columns. I have no data on the presence of windows on the southeast side. Considering its location next to the large garden, it is more likely that this cryptoportico offered a sheltered ambulatio.

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slave quarters (the courtyard with modular rooms) for another (the cryptoportico). Although we know of at least one case, from a suburban villa in Pompeii, of subterranean rooms (not a proper cryptoportico) used to house slaves, or perhaps better to punish them,102 we do not have secure indication of subterranean rooms used for the gangs of chained slaves mentioned in the literary texts. The observations that I made above on the probable frequent use of perishable material to build housing for agricultural manpower still stand. In reality, the possibilities for the usage of space in villas were numerous, and no doubt much more exible than the writings of either Varro or Columella indicate. The above discussion of the cryptoportico and its use in known villa complexes is intended merely to point out that Romans had the technology and resources to build underground ergastula if they wanted to and that not all cryptoporticoes were elegant, sheltered ambulationes.

102 In the early 20th century, excavations carried out at the suburban Villa delle Colonne a Mosaico in Pompeii discovered three subterranean rooms, accessible from a ramp leading to the courtyard of the pars rustica; In one of the rooms, was the skeleton of a slave, with iron collar and bound to a pole in the ground. See P. Basso, “Gli alloggi servili” in Basso and Ghedini 2003, 443–463, esp. p. 455.

CHAPTER SIX

VILLA TOPOGRAPHY: INFRASTRUCTURE AND IMPERIAL VILLAS

The geographical distribution of villas in Italy was determined by several important factors, among them the convenience of various locations, the fertility of the land, and proximity to other kinds of commercially exploited natural resources. For example, in the Ager Veientanus (Monte Aguzzo) and Ager Faliscus (Monte Maggiore), the local basalt quarries (used for the paving of roads) were surrounded by the well appointed villas of those who exploited them commercially.1 But there were also other major factors determining villa-distribution, such as the presence of a good transportation infrastructure. A major road running into or through a given area not only made it easy to reach one’s property, thus allowing the construction or purchase of a mansion that could be visited regularly, but also constituted the fundamental condition for the shipment and distribution of whatever commercial goods were produced on the estate. This relationship could work both ways; the presence of villas in an area could lead to the construction and regular maintenance of roads. A navigable river could also serve as a major communication route, particularly one provided with harbor installations and bridges along its course, like the Tiber. As we have seen in Chapter 4, villa sites in Umbria are mostly concentrated along the Tiber and its tributaries. The river, as is also attested by Pliny’s letters and other literary sources, was used for both the transportation of passengers and the shipment of goods produced on rural estates to Rome. Minor rivers also seem to have had a role in the diffusion of villas, clearly because of their role in the transport of goods. One such a case is the river Garigliano, on whose banks several villas were built, up stream from Minturnae, and where a kiln was also discovered.2 Similarly, the wooden structures belonging to uvial docks located at more than 20 km from the mouth 1

Potter 1987: 114. Lafon 2000: 145–146: the kiln was located on the river, 12 km from the sea. The senator L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus produced and shipped wine from here to Gaul 2

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of the river Amaseno, between Circeii and Terracina, were very likely used for shipment of goods by rural villas in the area. We have seen that a recurrent feature of maritime villas was the presence of a small harbor, in addition to any road that might already pass nearby (as in the cases of villas along the Via Severiana to Tarracina, or the coastal villas in the area of modern Sperlonga, which took advantage of the Via Flacca), and this points to the importance of water transport, both for people and for goods. Another important element determining the choice of where to build a well appointed villa was the availability of a reliable water supply. In addition to collecting rain water in cisterns, other forms of water supply were also needed for a villa, especially when the fashion of having baths and nymphaea became popular. Water could be provided by private aqueducts, by tapping nearby natural springs or aquifers by means of underground channels, or by wells if the water table was not too deep. If a major public aqueduct ran close by, the villa could be connected to it directly. It was therefore highly desirable to own a property next to an aqueduct, since it could supply running water for all the villa’s needs. The presence of Imperial residences in a given territory also determined the diffusion of elite villas there. During the Empire, it was desirable to be close to an Imperial seat in order to maintain and foster crucial political and social connections. In addition, the presence of an Imperial residence in an area very often translated, in practical terms, into a better infrastructure, providing further incentive to own or upgrade a villa in the same area as the emperor’s. These are general observations on factors that appear to have inuenced the distribution of villas in a given area; obviously, each individual case needs a closer examination. For instance, the area around Tusculum shows a high concentration of villas, not always in the most favorable or convenient position, probably as a result of the high demand of villas in that area.3 In the suburbium of Rome, another sought after area,

(p. 147, note 53). According to Cato, De Agr. 135, Minturnae was a very good market where to buy iron agricultural tools. 3 See Valenti 2003, introduction. Sen. Ben. 4.12.3 mentions as reasons to buy properties in Tusculum or Tibur the healthfulness of the climate: Nemo Tusculanum aut Tiburtinum paraturus salubritatis causa et aestivi secessus, quoto anno empturus sit discutet; cum erit tuendum est. The last part of the sentence is translated in the Loeb edition as “stops to consider at how many years purchase he is going to buy; when once he has bought it, he must look after it”. The passage seems to imply that the buyers were not too

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especially in the Imperial period, it appears that in the late Republican and early Imperial period the north-eastern portion was mostly occupied by small- and medium-sized properties, and few complexes with those signs of luxury that would classify them as villas. This peculiar situation, in comparison to other areas of the suburbium, was perhaps the result of land distribution to veterans under Tiberius.4

Villas and Infrastructure Roads In one of his letters, Pliny the Younger mentions a small estate (agellus) that a friend of his is interested in buying. He lists the reasons why Tranquillus, his friend, is interested in that property: it is close to Rome, it is well served by roads, and, lastly, the villa and the land attached to it are both the right size.5 The existence of a good network of roads is, indeed, a fundamental prerequisite to the diffusion of villas in a given geographic area, and especially in the case of owners based in Rome, who would travel frequently to their estates. Pliny tells us in a letter that he could easily reach his Laurentine villa, located only 17 miles from Rome, before evening, even if he had to attend to business in Rome during the day. He lists among his villa’s advantages the fact that two different roads can be used to get to his estate: the Via Ostiensis and the Via Laurentina. The importance of the Via Laurentina as a coastal route, due in part

concerned in calculating how many years were needed for the amortization of the expense, nonetheless once the property was bought the owner had to concern himself with its maintenance and perhaps with the generation of some kind of income from it. See K. Verboven, “Mantelité et commerce. Le cas des negotiators et de ceux qui negotia habent: une enquête préliminaire” in Andreau et al. 2004, 179–197. 4 Di Gennaro et al., “Il liberto Faonte, il notabile Marco Claudio Ponzio Ponziano Marcello e i loro vicini”, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005: 27–48, see p. 33. 5 Pliny Ep. 1.24: vicinitas urbis, opportunitas viae, mediocritas villae, modus ruris. Possibly the use of the term agellus is not to be taken literally in this context. Pliny seems to prefer the use of diminutives when referring to properties. In the letter addressed to Calvina, where he discusses the income from his properties, he uses the term agelli: Sunt quidem omnino nobis condicionem agellorum nescio minor an incertior (Ep. 2.4.3). He also refers to his own estate in Laurentum as villulae nostrae in the closing of Ep. 2.17. On calculation of the value of Pliny’s properties see Duncan-Jones 1982: 17–20; for skeptical position about estimates of Pliny’s wealth see De Neeve 1990.

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to the high concentration of residences and towns along it, is attested by repair works to this road until at least the time of Maxentius.6 If we look at the area crossed by one of the most ancient roads leading to Rome, the Via Salaria, we nd that the villa establishments in that area are undoubtedly situated in relation to the road. As a recent study has shown, all the large villas whose remains have been discovered in the territory of ancient Trebula Mutuesca were located on the slopes of low hills along the Via Salaria, with diverticula connecting the villas to the main road. All the major villas identied were located no more than 2 or 3 miles from the Via Salaria itself.7 As one can intuitively understand, proximity to a major road was not just a matter of convenience in reaching one’s villa, but was also important in shipping the estate’s surplus and production to the market(s). A eld survey conducted in the Ager Cosanus has shown the relationship between the location of the large villas in the area, like the one at Settenestre, and the road system and the harbor of Cosa, from which locally produced wine was shipped to the provinces during the Republic. In this area, villas are located in proximity to the main roads, the Via Aurelia and Via Clodia, and near the minor networks of roads following the centuriation grid. In the same way as several large villas were concentrated on the coastal strip, a similar concentration of villas was located in the valley around the mouth and along the midle stretches of the Albegna river, which was navigable.8 For the villa sites surveyed by Quilici Gigli in the area of Blera,9 the relationship with the three major roads of the territory—the Via Cassia, the Via Clodia, and the road leading to Tarquinii—was crucial, along with the addition of a system of secondary roads, creating a capillary communication network in the territory. For example, a large, partially excavated villa not far from Blera, in the area known as Conserva, was situated only 500 m away from the ancient route to Tarquinii, 1.5 km from the town of Blera, and was also very close to the road going from Blera to Luni sul Mignone: an undoubtedly advantageous position with regard to communication routes. In the areas of Anio and Tibur, the distribution of villas in the territory also seems to have been connected with

6

See CIL XIV.4087. Migliario 1995: 130. The large number of freedmen’s names attested epigraphically in the area is probably to be related to the villas. 8 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 146. 9 Quilici Gigli 1976. 7

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communication routes and the exploitation of the tufa and travertine quarries, respectively.10 In the Ager Tusculanus, one of the preferred seats for senatorial country estates, known Republican villas in the territory show a distribution along major roads, like the via Latina.11 Lafon does not see a direct correlation between the diffusion of villas and the creation of infrastructure like roads and harbors, noticing that in the Bay of Naples and in southern Latium, areas with intense villa diffusion, there was no major public road or harbor construction in the period between 125 b.c. and 50 b.c.12 There is, however, rich evidence for the construction on the part of villa owners of diverticula to connect their estates with a major road. The task could have been carried out as part of a collaborative effort among proprietors in one given area. At S. Rocco (Francolise) it seems that the secondary road that connected the earliest villas built here with the Via Appia was the fruit of such collaboration among landowners. Access to communication routes was also important in areas whose geomorphology caused production to be oriented more toward stockbreeding than agriculture, because of the role played by transhumance. In the territory of Cliternia, which is characterized by narrow valleys and mountains not lower than 800 m, the soil is unsuited to intensive agricultural production, so stock-farming and forestry prevailed. Here, sheep-breeding was prevalent, together with some level of grain cultivation, and we nd that the (few) large and medium-sized villas are located along the major communication routes.13 One villa, possibly owned by the consul Prifernius Petus, is located near both the road that crossed the Cicolano and a major route running at a higher elevation that was used by shepherds to drive their herds to the pastures of Piano di

10 DeLaine 1995: esp. 561. She points out that villas have been found right up to the boundaries of the Anio tufa quarries, including one villa with walls built over quarry refuse. 11 Valenti 2003: 57. 12 Lafon 2001: 128. 13 Grain cultivation has been inferred from the recovery of mill-stones. Large villas are rare; small farmsteads and settlements of the “vicus-oppidum” type prevail. To the east of Cliteria, the town of Amiternum was also connected with sheep-rearing, presenting little archaeological evidence for large villas. The involvement of various Roman and local families in land-owning and sheep-breeding in this region is attested epigraphically. See Segenni 1990.

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Rascino.14 An inscription found in the area concerning an estate indicates that the movement of herds must already have been substantial in the Republican period.15 The “no trespassing” inscription, erected by a certain Titus Umbrenus, was presumably placed at the beginning of a private road on his property, and explicitly states that the prohibition to trespass is directed at other landowners’ herds and wagons. There are several known instances of private intervention in the building of infrastructure on elite property, sometimes to the benet also of neighbors and other “external” users. One such case is the bridge built over Fosso del Forco, near Sacrofano. This bridge, built of local tufa, displayed two identical inscriptions, one on each side, recording the name of Humanius Stabilio, the person who built the bridge “in private land for those who go across.”16 Next to the bridge, an altar and the remains of an enclosure have been found, but no traces of a road, which most likely had a beaten earth surface, and was not paved. The construction of this bridge can be related to a villa rustica, the remains of which have been noticed on a hill just north of the bridge. Indeed, the entire area north of Fosso del Forco, up to Campignano, is littered with the remains of farmsteads and villae rusticae. Perhaps Stabilio built his bridge for the convenience of these other local landowners as well. Some indication of the importance of a navigable river to villa distribution can be gathered from the sites registered in the catalogue for the region of Umbria. The Tiber and some of its navigable tributaries offered a valid alternative to roads in this region, both for the shipment of goods and the transport of people.17 Archaeological investigations have conrmed what sources like Pliny the Younger tell us about the importance of the Tiber in the transportation of goods to Rome, revealing a number of ancient uvial harbors.18 The rich villas identied in

14 The remains are located at Staffoli di Cliternia, and the consul Prefernius Petus was suggested as owner on the basis of a tile stamped with his name (CIL IX.6078.16). See Migliario 1995: 145 ff. 15 ILS 6012 = CIL IX.4171. The inscription reads: Via inferior/privatast/T. Umbreni C. f., precario itur,/pecus plostru(m)/niquis agat. The cippus was found “precipitato dal Monte Verano nel tenimento di Calcariola nel commune di Civita Ducale nella destra del salto presso il ponte di S. Martino.” 16 Guzzo 1970: T. Humanius/Stabilio fecit/in privato/transientibus. 17 According to later literary sources the transport of foodstuffs on the Tiber would have dated back as early as the fth century b.c.: Livy 2.34.5, 2.52.6; Dion Hal. Ant. Rom. 7.12.3. 18 Although new discoveries have been added to this list, Quilici 1986 is still a fundamental study in this context. Traces of dykes or other types of manmade structures

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the upper Tiber Valley show a privileged connection with both roads and the river.19 The nicely appointed villa at Penna in Teverina, provided with a pars rustica including a kiln and a cella vinaria, is located on a hill with a commanding view of the Tiber, only 500 m away. Furthermore, this villa was close to the Via Amerina, to a uvial harbor 1 km distant, and to the bridge across the Rio Grande River.20 Several of the villas located on hills along the (few) navigable rivers of Central Italy would have had storerooms and docks on the river bank, for the storage and shipment of goods, as in the case of the villa of Ripa Mammea,21 which had a uvial harbor on the Aniene River, a tributary of the Tiber, featuring such structures. The same trend can be observed on the Adriatic side of the Apennine Mountains, an area which was formerly considered marginal to the question of the diffusion of villas, at least in comparison with the Tyrrhenian side. Ongoing research projects in Picenum, in the valley along the River Pontenza, are revealing the distribution of villas in correspondence to the ancient river bed and the arteries of Roman roads, as well as, in the lower river valley, horrea related to known amphorae production sites along the coast.22 In the second century, Trajan’s commitment to the general restoration and improvement of the Italian road system23 certainly beneted villa owners on their journeys to and from their estates and in the commercial distribution of products by land. For instance, it is impossible not to relate the new building activity registered, under Trajan, at various sites in the area of modern Chianciano Terme, in the territory of ancient Clusium, with the construction of the Via Nova Traiana. As

seeking to regulate the ow of rivers and control the territory’s hydrology have been found in Umbria; see Bruschetti 1996: 154; Moscatelli 1995; Quilici and Quilici Gigli 1999. The Tiber represented the major communication route for Sabina as well, but few uvial harbors have been securely identied. Among these is the uvial harbor at Cures Sabini, still in use between the third and the fourth centuries (Alvino and Leggio 1995: 206). 19 See also reference to sites in Ville e insediamenti 1983: 57. 20 See Catalogne: U11. 21 See Catalogue: L257. 22 F. Vermeulen, “The Potenza Valley Survey (Central Italy). From Acculturation to Social Complexity in Antiquity: a Regional Geo-Archeological and Historical Approach”; M. Pasquinucci and S. Menchelli, “The Archaeology of Wine: Case Studies in Etruria and Picenum,” papers delivered at the 2003 AIAC Congress, Boston. 23 He was much celebrated, not only for his military victories, but also for the program of great public works he launched in Italy: Cass. Dio 68.7; Gal. De Meth. Med. 9.8; Pliny Paneg. 29.2.

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stated by a milestone, the road ran a Volsiniis ad nes Clusinorum.24 The sites at Chianciano Terme, identied mostly by eld survey, fall into the category of large and medium-sized villae rusticae, with Republican and Trajanic building phases. The second-century phase is securely dated under Trajan by the recovery of many tiles stamped with the names of the consuls for 114 a.d.25 The distribution of villas in relation to road networks can also be observed outside the geographic area covered by this study, especially in areas such as Campania, which saw an early and intense proliferation of villas. A complex system of villae maritimae, villae rusticae, and paved diverticula, in connection with the main road network, has been identied along the coastline between the modern towns of Mondragone and Cellole in the province of Caserta (corresponding to the territory of ancient Sinuessa), and in the area immediately inland, at the bottom of the hills. The villas had various types of installations for the processing of agricultural products, among them wine presses, cisterns, and kilns for the production of Dressel 1A and Dressel 1B wine amphorae.26 Harbors The presence of a good harbor not far from an estate was also very important. As outlined in the chapter dealing with villae maritimae, all coastal villas had some kind of harbor—particularly when a natural cove could be used for the purpose—or at least docks to allow the landing of vessels. But although such installations served the daily needs of the villa, allowing the possibility of transporting people to and fro, they were not sufcient for the proper distribution of products to important commercial markets. If the production of the villa was markedly oriented toward the shipment of a large surplus to far away markets, proximity to a public harbor was a plus. As noted above, access to the harbor at Cosa was essential for the shipment of the wine produced

24

W. V. Harris, “The Via Cassia and the Via Nova Traiana between Bolsena and Chiusi,” PBSR 33, 1965: 113–133. 25 Paolucci 1988. The discovery of tiles with this stamp is recorded for the 1800s in the areas of Chianciano and Chiusi. Many tiles stamped with the names of Vopiscus and Hasta were also discovered during the excavation of the large swimming pool at Mezzomiglio, Chianciano. See Soren, et al. 1998: 24; Soren 2006, and Catalogue: T10–T13. 26 S. De Caro and F. Miele, “L’occupazione romana della Campania settentrionale nella dinamica insediativa di lungo periodo” in Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino 2001: 501–581; see p. 510.

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by inland villas to faraway markets in the provinces (e.g., Gaul, in the case of the Sestii).27 The importance for villa-owners of having access to a proper harbor is shown by an anecdote reported in the ancient sources. M. Aemilius Lepidus, elected censor for the year 179 b.c., used public funds to improve the harbor at Tarracina because he was the proprietor of several estates in the area.28 In reporting this information, Livy condemns the fact that he used public money for private interests: thus the works in the harbor are labeled ingratum opus. The suggestion that M. Aemilius Lepidus’ estates in this area may also have produced lime for the construction of buildings in Rome is fascinating in light of his own involvement in public building activity in the Urbs.29 The importance of the harbor of Minturnae at the mouth of the Liri both as a gathering and a shipping point for the agricultural production of the villas in the whole of the Liri valley is well known.30 The identication of dolia produced in Minturnae in the rst century a.d. for Falernum wine sent to Rome has proved that Minturnae was important as shipping port also for the villas in the Ager Falernus. The products of these villas and the wine produced in the area of Cales used to be sent to the harbor of Sinuessa, but when this port declined Minturnae’s harbor installations offered a ready alternative for the villa proprietors.31 This fact shows how the economy, existence, and distribution patterns of the produce of these villas were not affected by the decline of the harbor of Sinuessa because another nearby harbor could offer the same service. The Falernum was very likely transported on trains of pack animals along the Appia to the harbor of Minturnae. A

27

For production and villa owners in the Ager Cosanus see Manacorda 1980 and 1981; Carandini 1980; for sh products produced at and shipped from Cosa in addition to wine by the Sestii see McCann 1987. 28 Livy 40.51.2–3: retinuit quosdam Lepidus a collega praeteritos. Opera ex pecunia attributa divisaque inter se haec [con]fecerunt. Lepidus molem ad Tarracinam, ingratum opus, quod praedia habebat ibi privatamque publicae rei impensam ins<er>uerat . . . 29 DeLaine 1995: 560, on the production of building materials and the rural landscape. She observes that the two consular families of the Aemilii Lepidi and Sulpicii Galbae, involved in major building projects in Rome (e.g., the porticus Aemilia), owned rural estates at Tarracina. She suggests that lime may have been among the agricultural products they shipped to Rome. In the immediate vicinity of Rome no lime is available (lime was produced in the area of Lucus Feroniae, but in limited quantity, Fontana 1995) and it needed to be shipped from other areas. For Cato, a lime-kiln is a natural part of a rural estate, Agr. 38.1. 30 A. Ziccardi, “Il ruolo dei circuiti di mercati periodici nell’ambito del sistema di scambio dell’Italia romana” in Lo Cascio 2000, 131–148; see p. 142. 31 Arthur 1991: 157.

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passage in Horace’s Epodes, mentioning the Ager Falernus in conjunction with traveling on the Appia with small horses or donkeys may support this opinion.32 Also the wine-producing villas in the area of Cales may have resorted to send their produce to Minturnae for shipment, since slaves of the Sulpicii Galbae are attested in Minturnae and it is known that this gens had estates in the Ager Falernus and that the wine of Cales was stored in Rome in the Horrea Galbana.33 On the island of Elba (ancient Ilva), several villae maritimae have been discovered. Proximity to the island’s main harbor almost certainly factored into the placement of villas on these sites. Two of the villas were built in scenic spots on the bay where the Roman commercial harbor was.34 The presence of iron scoriae in the area around Villa delle Grotte points to the involvement of villa-owners in the commercial exploitation of this resource, thus explaining the necessity of having one’s property, with its eventual industrial establishments, next to the harbor. In Formiae, the remains of a Republican villa, which the antiquarian tradition attributed to Cicero, included a harbor and a complex comprising a rectangular courtyard surrounded by long rooms, most likely storerooms and tabernae.35 Members of the elite were not the only ones to take an interest in improving harbors near their properties and residences, as evidenced by the story of Lepidus recounted above. Emperors showed a similar preoccupation with the construction of good harbors. Nero, who built himself a large villa in Antium, on top of a previous Republican villa, also built a harbor at Capo d’Anzio.36 The ancient ruins now referred to as “Grotte di Nerone” are most likely the remains of commercial installations at this harbor. Some of the structures of the Imperial harbor were later incorporated into the harbor built by Pope Innocent III in 1700, but ruins are still visible both in the water and on the shore. The port at Tarracina, after the above-mentioned Republican example, was improved again during the Imperial period. After experiencing certain difculties during the civil war between Vespasian and Vitellius, the city of Tarracina entered a period of prosperity as a result of the

32 Ziccardi, ibidem: 141; Hor., Ep. 4.13–14: arat Falerni mille fundi iugera et Appiam mannis terit. 33 Ziccardi, ibidem: 142. 34 “Villa della Linguella” and “Villa delle Grotte”, Catalogue: T15; T16. 35 See Catalogue: L114. 36 Suetonius mentions the construction of the harbor at Nero 9.

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improvements made to the harbor under Trajan. He was also responsible for the so called “Taglio del Pesco Montano,” the cut around part of the rocky slope of Mount St. Angelo, which enabled the coastal progress of the Via Appia after it had crossed the urban center. This engineering work must be viewed in relation to the improvements made to the harbor, the combination of which offered a good port and a more practical road connection to the entire territory and coastline near Tarracina, with its many villas. Even greater repercussions for a territory can be seen in the case of the construction of the large harbor at Centumcellae, which has been completely obliterated by the modern harbor of Civitavecchia.37 Trajan’s initiative, contemporaneous with the construction of the new basin at Portus Ostiensis, had an impact not only on Rome—for which the new structure was mainly intended—but on the entire area between Cosa and Alsium, although the status of the available evidence makes it difcult to determine the impact it had on the villas in the area. It has been pointed out that the popularity of the wine produced in the area of Caere in the late rst century and early second century a.d. indicates a new economic vitality of the area in Imperial times, to which the works at the harbor of Centumcellae may be in part related.38 The presence of the emperor in his villa there, while keeping an eye on the work in progress at the harbor,39 as well as the area’s proximity to Rome, continued to keep the density of villas in the territory high during the Empire. We can assume that, after Trajan, other emperors also occasionally resided on this Imperial property, or in one of the other residences scattered along this stretch of coast. Consequently, members of the elite also kept villas in the area and sojourned in them on a regular basis. For instance, the large villa that lies underneath Castel Odescalchi at S. Marinella (Castrum Novum) belonged to the jurist Ulpian in the second-third centuries. But owing to a lack of proper 37 For a discussion of the aqueduct built to supply the harbor and annexed buildings see E. Brunori, “L’acquedotto di Traiano”, in Maffei and Nastasi 1990: 215–219. 38 Lafon 2000: 151. See also the discussion on wine production and amphora kilns in the area in Maffei and Nastasi 1990: 114–116; 179 for the suggestion that the construction of the harbor at Centumcellae allowed the shipment of perishable agricultural products such as fruit to Ostia. For a discussion of the relationship between the harbor, the Imperial villa and the settlement see in that same volume F. Correnti, “Centumcellae: la villa, il porto e la città”, 209–214. 39 See Pliny Ep. 6.31 for a reference to the construction of the harbor as seen from Trajan’s villa (villa pulcherrima cingitur viridissimis agris), where the consilium principis was convoked.

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excavation, not much is known about the villa’s layout, its chronological phases, the types of the possible production practiced there (only hinted at by the recovery of fragments of millstones and dolia from the pars rustica), and the eventual connection between the life of the villa and the creation of the port at Centumcellae. Traces of prosperity and long-range commerce can be identied at some villa sites after the second century a.d., possibly an indication of the benecial effects of the port at Centumcellae. A partially excavated villa near Tarquinia, conveniently located in the vicinity of the Via Aurelia and the bridge over the Marta River, was either built ex novo in the third century or enlarged at this time by the addition of an ornate bath suite. All the pottery recovered, including African spatheia, dates to between the third and the fth centuries a.d.40 Unfortunately, the many villas in this territory, particularly the coastal ones, are poorly preserved, and available data on the material culture are scanty, as in the case of Ulpian’s villa. Water Supply Securing a water supply was a fundamental problem for a villa. Water was needed for daily tasks as well as for more “luxurious” amenities, such as baths, fountains, and nymphaea. The presence of abundant water was highly advantageous for a villa, whether in the form of springs, rivers, wells, or aqueducts, which carried water from faraway locations. Among its many advantages, Pliny observes that his Laurentine villa has one disadvantage: it lacked a stream for its water supply, which was instead, fortunately, provided by wells.41 Excavations at Settenestre revealed that the rst concern during the laying down of the foundations of the villa was to dig a deep well to reach the water table. The so called “villa dell’Acqua Claudia” at Anguillara Sabazia was built next to the drinkable mineral-water spring, still owing today. Since water was needed for many purposes,42 villas always had a series of cisterns to gather rainwater, even when they could use the water of 40

See Catalogue: L266. Pliny Ep. 2.17. 42 I am not considering in this context the possibility of extensive irrigation of agricultural cultivations (excluding olive trees and vineyards, both usually “dry cultivations”), for which archaeological evidence is scarce. However, the irrigation of villa gardens should be included in the discourse on water usage; see Chapter 4, with reference to channels dug in the tufa in the suburbium which may have been for irrigation 41

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a nearby spring or river. Large cisterns were often fed by aqueducts or springs, allowing the storage of water to be used when needed. In the case of villas built on different terraces—the most common architectural typology—the cisterns are usually located on the upper level, so that their higher elevation would facilitate the distribution of water. Many of the unexcavated sites recorded as villas in the catalogue have been identied mainly by the presence of cisterns, well preserved in comparison with the other remains; this fact is very evident in the case of Blera or Tibur, for example. The source of water supply for villas is obviously dictated by the hydrology of the area. Different solutions taking into account the geology of a given spot were applied. In the area of Sperlonga, the villa at Pian delle Salse features cisterns fed by water collected by a dam, clearly a diversion structure, built in a nearby gully.43 On bare limestone surfaces, as in the case of Casale delle Grotte near Cosa, channels are cut in the rocky surface to collect the runoff from the hillside into cisterns.44 It was denitely a plus for a property if a connection to an aqueduct was also available, providing running water for the needs of the villa. Many of the cisterns identied at villa sites, too big to be lled by available catchment runoff, were, in fact, fed by aqueducts.45 This solution was an effective way of guarantying constant supply by storing water when available, since usually aqueducts would distribute water to private users at set times, as we can for instance see from an inscription, thought to refer to the Aqua Cabra, which lists the hours in which it was or to drain excess water, and Wilson forthcoming. Wilson suggests that irrigation may have been used for vineyards as well; I believe that in most cases vineyards were not irrigated, as this would have resulted in less sugar content in the grape and hence in a lower alcoholic gradation of wine, which would have spoiled easier. However, if the target was the production of low cost, low quality wine for Rome, irrigation may have been used to increase production on some estates. The ease with which low gradation wine spoils may explain the adoption of the new smaller, at-bottomed amphora type (variously labeled as Spello, or Forlimpopoli A-D, or Ostia II-521/Ostia III-369–370, or Altotiberine I.) commonly produced in Central Italy in the mid-rst and second centuries a.d. Even nowadays in some parts of Central Italy, because of soil type and climate, low gradation wines are produced that do not age easily and need to be consumed relatively soon once the container is opened. Perhaps the smaller amphorae were intended to allow the use of the product within 2–3 days from opening. See Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999: 108. 43 Thomas and Wilson 1994: 141. 44 Thomas and Wilson 1994: 141. The site is 4 km northeast of Orbetello. 45 Thomas and Wilson 1994. On aqueducts in the countryside of Rome see Wilson 1999.

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permitted to draw water from the aqueduct.46 In order to connect their pipeline to public aqueducts running near their estates, private users would need authorization and would pay a fee; illegal connections were, however, quite common. Frontinus reports that, of the total discharge of 14,018 quinariae relating to urban aqueducts, 2,345 quinariae were delivered to private properties in the countryside.47 An example of a public aqueduct expressly reserved to satisfy requests for water from local landowners comes from Tusculum, southeast of Rome. This territory, one of the areas with the oldest diffusion of villas, was also rich in springs and had many aqueducts. The many villas in the territory of Tusculum had several options, but the Aqua Crabra was reserved exclusively for the villa-owners in the area. We know that Cicero, who owned a property here (his famous Tusculanum), used this aqueduct for the water supply at his villa. In the De Lege Agraria, he mentions the fact that he had to pay a tax to the municipium of Tusculum for the use of the aqueduct.48 Some centuries later, Frontinus informs us that Agrippa, while working on improving the water supply of Rome, decided not to use the Aqua Crabra, in order to leave it entirely for the villas in the area. The water was distributed to the various villas in turn, on specic days and in regular quantities.49 This same passage also tells us that Agrippa’s stipulation was not respected, and that some of the water was regularly diverted into the Aqua Iulia by the aquarii, so that they could prot by distributing this water to other users. Frontinus proudly records his intervention to correct the situation, thus allowing the villa-owner in Tusculum to wonder at the “unusual abundance” of the water owing from the aqueduct. Other aqueducts in this area included the Aqua Tepula, whose springs were located on Lucullus’ estate, on a diverticulum of the Via Latina,50

46 CIL XIV.3676; also VI.1261, which besides giving the hours, shows also a map with the various pipes connected to an aqueduct. 47 Frontin. Aq. 78–86. A quinaria measured how much water could be discharged through a pipe 5/4 of a digit in diameter, owing under constant pressure. This measures out to about 5,000 to 6,000 gallons per 24 hours. But on the impossibility of reaching an exact value for the Roman quinaria measure, see Ch. Bruun, Appendix at Frontinus, De Aquaeductu Urbis Romae, (R. H. Rodgers ed.), CTC. Cambridge 2004. 48 Cic. Leg. Agr. 3.2.9: ego Tusculanis pro aqua Crabra vectigal pendam. 49 Frontin. Aq. 1.9. The spring of the Aqua Crabra was probably located on the modern Via Anagnina, at an elevation of 612 m. 50 At the X mile of the Via Latina, probably to be identied with the spring Preziosa, 2 km west of Grottaferrata. See Frontin. Aq. 1.8 for the reference to Lucullus’ property.

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and the Aqua Iulia, created by Agrippa in 33 b.c., which also began on the Via Latina.51 From Frontinus’ De Aquis Urbis Romae, it emerges that villa-owners were often illegally using water from the public aqueducts to supply their villas,52 which by this time required a great deal of water for “luxury” purposes—just think of the diffusion in this period of baths, fountains, nymphaea, and eurypii. Imperial favor could be bestowed in the form of special rights to take water from an aqueduct, as shown in a poem by Statius about his villa in Albano and Domitian’s concession to use running water from the aqueduct he had built to supply his palace.53 The same connection between villas and aqueducts is evident in Tibur, another geographic area that contained a large number of elite villas from an early date. The area of Tibur was well connected to Rome from the Early Republic onward. The Via Tiburtina was a very early road,54 and the presence of good roads and abundant water, in conjunction with the fertility of the hills, explains the early diffusion of villas in Tibur and its development as one of the preferred vacation spots for the Roman aristocracy. One of the largest estates in this region has been located in the area known as Grotta Papale. The villa, which presents a clear Republican phase as well as an Imperial one, was built on two terraces and measured about 23,000 m2, a considerable size. It had a nymphaeum and cistern, which were fed by one of the public aqueducts of Tibur, probably the Anio Vetus. Another villa, located under the Villa Gregoriana on the right bank of the Aniene River, is believed to have been the one owned by Manilius Vopiscus, celebrated by Statius in Silvae 1.3.55 Just as water occupies an important place in the poet’s celebration of this estate, the site itself presents a specic solution to the problem of providing the large water supply needed by the villa. A private aqueduct was cut directly into the hill, but it is not clear whether it derived water from a public aqueduct or directly from the river. It 51

On the XII mile, 1.5 km southeast of Grottaferrata. Under the Empire, the emperor would grant the ius aquae ducendae, and in this case the pipes set by private citizens to draw water from a public aqueduct would be stamped with the name of the emperor who granted permission. 53 Stat. Silv. 3.1.61 ff. 54 When the road was extended into the territory of the Marsi, it took the name of Tiburtina Valeria from the magistrate supervising its construction, a member of the gens Valeria and possibly to be identied with the censor of 307 b.c. M. Valerius Maximus. See Quilici 1990: 62. The road followed an older path used for the seasonal herding of cattle between the modern regions of Abruzzi and Latium. 55 See Catalogue L287 and L299. 52

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must have been built during the Republic, since it provided water to a series of covered shponds dated to the late second century–early rst century b.c., which themselves constitute a very interesting example of large-scale sh-breeding at a country villa. In general, Tibur had no water-supply problems, thanks to the presence of the Aniene River, but it seems that in the rst two centuries of the Empire there was a need to store larger quantities of water. Some villa sites, indeed, show the transformation of Republican cryptoporticoes into cisterns.56 This must be related to the increased demand for water, since it is also in this period that larger or new bath quarters, nymphaea, fountains, and water-triclinia are added to many villas. The same trend is observable elsewhere; for instance, at a villa located near modern Sezze, on the road leading to Privernum.57 Also at this site, rooms in the Republican substructures were transformed into cisterns in the second century a.d., in response to an increased need for water, connected to the general beautication of villas that characterizes this period. Also the villas in the Ager Tusculanus present the addition of bath-quarters in the second century, with the need to increase the volume of water supply; several large monumental cisterns were built in this period very likely to feed the baths.58 In many cases, the portions of aqueducts identied in relation to villas are private aqueducts built by the villa-owner, and fed with water from a main public aqueduct, springs, or cisterns. A villa excavated in modern Ischia di Castro, in the province of Viterbo, presents a major architectural phase in the early rst century a.d., probably to be more precisely dated under Augustus. Along with the restoration or addition of the torcular olearum and the pars urbana unfolding around the peristyle,59 an aqueduct was also built. The aqueduct increased the availability of water, previously provided only by the cistern60 connected to the impluvium, although the villa might have had other cisterns that have yet to be discovered. This private aqueduct was connected to the main aqueduct coming from the Monti Canini, built at the time of the centuration of the land. Another example of a private aqueduct,

56

See Catalogue: L294; L301. See Catalogue: L188. 58 Valenti 2003: 62–63. 59 For the full description of the remains discovered at this site see Catalogue: L120. 60 The capacity of the cistern is not indicated in the publication. 57

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in this case fed by a cistern, can be found at the villa under excavation at Pian della Civita, near Artena. At this site, part of an aqueduct has recently been discovered coming from a large cistern on the top of the mountain.61 Villa distribution does not seem to be affected in areas where it was not possible to use a connection to a public aqueduct, provided that alternative solutions for the water supply existed. In the area of Tor Sapienza, where most of the urban aqueducts to Rome run underground, villas and farms relied on underground cisterns catching roof runoff, wells and springs.62 Few of the larger villas are supplied by aqueducts when these run again above ground, as in the case of the Sette Bassi villa. A noteworthy private initiative involving the building of an aqueduct for the needs of a villa is attested by an inscription found in the area of Viterbo.63 The text of the inscription mentions the construction of an aqueduct, 9 km long, to provide water to the Villa Calvisiana, an initiative of the then-owner, Mummius Niger Valerius Vegetus. This inscription is also interesting for the information it gives about property distribution and the names of owners—the aqueduct ran through eleven fundi belonging to nine proprietors, many of whom bear Roman aristocratic names as eminent as that of the senator P. Tullius Varro, on whose property the so-called Aqua Vegetiana originated. Since the aqueduct needed to run for some distance before reaching the Villa Calvisiana, through the estates of various landlords, Valerius Vegetus bought the land on which the spring stood and a strip of land to allow the passage of the aqueduct, rather than relying on the servitudes on drawing water, which carried only limited rights of maintenance.64 Unfortunately, the exact location of the Villa Calvisiana remains uncertain.

61 Brouillard and Gadyene 2003; the excavators observed no calcareous deposit in the aqueduct and wondered if it was never in use; however, if the cistern supplying it was fed by rain water, one would not have calcareous deposits, but probably in order to have enough water the cistern was in turn fed by another aqueduct. 62 Thomas and Wilson 1994: 181. 63 Since three copies of this inscription have been found, it seems likely that several copies of the text were inscribed and set, probably on each of the fundi intersected by the aqueduct. See Barbieri 1999: 120 n. 14. The text published in CIL XI.3003 was already known in the seventeenth century. 64 The Roman legislation on water rights was very detailed and complex; this area of law had become the object of specialist study by the late Republic. Cicero, pro Balb. 45 refers to a certain M. Tugio as an expert, whom he had consulted about the Aqua Tusculana. Vegetus bought from the various proprietors a strip 10 Roman feet wide (but 6 feet wide where the water ran in pipes).

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There is evidence of private aqueducts even in the case of small and medium-sized villas. In the territory of ancient Ostia, near modern Acilia, several medium-sized villas have been identied, with occupation phases spanning from the Republic to the mid- and late Empire, each of which had its own aqueduct and necropolis.65 The attention given to maximizing the water supply for these villas probably reects an intensive engagement in agricultural production—vegetable gardens and orchards, as we discussed in Chapters 3 and 4—which makes perfect sense for this area, considering its proximity to Ostia, Rome, and the Vicus Augustanus Laurentium.66

Villas and Imperial Properties There is an important connection between the location of Imperial residences and the concentration of villas around them. It was important, for social and political reasons, to be in the same location as the emperor and his “court.” For example, when Hadrian built his villa in Tibur—which functioned as a “court” and center of government outside Rome, complete with meetings of the senate and the consilium principis—all those who could afford it wanted a mansion next to the emperor, and those who already owned a villa in the area wanted it to be fashionably up-to-date and well equipped for frequent visits. Existing villas were enlarged and restored and some new villas were built. The majority of the villa sites registered in Mari’s monograph on Tibur show a second-century phase, aimed at beautifying the mansions. The best example is offered by a villa located very close to Hadrian’s Villa, known as the villa of the Vibii Vari. The original Republican villa was enlarged with the addition of a lower, larger terrace, protruding toward Hadrian’s Villa with a large exedra. This phase has been dated by brickstamps to the time of Hadrian. On the one hand, this building activity, which also included the construction of a possible sacrarium, clearly reects the desire to have a fashionable villa showing one’s social status

65 Most of the tombs date to the second century a.d., providing important data on the existence of medium-sized properties in during the Empire. See also Chapter 8. 66 Of course, the luxurious villas of Laurentum also had aqueducts, like that of the villa at Tor Paterno (V. Mannucci, “L’acquedotto laurentino e Tor Paterno: osservazioni e primo intervento di restauro,” in Castelporziano 1985, 31–41). On the advantages offered to local villa-owners by the presence of the Imperial residence, see below.

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in the same location as the emperor’s; on the other hand, it might show the imitation, on a smaller scale, of the emperor’s own architectural activities. The typology of the “sacrarium,” indeed, resembles some of the buildings of Hadrian’s Villa. If the attribution of the ownership of this villa in the second century67 to either C. Iulius Plancius Varus Cornutus or Vibius Varus,68 both renowned public gures, is correct, then the social and political “necessity” of having a proper residence next to the emperor’s palace becomes clear. As Lafon has rightly pointed out, the fact that the principal Imperial residences were located in and near Rome until the Severans is a key to explaining the continuous presence of large elite villas in Italy. In his opinion, the function of a villa as an aristocratic residence, and not just as a unit of agricultural production, is one of the fundamental parameters to keep in mind when pondering the decrease in the number of villas during the Empire.69 Another area presenting a villa-occupation pattern similar to Tibur’s is the area of the Albani Hills, the territory between Castel Gandolfo, Albano, and Nemi. This whole area, because of its proximity to Rome, the fertility of its volcanic soil, and the presence of lakes, became a vacation spot for the Roman elite early in the Republic. By the rst century b.c., villas had a widespread diffusion in this area. Several Imperial residences were located here in Imperial times, among them the villa in Albano, probably previously owned by Pompey the Great; Nero’s villa near the Lake of Nemi (Subiaco); Domitian’s villa at Castel Gandolfo; and the so called Villa degli Antonini at Genzano, also very likely an Imperial villa. The similarity to the Tibur scenario also includes the presence in the territory of important old sanctuaries, in this case the sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis on the shore of Lake Nemi,70 which was surrounded by many villas. The presence of several Imperial residences, favored by different emperors at different

67 The suggestion was made on the basis of 5 small fragments of inscription(s) recovered at the site showing a senatorial cursus honorum; see I.I., 132. The name Varus is visible in the inscription and the mention of the province of Cyprus. The name Iulius Plancius Varus has been integrated on the basis of CIL XIV.2925; others suggested Vibius Varus. 68 Cornutus was consul with Pliny the Younger in 100 a.d.; Varo was consul in 134 a.d. 69 Lafon 2001: 219–226. 70 The sanctuary of Juppiter Latiaris was located just north of this sanctuary, on Mount Albano.

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times, accounts for the constant development and use of villas in this region until the late Empire. A recent study gives the high number of sixty-two identied villas in this region.71 In general, the chronological phases go from the Republic to the late Empire. The “life” of the villas in this region does not seem to have been adversely affected by the deployment of the II Legio Parthica Severiana under Septimius Severus, but rather by the increasingly less frequent visits of the emperor to the residences in Albano after the Severans.72 The litus Laurentinum enjoyed uninterrupted development with regard to villas not only because of its proximity to Rome, but also for the presence of two Imperial palaces, one in Laurentum, the other one in Antium. In particular, the area was further developed under Commodus, when the emperor decided to retire to his residence there in order to escape the plague spreading through Italy after the return of Lucius Verus’ troops from campaigns in the East. In fact, the construction of the Via Severiana, later completed by Septimius Severus, was begun by Commodus to connect Ostia with the Imperial palaces in Laurentum and Antium. However, the establishment of Imperial properties in this region goes back to Augustus,73 who built the Vicus Augustanus Laurentium. Gradually, this vicus became the administrative and distribution center for the whole area. In reality, the coastline from Antium and Astura to Centumcellae, passing through the towns of Fregenae, Alsium, and Norium contained a series of urban centers (under Imperial patronage) and villas gravitating toward the mouth of the Tiber and the Imperial court, which were part of the social and economic life of Rome.74 Direct Imperial intervention could lead to an increase in the number or quality of villas, while also creating links of patronage. For instance, literary sources mention that Nero, while building his harbor and villa in Antium, sent there a colony of praetorian veterans, selecting the richest among the primipili. Surely their social status and rank in the census was reected in well appointed villas.75 Nero’s construction of the harbor in Antium points to another important association. Often the presence of an Imperial residence 71

Chiarucci 2000. The case of Albano is further analyzed in Chapter 8. 73 See Gell. NA 10.2.2: ancilla Caesaris Augusti in agro laurenti. 74 See Purcell 1998: 28 ff. 75 Suet. Nero 9. Tacitus (Ann. 14.27) does not mention the selection of the richest of the primipili, and states that the veterans’ assignment did not solve the problem of the depopulation of the area. 72

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in an area demanded the improvement of the infrastructure, such as roads (e.g., in the case of the Via Severiana)76 or harbors (in the cases of Antium and Centumcellae). In turn, these improvements beneted the other properties in the area and added to their market value, making it even more desirable to own a villa near an Imperial residence and giving rise to renovations. The activities of Nero or Trajan fell in between private and public interests, because of the scale of the work and their geographic location. But in the case of Imperial properties farther away from the capital, too, improvements were made to the local infrastructure, to the advantage of the entire area. The remains of a large villa located near ancient Telamon (at S. Maria delle Grazie, less than 1 km from Talamone) have been related to Trajan on the basis of a stula bearing a stamp with Trajan’s name, the titles of Germanicus and Dacicus, and the name of the freedman in charge of the water supply ( procurator aquarum).77 Chance discoveries at the beginning of the twentieth century uncovered two diverticula, also apparently Trajanic in date, which connected this site to the Via Aurelia. It is noteworthy that one of these two diverticula is of a monumental character unusual for villa sites; the road was paved with large stones and had a total width of 9.60 m.78 If Ciampoltrini is right in suggesting that we should relate this to the construction of Portus Telamonis,79 known from maritime itineraries and attributed to Trajan, then we have a very nice illustration of the weight of Imperial intervention in improving the infrastructure in a given area, probably also to accommodate the needs of an Imperial property. In this case, the intervention would not have been intended solely to provide an Imperial estate with a road and harbor, but to build utilitarian structures that could eventually be used by other establishments in the area. The construction of

76 Another example is the paving of the road leading from Anagni to Villa Magna (at the foot of the Lepini Mountains). A large Imperial residence was located there, discussed by Marcus Aurelius in two letters to his tutor Fronto. The paving of the road, recorded in CIL X.5909 (viam quae ducit in Villam Magnam silice sua pecunia straverunt) was done by the Severans. See Chapter 3 for discussion of M. Aurelius’ letter and for recent archaeological discoveries at Villa Magna. 77 See Catalogue: T47, and Campanile 1919. 78 This is information inferred from the drawings done in 1915 at the moment of discovery, showing the proper roadway measuring 6.50 m, plus crepidines on both sides measuring 1.55 m each. The dimensions of the road allowed the passage of three chariots at the same time. The standard width for Roman roads with heavy trafc was 4 m. See Catalogue: T47. 79 Ciampoltrini 1994b.

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the port would also indicate an interest in regulating and improving sea-trafc in the Gulf of Telamon and in providing infrastructures for the surrounding areas, along the same lines as what was being done by Trajan at Centumcellae, Ostia, and Tarracina. Considering that the harbor at Cosa, south of Telamon, was already in decline in the rst century a.d. and was abandoned in the second century, it is possible that this harbor was intended to replace Cosa in serving the area. But Portus Telamonis does not seem to have had a long life, if indeed Ciampoltrini is right in relating the remains at S. Maria Delle Grazie with the harbor complex, since pottery nds do not date to after the third century. It is possible that the Roman harbor was soon lled up by sand and was therefore abandoned, since this was a problem in the Gulf in both medieval and modern times.80 It is impossible in this case to say whether there was a connection between the construction of the harbor, the large road leading to the Via Aurelia, and the “life” of the villas in the area. Studies concerning the territory of Cosa presented a picture, dominated by the case of the villa at Settenestre, of villas being abandoned in the late second and third centuries, but some of the data are being reconsidered and the entire idea of a villa crisis in the second century, together with the chronology of villas, needs to be reassessed (see Chapter 8).

80 Ciampoltrini 1994b also notes that the drawings mentioned in n. 78 do not show any wheel furrows on the paving, another possible indication that road and harbor were used for a short time; but the artist could simply have ignored this detail.

CHAPTER SEVEN

VILLA TOPOGRAPHY AND INVOLVEMENT WITH NEIGHBORS

Besides the important role of infrastructure and Imperial residences, examined in the previous chapter, in determining the geographical distribution of villas, villa distribution must be considered also in relation to local communities, for villas and towns normally had a relationship of close economic and social symbiosis. In the geographic area examined in this study, large and well appointed villas, belonging either to the Roman elite or to local elites, tend to be concentrated in areas surrounding urban centers, highlighting the socioeconomic importance of these connections and reminding us to look beyond the oft-quoted relationship of villas to the metropolis of Rome. In modern studies devoted to Roman villas in Italy, by and large, the close social and economic relationships between villas and nearby communities have received too little attention.1 In fact, the emphasis has been put mostly on the relations between the countryside—or coastal areas—and Rome, the center of both power and economic consumption. In reality, when one looks at a large sample of villa sites and tries to reorient them in their topographical and economic context, the close relationships between villa sites and nearby urban centers, such as municipia and coloniae, is evident. With respect to patterns in villa distribution relative to urban centers, it is possible to identify the following trend: the “villa phenomenon” is more intense in areas with denser colonization and a higher degree of urbanization. This phenomenon is certainly not exclusive of Italy and is observable also in other areas, such as North Africa. It is a trend easily detectable in Etruria. Coastal and insular villas aside, the mouth of the Ombrone River marks a dividing line in terms of the number

1 The symbiosis between villas and local urban centres has been picked up and addressed by eld survey works, but the studies that focus on villas and villa culture have mostly focused on the Roman senatorial elite and therefore on villas as the otium escape from the negotium of the Urbs and on the villa production oriented to the market of Rome.

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and typology of villas present in the territory: for the area to the north, an area comparatively less densely urbanized, the number of known villas is much lower than for the area to the south.2 Therefore, within the framework outlined above about the importance of infrastructure and Imperial residences, two other elements seem also to determine villa distribution in an area. The rst is proximity to Rome; the second is proximity to a local urban center. Southern Etruria, where many villas have been identied, presents both these elements, with a high concentration of municipia and coloniae. In northern Etruria, large and well appointed villas are concentrated in the areas around what few cities the region has (Rusellae, Populonium, Volterrae, Pisa, Luca, Florentia), in comparison with the region of southern Etruria. This is not to say that these areas lack signs of intensive land-use in the Roman period: centuriation of the land and small- and medium-sized farms are here well attested—think for instance of the so-called Piana delle Cento Fattorie near modern Lucca, where numerous farms assigned to coloni were built in the mid-second century b.c.—3 but large, well-appointed villas are not as common as in southern Etruria. Cambi and his colleagues proposed a typological classication for villas in Etruria that takes into account their relationship to urban centers and the distribution of their production.4 Although these scholars are focusing mostly on the situation in Etruria in the Late Empire—that is, in the fourth and fth centuries a.d—they note that large villas tend to concentrate in a circular area with urban centers in the middle, towards whose markets the surplus was directed. Diffusion of large villas across a wider area, relative to the urban center, seems to occur, according to their typology, in cases where a very good road system exists. The farther one travels from towns, the more the size of villas diminishes; their production must consequently have been intended mostly for self-consumption, since smaller fundi imply a smaller or nonexistent surplus. It may be useful to reproduce the classication of villa settlements produced by Cambi, et al., despite the fact that it is not completely

2 See F. Cambi, “Calabria romana. Paesaggi tardo repubblicani nel territorio brindisino” in Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino 2001: 363–390, esp. pages 364–65. 3 The villas were enlarged in conjunction with the assignment of land to veterans by Octavian in the 40s b.c. and the sites seem to have prospered at least until the end of the rst century a.d. See M. Zecchini, “Nella Piana delle Cento Fattorie”, Archeo 188, 2000: 36–47. The area is an archeological park. 4 Etruria 1994.

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clear what criteria they adopted in determining, say, the difference in the destination of the production between types A1 and B1: Type A1: in the valley of the Ager Cosanus and the Chianti senese the villas are located around towns, in a circle. They are engaged in extensive production for the city market. Type A2: in the valley bottom of the Ager Cosanus and the Ager Populoniensis and in areas connected with a good road system one nds villas similar to the A1 type, but spread on a larger area. Type B1: on hills in the north part of the Ager Rusellanus and in the Chianti senese one nds villas of medium and large size. Only part of the production went to the external market. Type B2: on the high hills of the Ager Cosanus and Ager Rusellanus, there are medium and small farms, producing for self-consumption. Type C: the coastal valleys of the Ager Cosanus present villas and villages depending on them. The agricultural production is oriented towards the urban market.

This classication connects both the size and the location of villas in relation to urban centers with the distribution of the products of the villa itself. Large establishments close to a city would have been producing extensively for the city market, as in the A1 type, whereas for smaller villas on the hills—type B2—production for self-consumption is postulated. The small-holdings identied by eld survey in the valleys far from city centers were related to a mode of production used in the large estates of Cisalpine Gaul; in other words, the so-called Plinian type, using a mixture of coloni and slaves.5 In light of what we know about villa-owners in this region, from both literary and epigraphic evidence, it is also possible to draw some conclusions about the social background of the owners. Southern Etruria, colonized much earlier and more intensely, is also the area from which the greatest families of the Etruscan elite rst integrated themselves in the Roman upper class, reaching senatorial rank. Members of this Roman-Etruscan aristocracy owned very large villas in the territory of Tarquinii. But moving northward from Rome, the rank of the owners tends to diminish. The territory of Vulci, for instance, contains large estates, but they were owned by members of the mid-senatorial rank, like the Sextii in Cosa. In northern Etruria, an area controlled for a

5 The textual evidence offered by Pliny’s epistolary and the geographic location of these small-holdings seem to be the basis for postulating a mode of production combining coloni and slaves.

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longer time by families descended from the ancient Etruscan aristocracy but not yet integrated into the senatorial rank, villas seem to be less numerous, as stated above. Under the Empire, particularly after Trajan’s directive that senators of provincial origins should invest a third of their property in Italian estates, this “map” of land-ownership changed, with the addition of owners from the provinces.6 I need hardly add that the most soughtafter properties were those closest to Rome, which drove real-estate prices up considerably.7 As Pliny remarks in a letter to his friend Nepos: “This is the moment to sell, if you own properties in Italy, and to buy in the provinces.”8 Regardless of the different opinions expressed by scholars about Pliny and the management of his business, it is clear that he was very attentive to prot. Latium, both Latium Vetus and Latium Adiectum, presented a high degree of urbanization and a high density of villas. Here, also, large villas tend to appear in the areas around urban centers, as in Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and Ardea. The above-mentioned topographical relationship between urban centers and the proliferation of villas also gave rise to an intricate network of interactions between villas and cities on the social level. As we shall see, during the Empire an important change seems to have occurred in the perception of villas as proper spaces to display one’s “public” and political achievements, a role previously performed exclusively by the domus. Let us consider the well-known example of the Volusii Saturnini villa near Lucus Feroniae. This villa, located only 500 m from the forum of the town, was either built by Q. Volusius Saturninus around 50 b.c., or passed to the Volusii under Augustus, if Gazzetti’s hypothesis of previous ownership by the Egnatii family is correct.9 This gens, or at least a branch of it, was probably from Capena and was involved in

6

The provision was reiterated by Marcus Aurelius, who diminished the quota to a fourth. 7 However, provincial senators invested also in land and estates in other regions of Italy, such as Roman Calabria; see D. Manacorda, “Sulla Calabria romana nel paesaggio tra la repubblica e l’impero”, in Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino 2001: 391–410, esp. pages 406–407. 8 Pliny Ep. 6.19. 9 See Gazzetti 1992: 42. The discovery of the inscription Egnati on a lion-shaped trapezophoros found at the villa led to the supposition that they owned it.

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some kind of patronage at Lucus Feroniae, as shown by epigraphic evidence.10 The Egnatii, who were involved in the Civil Wars of the rst century b.c., were proscribed by Augustus and their properties conscated. During the time when the Volusii are securely attested to have owned the villa, members of the family became patroni coloniae (L. Volusius Saturninus, cos. 12 b.c., as we have seen in Chapter 5, was the recipient of a dedicatory inscription from the decuriones). In the role of patronus, L. Volusius undertook or contributed to the construction of several public buildings in Lucus Feroniae, among which I have mentioned the construction and dedication, between 14 and 20 a.d., of a temple to divus Augustus. During this period, the villa was considerably beautied and monumentalized, not only by the addition of the large peristyle discussed in Chapter 5 (the so-called “slave quarters”), but also with new mosaics and with the creation of a big garden area on the south side, provided with a large exedra and statues.11 It is clear that we have here an example of two-way interaction. If, on the one hand, the ownership of the villa and attached fundi compelled the Volusii to become patroni coloniae and to nance public works, it was, on the other hand, precisely their involvement in the public life of the community that enhanced their status in that area. In other words, the family, in the person of L. Volusius, felt compelled to beautify the property, mostly as consequence of their social status in that community, and only partially in response to new fashions and architectural trends. The villa, clearly visible from the forum of Lucus Feroniae, where the family was sponsoring the construction of buildings, functioned as the tangible symbol of their power and wealth. It is in this context, therefore, that one must read the erection of the so called lararium with celebratory inscriptions discussed in Chapter 5, since that was, without doubt, a structure made to be “seen” as a display of social prominence. In my opinion, rather than being intended in primis for “internal consumption”, i.e. within

10

Gazzetti 1992: 23. The inscription reads: Cn. Egnatius C. f. Pr PR, and refers to a public monument in the town, probably the paving of the forum or of the sanctuary’s square. It seems that this Cn. Egnatius can be identied with the proconsul of Macedonia for 147 b.c., who constructed the Via Egnatia from Dyrrachium to Byzantium. Papi 2000: 67 reports that Cn. Egnatius also contributed to the monumentalization of the sanctuary of Feronia. 11 Fragments of three statues were recovered (a Heracles herm—Landsdowne type—a herm-portrait of Euripides—Farnese type—and a head of Menander). As in the case of other marbles from the villa, these were later fragmented and burnt to produce lime.

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the household, as has been suggested, the lararium was intended as a display for external visitors to the house, a domestic counterpart of the Volusii presence in buildings of the forum. We can certainly imagine notables of the area among the visitors to the villa. The ownership of a considerable property, by a member of either the Roman or local elite, involved a series of sequential and causal connections. Economic interests in a given area led to some kind of patronage in the local community; this patronage in turn led to more interactions with local notables, which translated into the necessity of upgrading one’s residence according to one’s new social status. To continue with the analysis of the case of the Volusii Saturnini, a more recent archaeological discovery identied a large complex for the production of lime just 1.2 km from Lucus Feroniae. The complex, consisting of three kilns, and associated with a villa, dates to the Augustan age. It is located along the Via Capena, connecting Lucus Feroniae to Capena. It has been calculated that the three kilns could produce between 200 and 300 cubic meters of lime per month, allowing for the construction of thousands of cubic meters of opus caementicium.12 It is very likely that this property, along with its attached commercial enterprise, also belonged to the Volusii Saturnini. As Sergio Fontana pointed out in his 1995 article, the large-scale production of lime in Augustan time must be seen in connection both with the building activity going on at Lucus Feroniae and in the large Volusii villa and with the market at Rome, which had great need of lime.13 Very close to these kilns is the uvial harbor at Baciletti, which would have made possible the transportation of lime to Rome via the river. In this case, the production of lime, which from the juridical point of view fell under the category of agricultural activity,14 was simultaneously both the cause and the result of the extensive involvement of the Volusii Saturnini in the community of Lucus Feroniae. Besides the dedicatory inscription on the temple of divus Augustus, the building activity promoted by the family is also attested by an inscription recovered

12

Fontana 1995: 568. We know that for the fourth century a.d., when building activity was considerably less intense than during the rst centuries of the Empire, the praefectura urbana needed 3,000 carts of lime annually (Cod. Theod. 14.6.3, reference in Fontana 1995: 569). Cato (Agr. 16, 38.4) seems to allude to the possibility of selling lime, and for the early Imperial period an inscription from Capua mentions a negotians calcararius (CIL X.3947). On the lime supply for building activity in Rome, see also DeLaine 1995. 14 Dig. 32.55.3. 13

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in the necropolis Salaria. This epitaph mentions a certain Epigonos Volusianus, who was exactor operis in Lucus Feroniae;15 in other words, he superintended some kind of building yard, either in the colony or in its territory. The economic and social implications of the patronage of a local community are closely intertwined. In this connection, all things considered, the idea that the Volusii became absentee landowners in Lucus Feroniae, as scholars have suggested, is insupportable. Economic interactions between villas and local towns could go beyond selling the villa’s surplus and buying needed items.16 The area of the villa per se could be the seat of economic transactions, fairs, and therefore also social interactions. Recent archeological evidence from the large villa at Marina di S. Nicola (Ladispoli, ancient Alsium) offers interesting data on the existence of a large paved space, possibly used for commercial transactions at the villa. The complex, on the opposite side of the main residential nucleus, parallel to the coastline, had some probable tabernae opening onto a large square, which also constituted the main access to the villa through a diverticulum of the Via Aurelia.17 Caruso thinks that the area was used for commercial transactions and activities. No specic dating element is given for this part of the villa, but Caruso’s suggestion is fascinating, if correct. One could also hypothesize that this area was periodically “open to the public” for commercial purposes, like for a fair. This would make the villa a focus of interest for the local communities (and other estates) and a denite seat of commerce.18 The suggestion seems plausible in the light of evidence referring to villa-owners organizing markets on their estates. The practice must have been much more widespread than the scattered references that we have suggest. For example, Pliny the Younger reports that the ex-praetor Bellicius Sollers asked for the

15 For the dedicatory inscription belonging to the temple see Chapter 5, n. 65; for the epitaph: CIL VI.37422. 16 Whittaker 1994 denies a direct and formal connection between rural economy of Italy and the cities, since the cities were not in control of their own riches and wealthy landowners could transfer their revenues beyond the reach of the city. 17 Caruso 1995: 293. The square was paved with the same type of limestone used in the preparation layer of the road. 18 De Franceschini 2005: 284 suggests that the Augustan courtyard with modular rooms (the so-called ergastulum) in the Volusii Saturnini villa at Lucus Feroniae, featuring storage space for goods, was used to hold markets in the villa. The connection between urban centers and countryside for circulation of goods and creation of aggregate demands from the point of view of the peasantry is disussed in de Ligt 1990 and 1991.

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senate’s permission to hold nundinae on his estate in Northern Italy.19 In this case, the market-fair was a large one, probably regional, if not intra-regional, to the point that a delegation from the town of Vicentia, where Sollers’ estate was located,20 opposed his request in the senate, evidently because the town wanted to keep control over the organization of the nundinae for nancial reasons. Although the nundinae were organized on one’s private estates, the senate (and the emperor) had to grant permission. The emperor Claudius himself asked to be authorized to have a market on his praedia.21 Epigraphic evidence supports the literary record in this. For instance, a senatus consultum dated to 138 a.d. grants to the senator Lucilius Africanus the right to hold nundinae on his African estate, in the region “Beguensis, territorio Musulumianorum”, in Byzacena (el-Bejar).22 Pliny the Younger, when discussing in one of his letters the reasons for the construction of a new temple to Ceres on his estate at Tifernum Tiberinum, states that the sacellum was too small to contain the crowd that gathered in his estate from regione tota on occasion of the religious festival at the end of September.23 These festivals were also occasions for regional markets and although Pliny does not explicitly say so, very likely a market took place on his estate on occasion of the celebration. One can imagine that, on a smaller scale, the buying and selling of goods quite often took place directly on the estates, as may have happened in the space with tabernae identied in the S. Nicola villa.24

19

Pliny Ep. 5.4 and 5.13. Sollers has been identied with the T. Lucius Bellicius Sollers, epigraphically known at Verona, Rome and environs, who married Claudia Marcellina; it is therefore assumed that he had properties in the territory of Verona and of Vicentia. Sollers, and then later the wife, are known to have owned glinae in their praedia near Rome. On this see Cracco Ruggini 2000. 21 Suet. Claud. 12: ius numdinarum in private praedia a consulibus petit. 22 Senatus consultum de nundinis saltus Beguensis: CIL VIII.270; S. Riccobono et al., Fontes Iuris Romani antejustiniani, Firenze 1940–43 n. 48. El-Bejar is in the Kasserine area, where abundant evidence for sites with multiple presses are known; the presses have been referred to oil production, but some are being re-assessed as wine presses (A. I. Wilson, personal communication); see also Brun 2004: 224–229. By the third century is only the emperor who deliberates about nundinae rights, as declared by Modestinus, Dig. 50.11.1 and conrmed by an inscription from Numidia, reporting an edict of the emperor Probus giving to Munatius Flavianus the rights to organize a market exempt from vectigalia and portoria in a vicus of his property (vicus Emadaucapensis, near Cirta; quoted by Cracco Ruggini, ibid.: 164). 23 Pliny, Ep. 9.39. 24 Whittaker 1994: 132 notes that Varro (Rust. 1.16.3) recommends the direct purchase of goods from villa estates, and that the practice of holding fairs on the estates 20

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It must be mentioned that since this villa, like others on this stretch of coast, controlled several farms inland, the large paved square with tabernae may have been just a service area for the internal needs of the villa, for instance when goods from the farms were shipped to the main estate.25 Nonetheless, from the scattered pieces of evidence cited above, one can deduce that villas played a signicant role as centers of commercial exchange with nearby communities. One argument e contrario will further strengthen this point. A passage from the grammarian Festus indicates that, in those areas where a territorial organization in pagi and vici prevails, the vici comprised elementary functions in commercial exchanges in substitution of the villa system.26 With the changing political situation of the Empire, when the sorts of opportunities available to the Roman elite were different from the Republican period, the quality and intensity of relationships between senatorial and equestrian villa-owners and municipal elites increased. The occasions for social interchange were promoted and channeled particularly through the ofcial institution of the patronatus. It is well known that, under the Empire, in particular from the late rst century a.d. onward, prominent members of the senatorial or equestrian elite were more involved in the patronage of communities where they owned property, by means of municence and largitiones.27 But what has not, I believe, been stated clearly in modern studies is the degree is thought to have become more common as the Empire progressed. On selling on the estate as also a practical measure to cut transport costs and building up ties of dependence and obligation see Morley 2000: 218–219. 25 It is possible that the farms were rented to coloni who paid rent in kind, hence the necessity of space at the main villa to store the goods. See the section on the pars rustica in Chapter 1. 26 Fest. 502–08 L.: ‹Vici› . . . ex agris qui ibi villas non habent, ut Marsi aut Peligni. Sed ex vic(t)is partim habent rempublicam et ius dicitur partim nihil partim nihil eorum et tamen ibi nundinae aguntur negoti gerendi causa. Et magistri vici, item magistri pagi quotannis unt. Altero, cum id genus aedicio‹rum de›nitur, quae continentia sunt his oppidis, quae itineribus regionibusque distributa inter se distant (. . .). 27 An estimate by Foraboschi 1994 calculated that for municipal patroni in Italy, members of local elites without senatorial or equestrian rank made up only 14% of the total number. About the promotion of relationships between local communities and prominent members of the elite by the central government, Whittaker 1994 observes that the creation of the curatores civitatis seems to have been a way for emperors to tie prominent senators and equites to the cities, promoting patronage, since curatores were mostly chosen from among landowners in nearby areas. During the Republic and early Empire, the picture seems to be different: not one of the proprietors identied by sources for the elegant villas near Castrum Novum is known to have been a patronus, a magistrate in the nearby coastal urban centers, or the recipient of public honors (but see Lucus Feroniae and the Volusii, patroni of the town in the Augustan period).

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of personal involvement between villa-owners and local notables that this fact implied and how, in consequence, the architectural typology and perception of space in villas also changed. A rough calculation of the percentage of senatorial curatores attested for Italy shows that the majority (ca. 70%) are concentrated in the regions of Campania, Latium, Etruria and Umbria, areas where there was probably a stronger interest in establishing or re-enforcing connections and client-patron relationships.28 A villa at S. Giuliano del Sannio (Campobasso), part of the territory of Saepinum in antiquity, represents a compelling example of how, in Imperial times, the “social life” of villas was centered on nearby towns. In my opinion, this example also shows that, by this time, the physical space of a villa was perceived as “public” and therefore suitable for the celebration of the owner’s achievements in public life. This villa was never excavated, but a series of bases with inscriptions for honoric statues was found in situ, although the statues were not recovered.29 All the inscriptions, dated to the second and third centuries a.d., honor members of the gens Neratia, a family native to Saepinum, which, from municipal elite status under Augustus, reached senatorial rank under the Flavians.30 What is peculiar about these honorary statues, as we learn from the inscriptions, is that all but one of them were dedicated by the municipes saepinates, the municipal decurions of the town. Honorary inscriptions to the same members of the gens Neratia were also recovered in Saepinum, presumably placed originally in the forum of the town. These data indicate not only the fact that the villa, or part of it, was perceived of as a “public space,” and thus suitable for the housing of such statues, but also the extensive interaction taking place between villa-owners and local notables. We are unable to determine, in this case, whether the statues and inscriptions in the villa were placed there by direct initiative of the municipes, along with those in the forum, or whether these were copies of the “ofcial” ones placed in the forum by the decurions, which the Neratii commissioned to glorify themselves at home, too. Both explanations are possible, but in either case the presence of those statues would have been a visible indication to all the visitors

See Papi 2000: 32. In the rst century b.c. the patronage of a community involved primarily homines novi and their town of origin. 28 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 222. 29 Gaggiotti 1984/85. 30 Eck 1983.

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of the household, from guests to clientes, of what the family had done for the town, of the gratitude of the notables, and of the expectation of similar deeds from other members of the gens. The evidence offered by the Neratii villa cannot be considered unique. Scattered evidence indicates that the reiteration of honorary inscriptions from towns’ public spaces in villas occurred elsewhere. In a villa excavated at Cures, in Zara Madonna locality, a dedicatory inscription was found to L. Iulius Marinus Caecilius Simplex,31 legatus of Trajan for Lycia and Pamphylia in 96–97 and in 101 or 102 a.d. Another inscription, bearing the same text recovered in the villa, was discovered in the nearby town, modern Canneto Sabino.32 In a study on epigraphic evidence from honorary statue bases in Venetia and Histria, Geza Alföldi discusses few examples of honorary inscriptions that he considers to come from villas, although the inscriptions are often re-used in churches and their nd spot is not known. One such inscription is a dedication voted by the decuriones of Verona to their patronus C. Herennius Caecilianus during the reign of Hadrian.33 Since the location of the inscription is Sirmione, Alföldi thinks that it was placed in a villa owned there by Caecilianus by direct intervention of the decuriones and does not nd this problematic.34 The hypothesis that in the cases of the Neratii and Caecilius Simplex the town council voted the installation of the inscriptions in the villas could be supported by a similar occurrence in the case of patronage of a collegium. In a suburban villa located near ancient Fidentia (modern Salsomaggiore Terme, Parma), a late Imperial tabula patronatus to Virius Valens, 31

AE 1947.156. CIL IX.4965 = ILS 1026: L. Iulio L. f. Fab. Marin[o]/Caecilio Simplici IIIIviro/viarum curandarum, tr. mil./leg. IIII Scythicae, q. pro pr. provinciae Macedoniae, aedili pleb.,/praetori, leg. pro pr. provinciae Cypri,/leg. pro pr. provinciae Ponti et Bythyniae proconsulatu patris sui,/curatori viae Tiburtinae, fratri arvali,/leg. aug. leg. XI c. p. f., leg. imp. Nervae Traiani/Aug. Germ. provincia (sic) Lyciae et/Pamphyliae, procos. provinciae Achaiae, cos. See also Muzzioli 1980 n. 15 and Carandini 1985b: 64. 33 CIL VIII.270. 34 Alföldi 1984: 20–21; 60; he also discusses how the formula locus datus decreto decurionum can appear in inscriptions found in houses and villas and does not consider these cases as private copies of inscriptions placed by the municipalities in public places. In the case of this formula, however, I do not think we can suppose that the decurions were voting a statue/inscription for one’s villa, assigning the spot for it, for the d. d. l. d. formulaic expression refers to land owned by the city and cannot refer to a private house (the comparison with the tabula patronatus is exemplicative, where the inscription is voted by the assembly to be place in one’s house, but in a spot the owner will choose, see below for examples). If we nd only decreto decurionum, in my opinion it is possible to think of the decurions voting a statue to be placed in one’s villa. 32

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decurio of Fidentia, was recovered. The bronze tabula was placed in the peristyle of the residential part of the villa. The inscription mentions the nomination of Valens to patronus of the collegium dendrophorum. The interesting part comes toward the end of the inscription, when we learn that everyone in the collegium assembly voted to place the bronze tabula in Valens’ villa, in a place to be indicated by him.35 Of course this scenario is not exactly the same as a deliberation of the town council, and cannot “prove” the hypothesis that the decurions voted to erect honorary statues in people’s villas; but in my opinion it does show how, under the Empire, a villa was regarded as having a “public” dimension with respect to the owner’s career and social position, in the same way as has been shown for the Roman domus.36 As it has been observed, the occurrence of honoric statues placed in houses and villas by (subordinate) friends, collegia, communities, and even family members37 in the second and third centuries a.d., substitutes, at least in Rome and suburbium, public forms of honor that, excluding some special cases, were now precluded to senators and knights, being monopolized instead by the Imperial family.38

35 (...) placuit univeris tabulam aeneam patrocinalem ei/poni in parte domus eius qua permiserit quo plenius voluptas/nostra erga eum eluceat cuius titulus scripturae perpetuitate gloriam nostri consensus declaret/adfuere universi (Marini Calvani 1990: 125). Other examples of tabulae patronatus placed in one’s habitation by decree are ILS 7216 (190 a.d.) and ILS 7217 (224 a.d.). In the fourth century the illustrious senator Aurelius Evagrius Onorius displayed the tabula indicating him as patronus of Cluviae in his villa in the countryside of Histonium, on the Adriatic side of Italy: Staffa 2000: 49. 36 Wallace-Hadrill 1994. Emerging municipal families would keep strong ties with their town of origin even well after reaching senatorial status and starting political career in Rome, thus the family town house in the town of origin represented the new status of the family to the eyes of their fellow citizens. For instance, in a large and richly decorated domus excavated at Suasa (Ancona), which belonged to the gens Coiedia, part of an inscription referring to a base of an honorary statue was found. The person celebrated was L. Coiedius Candidus, who, under Claudius, became quaestor, quaestor aerari Saturni and curator tabularum publicarum. A similar inscription from a public context had long been known: also in this case a private copy was set in the family house and kept for several generations (the house was abandoned in the ca. late fourth century a.d.). See De Maria 1993. 37 See for instance the inscription/statue placed by Claudia Marcellina to socero optimo Ti. Claudius Augustanus Alpinus Bellicius Sollers, CIL, V.3337 and Alföldi 1984: 137. If indeed this statue was placed in a villa, one wonders what the “audience” for it would have been. 38 Panciera 2001, esp. 16: “fra il II e III sec. d.C. l’offerta di una statua era una delle possibilità che si presentavano (i.e. to the subordinate friend); che questa fosse collocata nella casa del protettore, da un lato rientrava nei comportamenti socialmente consentiti a Roma, dall’altro tornava a gloricazione, sia dell’onorato, per il potere che con ciò gli si riconosceva, sia dell’onorante, per la divulgazione e ufcializzazione, che tornavano a suo vantaggio, di un’ amicitia potente”.

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For this reason, I strongly disagree with ideas such as those expressed by Nevett, that: in the context of villas there is no evidence for the kind of symbolism attached to the town house, suggesting that these houses may have played a less public role than their urban counterparts [. . .] not so closely involved with formal patron-client relationship.39

Furthermore, in the case of suburban villas belonging to a local owner, as in Virius Valens’ case, the establishment was a primary, not a seasonal residence; in other words, it was a large “domus,” incorporating all its social roles. It is, therefore, reasonable to say that the change in the nature of the political opportunities open to members of the Roman elite under the Empire, as well as their association with local communities through the role of patronatus, promoted the villa as a new venue for the display of one’s achievements in the local public sphere. In Republican times, this function does not seem to have been present in villas, at least to judge from the evidence available. That is not to say that, during the Republic, social exchanges in villas between villa-owners and the local communities were absent in the dimension and space of the villa; on the contrary. Although literary sources are vague about this matter, we nonetheless nd hints in Cicero’s letters, as when he states, for example, that some of his villas were crowded with clientes and visitors—presumably in search of favors—just like his domus in Rome. The writer indeed uses in this context the term domus and not villa to describe the villa at Cumae, precisely to convey a sense of the intense social and business obligations that took place during his sojourns at his estate.40 No doubt business and social contacts were frequent and complex in villas during the Republic. The difference seems to lie not in the fact that meetings with business and political connotations would and could take place in villas, but in how the physical space of the villa was perceived, on the ideological level, to reect the public persona of the owner. With the commitment of estate-owners to the development and patronage of local municipalities that emerges under the Empire, it is natural that villas came to have the same function as the domus had previously.

39

Nevett 1997: 295. Cicero, at Att. 5.2.2. In the same passage his villa in Formiae, crowded with visitors, is dened as a basilica. 40

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We should ask whether this shift in the perception of the villa space determined also a change in the old and traditional equivalence between villa and otium, the opposite of the negotium that would occur in the city. If the villa is, in the Imperial period, more openly considered as a place to carry out negotium like the urban residence, do the aspirations of spending villa sojourns engaged in philosophical studies or literary production disappear? Not quite. Pliny the Younger letters are rich in references to his villas—both the maritime at Laurentum and the country at Tifernum—as places where he can pursuit his studies and writings. Even hunting, if we are to believe him, gives him the chance to spend time engaged in proper, productive “otium”.41 However, it seems to me that, in this period, the villa operates ideologically on two levels. On one level, it is still the out of town residence, the escape from the usual duties and business that for a member of the upper class like Pliny meant Imperial ofces; the villa is still the realm of otium. On the other level, the villa is where local communities have contact with powerful proprietors elected as their patroni or appointed curatores civitatis. It is the villa, not the far away house in Rome, that marks the status of the owner in the eyes of the local community. On this level, the villa becomes a place for negotium, and this is reected in its furnishing and architecture. To the changed social world of villas in the mid-Empire, I would also ascribe a change in the architectural typology of villas. Starting in the second century, we observe in villa complexes the restoration or addition of bath quarters, generally larger baths, which take the place of the smaller balnea of Augustan times.42 This phenomenon is certainly a response to new practices and fashions originating in Rome, where

41 Plin. Ep. 1.6, where he describes to Tacitus how he waited for boars to fall into his nets while writing, inspired by the silence and surrounding nature, and concludes exhorting his friend thus: “so when next you go hunting, take my advice and carry your writing tablets with you as well as your luncheon basket and your ask”. 42 For a different opinion, see Papi 1999: 719, who, on the basis of a letter from Pliny to Pompeia Celerina (Ep. 1.4), states that baths were not commonly present in rural villas in this period. On the contrary, the body of archaeological data shows just the opposite. I also disagree with his interpretation of the passage from Pliny (quantum copiarum in Ocriculano, in Narniensi, in Carsulano, in Perusino tuo; in Narniensi vero etiam balineum . . .), which, in my opinion, indicates that Pliny was struck by the particular elegance or functionality of the baths in the villa near Narni, compared to those in other villas. For Sherwin-White 1966: 93, Pliny means that, to his surprise, he found the baths in that villa heated and ready for use.

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very large and luxurious Imperial bath complexes were being built.43 Other reasons may help to explain it, such as the need for larger baths for a higher number of guests, although being upper class mansions it is possible that bigger rooms were not necessarily responding to practical need of more space, but were still intended for only a few users, thus marking with the “abundance” of space the wealth of the owner. At many sites, like the so-called Villa Plinio at Castel Fusano or the villa Della Tagliata, these new bath quarters are no longer incorporated into the main residential block of the villa, as were the earlier balnea,44 but are instead set apart. In the villa at Castelporziano, a new bath complex was built during the reign of Hadrian, using part of the area that was previously occupied by a cryptoportico and a terrace with a panoramic view of the sea.45 These new baths are usually located next to a gestatio, like a portico or a garden area, where it was possible to stroll and exercise the body.46 In my opinion, the interest in building larger and more elegant baths in villas during this period is not just a response to the fashion of the time and the desire to be up-to-date.47 These new, larger spaces indicate that a considerable number of guests were being entertained at one time

43

The construction of large Imperial baths in Rome started with Nero (in the Campus Martius). Galen (second century a.d.) outlines the four basic therapeutic moments in the practice of bathing, corresponding to the iter in Imperial baths: sauna, hot bath, cold bath, massage, and strolling. 44 Republican and Augustan bath suites are usually placed next to the kitchen, in order to facilitate the heating of water. On baths in domus and villae, see: Fabbricotti 1976; Lafon 1991; Papi 1999. Vitruvius (De Arch. 6.5.1) includes the balnea in a list of “private” rooms, which only family, guests, and close friends can enter: ex his quae propria sunt, in ea non est potestas omnibus intro eundi nisi invitatis quemadmodum sunt cubicula, triclinia, balneae ceteraque quae easdem habent usus rationes. 45 The villa had at least two bath complexes. The Hadrianic date is secure on the basis of brick-stamps. See Catalogue: L63. 46 The association between baths and gestationes in villas was already present during the Republic, but not so systematically as under the Empire. For instance, we learn from Cicero (QFr. 3.1.1–2) that the remodeling of his brother’s villa in Maniliano included the addition of “balnearia et ambulationem.” Note the habit of recording on inscriptions the length of the gestatio and the number of steps, as in the case of the Porticus Triumphi examples, perhaps the re-creation in the private sphere of a public building in Rome (CIL VI.29776; XIV 3695a; LTUR under Porticus Thiumphi). 47 This trend is general and can be traced outside the geographic region covered by the present study. For instance, in the large villa complex at Varignano (Liguria), the rooms adjacent to the colonnaded atrium were turned into bath quarters in the late rst century a.d. The atrium itself was incorporated into the bathing itinerary as a resting place between the caldarium and the frigidarium.

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and possibly more frequently than before.48 The importance attributed to being able to offer proper hospitality in one’s villa, including up to fashion baths and other amenities is stated in an inscription from a villa on the Via Nomentana. The inscription declares to the reader that in “the estate of Aurelia Faustiniana the bath washes the guest in the urban fashion and that every other amenity is provided.”49 Indeed, parallel to the trend of adding new bath quarters, starting at the end of the rst-beginning of the second century a.d., one can also observe the addition of larger dining halls in villas. These halls, often on the main axis of the peristyle, could accommodate a larger number of guests than the traditional nine (three people for each of the couches in the triclinium). They also offered more space for service and for different kinds of entertainment, while the permanent indication of the couches in the mosaics shows that the room is now intended primarily for that use.50 Undoubtedly, larger architectural spaces were also a sign of one’s importance and power, and they were not necessarily always built in response to functional needs. One way in which conspicuous ostentation may manifest itself in architecture is by the creation of large, impressive, but useless, spaces because the rich can waste and need not follow strictly the needs of practicality. However, these two phenomena in villa architecture can be seen in correlation with each other, for the social practice of holding a banquet also included inviting the guests to the baths before dining. Literary evidence alludes to this practice, although not in the context of a villa, but of urban residences. Martial invites a friend, Iulius Cerialis, to dinner, giving him an appointment

48 If the dominus was alone or in residence only for a short time, it may not have been worth the time and fuel required to heat the baths, especially if a nearby urban center offered public baths, as in the case of Pliny’s Laurentine villa. See Ep. 2.17: in hoc (i.e. vico) balinea meritoria tria, magna commoditas, si forte balineum domi vel subitus adventus vel brevior mora clafacere dissuadeat. 49 CIL XIV.4015: In [hi]s praedis Aure/liae Faustinianae/balineus lavat mo/re urbico et omnis/humanitas presta/tur. 50 Dunbabin 1996: 72. The permanent indication in the mosaic oors means that the couches were intended to cover that space all the time, whereas previously rooms used for dining were used for different purposes and occasion, with movable furniture. For a study on the origins of triclinia in the Roman house, with analysis of the position of triclinia in houses in Pompeii see A. P. Zaccaria Ruggiu, Origine del triclinio nella casa romana, in G. Cavalieri Manasse and E. Rofa (eds.), Splendida civitas nostra. Studi archeologici in onore di Antonio Frova, Roma 1995: 137–54.

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in the balnea Stephani, which were just next to Martial’s house.51 In the Satyricon, Trimalchio receives his dinner guests in a balneum, which appears to be next to his house and which he presumably owns,52 and one can compare this kind of arrangement with the “real” example of the praedia of Iulia Felix in Pompeii. Then, in the middle of the banquet, Trimalchio invites the guests to take a hot bath, thus allowing for a change of triclinium afterwards.53 This time, it seems that the bath suite is part of Trimalchio’s own house. For a later period, Dio recounts an episode involving Trajan, who, in order to show his trust in Licinius Sura, went to his house, dismissed his body guard, called the barber to shave him, took a bath and nally dined there.54 These examples are all set in an urban context, where, if the house completely lacked bath suites or large baths, the alternative of using nearby public baths was available. But a villa complex, often not close enough to an urban center to make using the public baths there convenient, had its own baths. In the case of dinner invitations, we can assume that often, if not always, the social ritual that included bathing before or during dining was performed at the villa. When Pliny writes to enquire about his friend Caninus Rufus in Comum and his life in his suburbanum, the baths and the large dining halls are placed at the end of a list of villa-features, as part of an imaginary itinerary following the common usage of the different parts of the villa: Quid suburbanum amoenissimum? Quid illa porticus verna semper? (. . .) Quid illa mollis et tamen solida gestatio? Quid balineum illud, quod plurimus sol implet et circumit? Quid triclinia illa popularia, illa paucorum? Quid cubicula diurna, nocturna?.55

The distinction Pliny makes between triclinia for a large number of guests ( popularia) and ones for family and intimate friends ( paucorum) 51 Mart. 11.52. At 12.50 the poet sarcastically addresses a villa owner-who possesses magnicent baths large enough for many people, but not proper dining halls and bedrooms. The expected relationship between bathing and dining is thus implied. 52 Petron. Sat. 26.10 ff. 53 Petron., Sat. 72.2–73.5. Dining and its setting already constituted a means of displaying power and wealth as early as 182 b.c., when one of the rst sumptuary laws regulating dining expenditure was promulgated. Laws on this matter were still being promulgated in the early Empire, progressively increasing the limit of expenses allowed and the type and quantity of food to be served. 54 Dio (Epit) 68.15.6. 55 Pliny Ep. 1.3.1–2: “What about your lovely suburban villa? And its portico where is always spring, (. . .) the soft, and yet rm (ground of the) promenade, the baths, which are full of sunshine? What about the dining rooms, the ones for a large crowd and those for few people? What about the day and night cubicles?”.

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is another indication of the widespread social practice of giving large banquets on a regular basis, now codied in the architectural forms. When an owner was also a patronus of nearby communities, the status and prestige of the family had to be reected in his villa; hence the “necessity” of having fashionable bath quarters, triclinia, nymphea, and ambulationes. The villa in Massaciuccoli, which belonged to the Venulei Aproniani, underwent two major restorations—larger baths were added under the Flavians in conjunction with the construction in Pisae of new public baths, a gift of the family; and later, during the second century, new restoration enhanced the retaining wall of the substructures of the bath quarters with the addition of a series of niches for statuary. At this time we know that one member of the family, cos. in 168 a.d., was patronus of Lucca.56 In the case of private donations to communities, as Papi’s monograph showed57 at least in the case of Etruria, there is a clear difference in the types of private donations between the early and mid-Empire. Under the Julio-Claudians, benefactors earmarked their donations for various kinds of public buildings, from temples to bridges to aqueducts. After a period of scarce private donations under the Flavians, private municence started up again in the second century, under Trajan. At this time, donations in Etruria are mostly directed at the organization of one-time events, such as banquets, the distribution of wine and sweets, oil for the baths, etc., rather than to the construction of buildings.58 The exception to this trend appears to be only one type of building, public baths, which became the object of numerous private and also Imperial donations to towns in Etruria,59 thus aligning the tendency to favor the baths in Italian towns with that already discussed favoring them in the villas. The different possibilities available to a villa-owner to show his or her favor through patronage and the resultant social interactions between a patronus and the recipients of his generosity can be illustrated with the example of Pliny. Although Tifernum Tiberinum was not particularly close to Rome, Pliny was at times compelled to go to Tifernum because of his “duties” as patronus of the town. He was named patronus by the local decuriones 56 57 58 59

See data in the Catalogue: T28. Papi 2000. Idem: 125 ff. See also Ciampoltrini 1993.

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as an adolescent, as we learn from one of his letters,60 probably when he acquired the estate there by inheritance from his uncle. Local communities seem to be particularly far-sighted at times in choosing their protectors and in bestowing the honor of patronatus, thus putting the honored person under the obligation of being a benefactor. Pliny had a temple built in Tifernum pecunia sua and found the time to go there for the dedication, on his way to visit his wife’s grandfather, Fabatus, in Comum.61 He also asked permission from Trajan to transfer to the municipium of Tifernum, which evidently lacked such ornamenta, the inherited statues of former emperors that were in his villa.62 The town’s population was very pleased with their patronus, since Pliny wrote that they “always celebrate my arrival, express sorrow at my departure and rejoice of my honors”.63 In Comum, Pliny’s hometown, his largitiones took the form of a library and a monetary contribution to hire a teacher for the schooling of the youngsters. From several of his letters, we learn that during his sojourns in villa, Pliny often had to attend to a series of social obligations, which kept him away from his studies—he had to arbitrate legal disputes, hear the complains of his tenants, and perform his duties as patronus.64 In Comum, one has to add to this list encounters with old friends, which kept Pliny’s bond to his hometown strong and generated new social relations. For instance, in one case, he decided to contribute to an old friend’s “income” so that he could move from the rank of decurio to that of eques, thus “increasing his dignity” (augere dignitatem tuam debeam) and guaranteeing that he would show gratitude to Pliny in the future (te memorem huius muneris amicitiae nostrae diuturnitas spondet).65 On a different occasion, when Pliny decided to take the initiative concerning the lack of a schoolteacher in Comum, the impression we get is that the praetextatus and his son paid him a visit with the hope of obtaining just that from their famous fellow-citizen.66 In any case, from the letter it is clear that the father wanted to introduce his son to Pliny (and to his

60

Pliny Ep. 4.1.4. Ibidem. 62 Pliny Ep. 10.8. 63 Pliny Ep. 4.1.4: adventus meos (oppidum) celebrat, profectionibus angitur, honoribus gaudet. 64 Pliny Ep. 7.30; 9.15; 9.36 written from the villa at Tifernum. 65 Pliny Ep. 1.19, letter to Romatius Firmus. 66 Pliny Ep. 4.13. On friendship and patronage and its economic advantages and implications see Verboven 2002, which focuses on the late Republican period, but also discusses evidence offered by Seneca’s and Pliny the Younger’s writings. 61

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eventual protection) and that they were paying him the morning homage (venit ad me salutandum). These acts of municence on Pliny’s part induced the beneciary to be grateful and obliged, and in turn generated more occasions for social interactions, from dinner invitations to business meetings to more casual encounters. It would be nonsense to think that when Pliny went to his villa in Tuscis, or to visit his property in Comum, he enjoyed a solitary retreat in the countryside.67 Tangible signs of reverence on the part of members of local communities towards important villa-owners, as presented in the cases of the Volusii and Neratii, were also directed to women. For instance, Laberia Hostilia Crispina, daughter of the consul M. Laberius Maximus and wife of C. Brutius Presens, an important gure during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, is honored as patrona in an inscription found at Trebula Mutuesca, modern Monteleone Sabino.68 It is interesting to note that in this case the inscription is placed on the initiative of the mulieres of Trebula, who collected the money necessary to honor their patrona. It is generally assumed that as patrona of Trebula, Crispina owned estates in that territory. Her husband was also a landowner in the area. Not far from Trebula, on the west side of Monte Calvo and next to the Madonna Dei Colori church, a large and luxurious villa has been known since 1824. The villa, famous for the statues that were

67 See Pliny. Ep. 9.36 about his daily routine while in the villa at Tifernum: interveniunt amici ex proximis oppidis partemque diei ad se trahunt. For the many friends from “regio mea” = Comum see Syme 1985 and Champlin 2001 for discussion of the various friends, many of equestrian background, mentioned in the epistolary, who can be related to Tifernum and neighboring cities in Umbria (primarily urban centers to the south of Tifernum T.). As rightly pointed out by Champlin, the information from the letters reect only a part of his complex social network (what Pliny decided to publish in accordance with the image of himself he wanted to present); on the political meaning of the concept of friendship in Pliny’s epistolary see de Blois 2001. For instance, from the letters we do not know of any special interest in or link with Hispellum, but fragmentary epigraphic evidence indicate that Pliny left in his will a bequest to build a public building there; see Champlin, ibid.: 123–124. 68 Torelli 1962. For the text of the inscription, see Catalogue: L143. Laberia also appears in an inscription from the Cicolano (northeast of Trebula) recording her testamentary bequest for the erection of a silver statue to Aesculapius weighing 100 pounds (CIL IX.4512). Women gave donations to the towns in the same way men did. Donations were made by both aristocratic and non-aristocratic women. For instance, Ummidia Quadratilla donated an amphitheater and a temple to her hometown of Casinum (ILS 5628: Ummidia C. f./Quadratilla/amphitheatrum et/templum Casinatibus/sua pecunia fecit). This is the same Ummidia mentioned at Pliny, Ep. 7.24, who used to have a personal troupe of pantomimes. On the other end of the social scale we can place the freedwoman Iulia Hilara, who in Forum Novum (Vescovio) offered public games in honor of the gens Sabina (Gaffney et al. 2000).

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recovered in it, belonged to C. Brutius Presens.69 We can imagine that Laberia Crispina had given some contribution to the town, and was thus honored with the inscription. To what specically the “ob merita” mentioned in the closing of the inscription refers, we do not know; possibly some kind of largitiones, which particularly beneted the women of the community. Such was the case when a certain Fabia Agrippina “advertised” her donation of one million sesterces in support of the girls of Ostia.70 The restoration and/or construction of public buildings is also a possibility in the case of Laberia Crispina. We have many examples of women “patronizing” a community by sponsoring the construction of public buildings. To cite one instance from a gens we have already encountered in our study, Volusia Cornelia, possibly the daughter of Q. Volusius Saturninus (cos. 56 a.d.), restored a theater in the area of the famous sanctuary of Nemi. Her deed is recorded in a monumental inscription, displayed today in the Museo delle Terme di Diocleziano in Rome, which was probably placed on the frons scenae building.71 This is an interesting case, since it is possible that the theater was part of a private estate. According to several scholars, the theater was not public (i.e., belonging to the sanctuary), but was part of a luxurious villa, possibly owned rst by Caligula and then passed to Volusia Cornelia.72 It is known that one branch of the Volusii family had a praedium in the area of Nemi, and stulae bearing Volusia Cornelia’s name were also found. If the hypothesis is correct that the theater was part of a villa, it raises the interesting question of why such an inscription would be displayed. In the “private” realm of a villa, what would have been the sense of monumentally recording the restoration? We have to consider that the inscription was intended for the guests that happened to be at

69 Ownership is shown by stamped stulae aquariae and bricks, see Catalogue: L143. The many statues discovered in this villa are now, with few exceptions, in the Glyptotek in Copenhagen. 70 Dixon 2001: 108. 71 AE 1932.68. For a picture of the inscription see Friggeri 2001: 84. The theater, whose rst phase has been attributed to the late Republican period, was excavated by E. Gatti between 1924 and 1928 and then backlled; see E. Polito, “Un gruppo di lastre marmoree con rafgurazioni di armi e Muse dal teatro di Nemi” in Brandt, Dupré Raventós and Ghini 2003: 251–258. 72 Coarelli 1981: 103; Coarelli 1987: 180–183; Friggeri 2001: 84; in favor of the theater being part of the sanctuary of Nemi: M. G. Granino Cecere, “Contributo dell’epigraa per la storia del santuario nemorense”, in Brandt, Leander Touati, and Zahle 2000, 35–44.

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the villa, be they friends sharing a vacation or neighboring villa-owners and notables invited to dinner and other kinds of entertainments within the villa. The very presence of a theater in a villa, if this is indeed the case, suggests the nature and scale of the entertainments that took place there, which must have been addressed to people other than the members of the family. A similar case of construction of a building recorded by an inscription and considered by scholars to be part of a villa is the monumental natatio discovered in Formia in the 1920s.73 The pool, which was framed by a complex architectural scenography and displayed various pieces of original Hellenistic sculptures, was ca. 85 m long. A fragmentary inscription attributed the construction of the complex, or at least its restoration, to the future emperor Nerva, during the year of his second consulate in 90 a.d.74 If the opinion that this monumental complex was part of Nerva’s villa is correct,75 the inscription would be extraordinary and rather puzzling, not only for the ofcial nomenclature it displays, with indication of tribe and consulate, but also for the formula “sua pecunia”: in the private setting of a villa, what would be the point of asserting that something was built with the owner’s money? It is probably safer in this case to think also of some kind of public building rather than a villa, although if the hypothesis of the villa put forward for Volusia Cornelia and for Nerva should be true, this would force us to reconsider Roman elite attitudes in the Imperial period towards one’s private properties, felt to be as much a part of the public urban landscape of municence and display as the “proper” public buildings. In conclusion, a new type of involvement in the life of local communities and relations with local notables caused the villa to become a means of displaying one’s public achievements, while entertainments, such as banquets and bathing, offered in larger and more lavish villas, were reected in the construction of larger triclinia and bath quarters. Dedications such as the Neratii statues or the inscription to Laberia Crispina illustrate the close relationship between villa-owners and notables of local communities, and how, especially from the second century onwards, villas are considered, both by the recipient of the

73

Catalogue: L113. Cassieri 2003: 228, footnote 18: M. Cocceius M. f. Pa. Nerva cos II s. p. 75 Cassieri 2003: 226; she suggests that the inscription should indicate that somehow the public could access the part of the villa where the natatio was. 74

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honor and by the dedicator, an appropriate setting for the display of such honoric dedications. The villa had acquired a full “public” dimension with respect to the owner’s career and social position, which rendered it interchangeable, as a venue for display of one’s position in society, with the family domus.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE CHRONOLOGY OF VILLAS AND THE SECOND-CENTURY “CRISIS”

In publications on villa-sites in Italy it is not uncommon to read that, starting in the second century a.d., and continuing into the third, villas were progressively being abandoned; their function as elite residences and production units for cash crops ceased, while squatters dwelled in precarious living conditions in the abandoned structures. Archaeologists reached these conclusions on the basis of evidence for the subdivision of large rooms into smaller living quarters, of poor, crude repairs, and the reutilization of elegant residential parts for utilitarian purposes, such as workshops, storerooms, and so on. These data—combined with the fact that, by the mid-Empire, Italy was no longer exporting agricultural goods, such as wine, but was importing them from the provinces—generated the widespread view that most villas ceased to be units of agricultural production, and that the crisis of Italian agriculture also caused a crisis in the “villa system.” The idea that imports of wine and oil from Spain and Gaul put Italian slave-labor estates in difculties, forcing a move towards tenancy and extensive cereal agriculture goes back to Rostovtzeff.1 Alternative theories have also been put forward by historians, for instance Staerman’s idea that the slave mode of production experienced an internal crisis due to the contradictions of its form of economic organization, which led to escalating costs of supervising production, fuelled by the owners’ desire to increase their prots.2 Regardless of the initial cause, both theories agreed on the nal result: the decline in the protability of Italian agriculture and the collapse of the villa system, which led to a crisis in the economy and society as a whole. Even though some of the elements produced in support of the idea of the commercial competition of the provinces, such as the famous edict by Domitian in 92 a.d., ordering the destruction of half the vineyards in the provinces

1 2

Morley 1996: 135. Ibidem.

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Figure 19. Number of villas and attested chronology of occupation.

and prohibiting the establishment of new ones in Italy3 (which was interpreted as a protectionist measure in support of Italian agriculture), have been re-evaluated in the context of a shortage of cereals, and of possible over-planting of vines after the eruption of Vesuvius,4 signs of demise at villa sites have generally been framed in the context of a “second century crisis”.5 Although most of the villa-sites considered in this study present only partial archaeological data, it is worth trying to determine any signicant chronological pattern that may emerge in regard to the attested phases of occupation, while remembering that these data should be treated with the awareness that they reect only what was discovered and published about each villa.6 The available data on villa chronological phases does indeed show that in all three regions a decrease in the number of occupied-villas

3

Suet., Domit. 7.2. Tchernia 1986: 221–253. 5 For a discussion of the scholarly position on this “crisis” and re-evaluation of the evidence as being an inversion of the commercial trends between Italy and the provinces see Chapter 4 and Lo Cascio, “Introduzione”, in Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino 2001: 8–9; Andreau 1994. 6 In regard to the use of pottery forms as datable elements, it should be remembered that many late Imperial vessel types were produced and used for a long time, from the third/fourth to the late fth/sixth centuries. 4

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occurred after a peak in the rst century a.d. (Figure 19)7 The fact that the spread of elite villas can be regarded as a typical late Republican phenomenon, as emerges from ancient literary texts and from modern studies taking into account topographical and archaeological data, is clearly exemplied in the dramatic increase between the second century b.c. and the rst century b.c., when villas almost triple in number. Interestingly, if we consider the attested rst and last phases of occupation of the sites, the number of villas that seem to have been built in the rst century a.d., and those which apparently ceased to be occupied in the same time period is identical (125 villas each). (Figure 20) At rst, this fact seems to show that the abandonment of villas had already begun in the rst century a.d., earlier than hypothesized. Although the increase of imports to Italy from the provinces started to occur during the rst century, the two events cannot be linked by a causal relation. A certain period had to have occurred before the changed economic situation could have an impact on the economy of villas, and before proprietors would have found it increasingly difcult to place their products on the market. In this rst century a.d. scenario, therefore, the increase in provincial imports would be chronologically too close to the demise of villas to be a causal connection, and other explanations for the phenomenon should be sought. We should ask, for instance, whether the high number of sites which ceased to be occupied reects rather the normal pattern in “occupation habits” and the great increase in the number of villas constructed in the period.8 In other words, if we posit that a villa was usually in use for three generations, i.e., one hundred years, and that a great increase occurred in the construction of villas in the early rst century a.d. (indeed many of the rst century villas can be more precisely dated to the Julio-Claudian period), a proportional number of villas would have ceased to be used at the end of the century. From this perspective, what at rst appears as an abnormal contraction, caused by some undetermined external factor, in reality would be only the outcome of the great intensication in the number of villas built, which followed the usual occupation pattern of one hundred years. Was this the case? 7 The chronological data for the villas listed in the Catalogue are provided in the Appendixes and discussed in detail in the Introduction to the Catalogue. 8 The large number of villas known only by the existence of a basis villae, where no survey or excavation was carried out, can of course skew these data.

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START DATE OF VILLA OCCUPATION 180

171 Number of Villas

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92 90 60 30

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END DATE OF VILLA OCCUPATION 125 Number of Villas

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42

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30

8 0 2 BC

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Figure 20. Start and end date of villa occupation.

If we distribute villas according to the length of their occupation (one, two, three, etc. hundreds of years), we see that the highest percentage was in use for one hundred years only, but 74% of the datable sites had an occupation span longer than a century (Figure 21). The number of sites showing an occupation that lasted for ve, six, or even seven centuries, although small, still seems representative of the fact that a

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30%

26%

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15%

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6% 5%

2% 0% 1

2

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Figure 21. Length of villa occupation.

villa was usually kept up and occupied for a very long time;9 therefore, it seems that the data on the end date of villa occupation reect insufcient excavation and/or lack of datable nds rather the actual history of villa occupation. For instance, the villas excavated in the early 20th century, when the focus of the research and recording was, for political and ideological reasons, the rst century period, the “golden age of the Empire”, or those dated only on the basis of the recognizable building technique of visible remains, such as opus reticulatum, may skew the data in favor of the rst century. If only a rst century a.d. phase was recorded the villa will be recorded as having been built and abandoned in that century. What conclusions can we then draw on the economic crisis and disappearance of villas in Italy considering the partiality of the data? Many villas produced evidence of some kind of occupation down to at least the third century, in several cases the fourth and fth. The rst 9 For the purpose of this work, the charts showing the villa chronology start with the second century b.c., but if one considers that in some instances, especially in the suburbium of Rome, much earlier phases have been detected in villas, often just smaller buildings (farms), either obliterated by the construction of a larger complex or enlarged and incorporated in the new villa, the occupation span of some sites was actually longer.

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distinction that needs to be made, however, is that during the mid- to late Empire, there is a difference between the “life” of maritime villas and that of rural ones. In general, as has been recognized already by various scholars, coastal villas continued without interruption to be used as luxurious residences by members of the elite. The furnishing of these villas was kept up-to-date, and new sectors were added according to the taste and fashion of the time. These considerations are particularly valid in the case of sites within easy reach of Rome—for example, the Laurentine coast and Alsium, where materials recovered in villas can be dated up to the sixth century a.d.—but are by no means limited to them. Even villas built on the small islands off the coast of Tuscany were still ourishing at least as late as the mid-Empire—the remains on Giannutri and Giglio Island attest to lavish second-century architectural phases.10 Thus, the social function of coastal villas as elite residences does not seem to change over time. The crucial question to ask, then, in the case of coastal villas, is whether their economic function also remained unaltered throughout this period. With the exception of a few specic cases, such as the temporary abandonment of the villas on Elba Island in conjunction with a reduction in the utilization of the iron mines,11 there seems to be no evidence pointing to the interruption of economic activities in these coastal establishments. For instance, I have already noted that the fact that new piscinae were generally not built during the late-second and third centuries a.d. does not necessarily imply that shbreeding ceased to take place. The pools were regularly repaired and restored in these centuries, and so must have continued to be in use. Even for rural villas, we have indication of earlier shponds continuing in use throughout the third century a.d.12 In the case of rural villas, it seems that shponds for sh-breeding decayed later, in the fth and sixth centuries, and possibly we could connect this phenomenon with the blocking of part of the Tiber to breed sh: the disappearance of the production from the ponds may have prompted the exploitation of the river.13

10 In some cases (e.g. Capraia) in the late Empire monastic communities occupied villas on the small island off the coast of Tuscany. 11 See Chapter 2. 12 See Catalogue: L363. 13 We know that Theodoric ordered the removal of these blockings because they impeded navigation on the river (Alvino and Leggio 1995: 204).

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Medieval documents mentioning the donation of the maritime complex of Torre Astura to the Benedictine monastery of S. Alessio in Rome refer to the shponds and shing rights as part of the donation, thus implying that the shponds were functioning at this time, probably with no interruption since late antiquity. Furthermore, the coastal location and harbor installations of maritime villas allowed many of them to function as commercial stop-off points along trade routes and probably as distribution points for goods toward inland centers. Such is the case of most villas along the coast or on the islands of Tuscany.14 The villa della Tagliata and the settlement of Portus Finilie, near Cosa, performed this function after the harbor of Cosa had declined,15 as did the harbor of the villa on Giglio Island, where cargoes recovered from shipwrecks include mid- and late-Imperial African amphorae. The important change that occurred on some of these estates during the mid-Empire concerns their ownership status. Testamentary legacies had progressively transferred many of the coastal villas to the Imperial scus. This meant that some of these villas were no longer regularly used as a place of retreat for the owner, since the emperor had many estates to choose from. Imperial slaves or freedmen were appointed as the overseers of these properties, as shown by epigraphic evidence.16 For instance, the Roman villa buried under Castel Odescalchi in Palo, ancient Alsium, believed by some scholars to have belonged rst to Pompey and later to Caesar, was certainly part of the Imperial scus by the second century a.d., as attested by the funerary inscription of the procurator Augusti villae Alsiensi.17 The same fate touched the large coastal 14 Ciampoltrini 1994–95 stresses the decline of harbor cities in Tuscany during the empire, substituted by villas-ports (“ville-approdi”) belonging in most cases to the Imperial scus. In his view, this shows the intervention of the Imperial house in regulating commercial trafc to guarantee supplies for Rome, with no attention to the population of the region itself. But these goods from overseas were reaching inland centers as well, as a look at the nds from rural villas show; therefore, in my opinion it cannot be denied that goods were also distributed regionally from these ville-approdi. The case of villas in Umbria is different, because there the distribution of provincial products clearly originated from Rome, via the Tiber. 15 It seems that the nearby settlement of Portus Finilie, on the Tombolo di Feniglia, which is attested as a harbor down to the medieval time, slowly became the main port of the area in Imperial time, no longer as a town, but as a large maritime villa. See Calastri 1999. 16 Ciampoltrini, ibidem, also analyzes the change in the social fabric of the coastal centers of Tuscany, such as Populonia and Elba Island, under the Empire, when inscriptions show a heightened concentration of slaves and freedmen versus the predominance of local free families in the Augustan age. 17 CIL XI.3720; see Catalogue: L153.

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villa at Marina di S. Nicola, where a stula was found stamped with the name of Elagabalus and the title of deus Sol Magnus. In the case of some other villas, ownership by the emperor is presumed when a specic lineage became extinct, as for the Volusii villa at Lucus Feroniae, or else on the basis of the recovery of many statues of members of the Imperial family. This last criterion, however, is not reliable and does not necessarily demonstrate Imperial ownership, considering that non-Imperial members of the elite would also have had similar statuary ensembles on their estates. Maritime villas that changed ownership in this way were nonetheless kept up-to-date in their furnishing and, as the epigraphic attestation of procuratores and dispensatores tells us, the property was administered and expected to be economically productive. At the above-mentioned villa of Marina di S. Nicola, excavations have turned up signs of works related to agricultural cultivation, possibly of vineyards, dating to the third century at the earliest. Once they had become part of the scus, the ownership of these villas could change again; indeed, they could always go back into the hands of members of the elite through ofcial gifts or auctions beneting the Imperial treasury. Overall, the archaeological record conrms the picture given by Rutilius Namatianus in his poem De Reditu Suo for the early fth century: maritime villas like the one belonging to his friend Caecina Albinus at Vada Volterrana18 were still used as elite residences, except for those located on certain islands, where communities of monks sometimes took refuge. Turning to rural villas, we nd that, on the contrary, most sites present those particular structural signs that have led scholars to theorize the widespread abandonment of villas and their progressive decay. The crude restorations mentioned above for the mid- and late Imperial phases are often accompanied by the use of some rooms or part of the villa for burials. Often, such a “necropolis” contains exclusively infant burials, as in the case of the very elegant villa partially excavated at Lugnano in Teverina. At this site, a section of the villa, which seems

18 The villa excavated by the University of Pisa at S. Vincenzino, near Cecina, has been commonly identied with Caecina’s villa. The site shows architectural phases down to the third century a.d. and African pottery of the fourth and fth centuries. See Catalogue: T24.

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to have been already in ruins by the late Empire, was used as an infant cemetery, possibly as a result of an epidemic of malaria.19 The fragmentary status of the archaeological record, however, should caution us that we are possibly considering only part of the overall picture. In fact, a large villa excavated at Ossaia, near Cortona, offers quite different data. Between the second and fourth centuries a.d., the villa underwent major architectural changes. Previously residential rooms were turned into a workshop for the production of pottery and lamps; another part of the villa fell into complete disuse, while some rooms indicate a redistribution of space through the creation of new walls, datable by their brickwork.20 If this part of the complex alone had been excavated, it would have fallen into the general trend of decline assumed for country establishments in Italy. But further excavations revealed contrasting data. In a phase immediately following the installation of the workshop, the ground of the colonnaded garden was carefully leveled to accommodate a lavish opus sectile oor in precious marble. Moreover, the amount of pottery recovered for the third and fourth centuries was greater than for other chronological phases, including both imported and locally produced types, such as African red slipware and Middle Adriatic terra sigillata. These data not only show that the villa was still “active,” but also that it was used, as before, as a residence by its dominus. Indeed, the evidence offered by the elegant and expensive marble oor rules out the supposition of “squatters” to account for the workshop or the downsizing in other parts of the villa. Transformations could occur in a villa with regard to furnishings and the distribution of space when it changed owner. It is possible that the changes discussed above in the case of the Ossaia villa were the result of new ownership, since the property seems to have passed from the hands of the Vibii Pansae to Caius and Lucius Caesar in the Augustan period, and then to a freedman of Aulus Gellius in the second century a.d.21 It is legitimate, then, to ask whether other sites exhibiting poorer living conditions in their mid- to late-Imperial phases might not also have offered similar 19 See Soren 1999. Infants, as is often the case, are buried using amphorae as cofns, and this custom offers information on the type and origin of the products reaching and circulating at a given site. Catalogue U7. 20 Fracchia and Gualtieri 1996. See Catalogue: T14. 21 This evidence rests on names recovered on brick-stamps at the site; in this case the excavators think that the tiles and bricks were produced on the estate for internal needs and thus consider the stamp a good indication of change of ownership.

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evidence of more elegant furnishings in other sectors, if only they had been fully excavated. Ossaia is not the only example of a country villa showing a high quality architectural phase between the late-second and fth centuries a.d. The bath complex—possibly the entirety—of a villa near Tarquinia,22 discussed in Chapter 6, was built ex novo in the third century a.d. The only pottery recovered at this site dates from the third to fth centuries, and consists entirely of forms produced in Africa. A similar picture emerges from the town of Villa S. Giovanni in Tuscia, outside of Blera,23 where a large villa was fortuitously discovered during public and private works in different parts of the town. The datable evidence, consisting of building techniques and the iconography of the mosaics and statuary, points to the late Empire, and it is possible that this luxurious villa, which left its mark on the very name of the town, was built ex novo in the third century. Different regional situations need to be taken into account in trying to explain the fragmented picture presented by the chronology of rural villas in Central Italy. In the villas of the Ager Cosanus, traces of abandonment of the structures have been dated to the late second century, but the picture reconstructed for the area of the nearby colony of Saturnia is rather different. The various villas identied in this territory, concentrated along the roads leading to the urban center and around it, show no signs of “crisis” in the late second century and this fact has led to the hypothesis that the fundi were engaged in extensive cultivation and not in intensive wine making.24 In southern Tuscany/northern Latium, the area corresponding to ancient southern Etruria, new building activity, both public and private, can be detected in conjunction with the administrative reorganization of the region into the district of Tuscia Annonaria.25 In Umbria, on the other hand, the presence of villas with high quality, fourth/fthcenturies phases—indicating their function as both elite residences and economic units of production—should be related to the fact that the region was an important link between Rome and the Imperial capital

22

See Catalogue: L266. See Catalogue: L39. 24 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 151; the fundi belonging to these villae were larger than the ones calculated for the Ager Cosanus villas (ca. 250 ha), ranging between 600 and 1,600 ha. 25 Ciampoltrini 1990. 23

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of Ravenna.26 The trend is very evident in the area around Ravenna, where the number of elite residences dramatically increased after the city became the capital of the Western Empire.27 Latium presents many examples of villas on higher hills which were used until the fth century, then progressively transformed into villages and castles—the phenomenon of incastellamento—in relation to monasteries. This is the case of the large Roman villa near the medieval castle of Morolo, connected to the Benedictine monasteries of S. Silvestro on the Monte Soratte and Sant’Andrea in Flumine.28 In centers such as Tusculum that had a long history of elite villa settlement, villas continued to be used as elite residences well into the third century, although many properties were incorporated into the Imperial scus as early as the early Empire.29 It is for the fourth and fth centuries that archaeological evidence for the occupation in the villas in this area becomes scarce, probably reecting the collapse of Tusculum as a vacation spot. Surveys and excavations have documented the persistence into the late Empire of high-status villa in other geographical areas. The villas located around Farfa, in the upper Tiber Valley continued to be occupied into the seventh century; similarly, in the region of Abruzzo, large villas survived down to the sixth-seventh centuries.30 The territory of Pisa and Volterra offer evidence of small villa-sites persisting into the fourth century, while in the Biferno valley large villas have phases of occupation dated to the fth century.31 Taking all of this into account, there are, however, many fairly well excavated rural villas that exhibit clear evidence of downsizing and burial practices, with no indication of continuing use as upper-class

26 The fact that most of the villas in this region seem to have been in ruins by the sixth century is probably a consequence of the struggle between the Goths and the Byzantine Empire, and, later, the struggle for the creation of the Longobard duchy at Spoleto, events which greatly affected the urban centers in the region. See Bruschetti 1996: 166–67. 27 On the contrary, the area closer to Mediolanum, which became capital of the Western Roman Empire in 286 until the seat was transferred to Ravenna, does not seem to have had as consequence of this a diffusion of elite villas, which are well attested in the more scenographic areas of the sub alpine lakes of Garda, Iseo, etc., where elite from Mediolanum would retire to (see Aug. Confessions 9.3–4 for the rus Cassiciacum). However, in the whole Cisalpine region under Theodoric various villas and hunting palaces were used by the king and the court ofcials (Rofa 1997). 28 Camilli and Vitali Rosati 1995: 410. 29 See Catalogue under Tusculum. 30 Staffa 2000. 31 Dyson 2003: 94–95.

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mansions. In some instances, after a phase of abandonment following the violent destruction of a villa, the site is occupied again, frequently displaying those characteristics of a lower standard of living. Such is the case at the villa at Campo della Chiesa (Scansano), where, after a violent re in the late rst century a.d. and an indeterminate period of abandonment, the site and surviving structures of the villa were divided into smaller living quarters and occupied again; and at the villa at La Befa, which also shows signs of destruction by re and a later transformation of the mansion into a rustic building.32 How, then, should we read this evidence? Undoubtedly, during the second and third centuries a.d., the “villa system” underwent major transformations—witness the change in product distribution patterns from provincial to regional markets, and the possibly considerable impact of the second-century plague on rural and urban demography33—but data like those collected at Ossaia imply a need to reconsider the idea that the crisis of the Italian villa-system was total. Two different issues are related with the concept of crisis of rural elite villas in modern studies. On one hand the idea that most villas ceased to be used as elite residences because they were “abandoned” by the owners; on the other hand the implication that this abandonment was both caused by and at the same time determined the fragmentation of the system of land exploitation: abandoned villas meant abandoned lands. The assumption that lower standards of living in country villas meant, by and large, that they ceased to function as units of agricultural production seems to me to be faulty. As stated some years ago,34 we should consider the possibility that the supposed signs of abandonment in villas are, on the contrary, signs of “use as-is.” In other words, owners could have decided to keep fashionably up-to-date only one villa, leaving the others, possibly rented to coloni, unchanged. Various reasons could

32

See Catalogue: T44; T6. Contra the idea of depopulation in Italy, at least in the rst half of the second century, see Lo Cascio 2003: 4 ff. He theorizes a situation of overpopulation, resulting in too much pressure on the economic and natural resources, and in high availability of manpower, thus explaining the high rate of turnover in the management of fundi and the short lease contracts. The link between the apparent abandonment of villas in the West and population decline in the late Empire has been questioned by Lewit 1991: 41–43; Whittaker and Garnsey 1998: 280; Van Ossel and Ouzoulias 2000 among others. 34 Métraux 1998. 33

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explain such a practice, expressly stated in Pliny and other sources. Indeed, in a letter addressed to his friend Calvisius Rufus, evaluating the pros and cons of buying an estate next to his own at Tifernum Tiberinum, Pliny lists the great advantage of not having to worry about furnishing another villa, while some of the personnel could also be shared between the two estates, to considerable economic advantage.35 Pliny was certainly not the only proprietor ready to choose this solution. The gromaticus Hyginus, also writing in the time of Trajan, refers as well to possessores who opt to maintain only a few villas as aristocratic residences, while “abandoning” others.36 Take as an example the case of Sabina, one of the regions where country villas were most prevalent. Here as well, country villas exhibit architectural signs of “crisis” in the late Empire. But Sabine wine was still widely produced and appreciated in the fourth century, as shown by Diocletian’s edict on prices, and in the sixth, as mentioned by Cassiodorus.37 As pointed out by Vera, signs of abandonment in second- and third-century villas rarely mean abandonment of the land as well, but should be instead explained as a result of the concentration of properties, the reorganization of the mode of production, and the growing importance of the pagus-vicus structure as an administrative unit.38 In the area of Saturnia, eld survey data seem to indicate that some elite villas were abandoned in the second century a.d., while the fundi were still cultivated by workmen residing in a nearby village, perhaps a sign of the concentration of properties and the keeping up of fewer villas as residences, as discussed by Pliny in his letter.39 For later periods, Symmachus’ epistolary and the biography of Melaina, indicate that

35 Pliny Ep. 3.19: [. . .] quod non minus utile quam voluptuosum posse utraque eadem opera, eodem viatico invisere, sub eodem procuratore ac paene iisdem actoribus habere, unam villam colere et ornare, alternam tantum tueri. Inest huic computationi sumptus supellectilis, sumptus atriensium, topiarum, fabrorum atque etiam venatori instrumenti; quae plurimum refert unum in locum conferas an in diversa dispergas. 36 Hyg. Grom., 170, p. 124 (Behrends 2000 = Th. 93): Praeterea solent quidam complurium fundorum continuorum domini, ut fere t duos aut tres agros uni villae contribuere et terminus qui niebant singulos agros relinquere: desertis villis ceteris praeter eamcui contribute sunt vicini non contenti suis nibus tollunt terminus quibus possessio ipsorum nitur, et eos quibus inter fundos unius domini nes observantur sibi defendant. 37 Alvino and Leggio 1995: 204. 38 Vera 1994: 245. Also Mancassola and Saggioro 2000: 315, stressing that a change in type of villa settlement does not automatically translate in a change and/or crisis in the structure of land property and land management. 39 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 217.

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their large estates in Campania and Sicily were divided in various plots cultivated in an autonomous way by coloni and their families.40 The picture presented by the archaeological data can thus be explained by the concentration of land property in the hands of a small number of landowners (Pliny’s example of furnishing just one villa); by a preference for the use of coloni in the cultivation of fundi (renting both land and villa to the colonus, since the landowner had many other villas to reside in if he wanted to); and, nally, by the reduced appeal of a particular area as a seat for prolonged sojourns. This last circumstance could come about for a variety of reasons. As stated in the previous chapter, the location of the Imperial seat was an important factor in determining the social and political geography of elite villas in Italy. When the Imperial seat was moved from Rome to the cities of Milan and Ravenna in Northern Italy, members of the aristocracy may have ceased to reside in villas near Rome, choosing other properties in the north. In fact, the only thing that can be safely inferred from the evidence for the “downsizing” of villas is that some of them ceased to be used as aristocratic residences.41 The case of Albano is exemplary in this context. During the reign of Septimius Severus, an important and innovative decision was taken with regard to this region: a new legion was created and deployed next to Rome. The II Legio Parthica Severiana was deployed at the castra Albana in Albano, an action which seems not to have “affected” the presence or use of villas in the area. On the contrary, it has been suggested that the decay of villas in the area in the late third century a.d. is to be related to the deployment of the legion to another location in the mid-third century a.d., which would have caused a demographic and economic decrease affecting some villas.42 Personally, I am disinclined to view the shift detectable in certain villas43 from “elite” to “downsized” residence, with part of the villa used for burials, as the result of the legion’s departure. It can hardly be a coincidence that this event overlaps with another important change regarding Albano. After the Severans, the emperor’s visits to his residences there became increas-

40

Reference given by Carandini and Cambi 2002: 226. See infra for discussion of recent suggestion that “downsizing” of villas—at least in the fth and sixth centuries—is not a secure indicator that they ceased to be used as elite residences. 42 Chiarucci 2000: 188. 43 See Catalogne: L2. 41

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ingly less frequent. If we consider, in addition, Constantine’s donation of the Imperial massa of Albano to the bishop of the town,44 we have a more likely set of reasons for the “downsizing” of villas in the area of Albano after such a long era of splendor. All of these factors resulted in some villas no longer being maintained as well appointed elite residences, but still functioning as units of agricultural production and lodging for farmers. Other areas, too—for example, Tibur and Tusculum, where many villas had long been Imperial properties—may no longer have been regarded as preferred seats of elite retreat owing to the “absence” of the emperor. In addition, there are other pertinent factors that complicate the situation in each area, warning against easy generalizations. The emergence of the Church, for instance, had an impact on villa property in certain areas. Constantine’s donation of the Imperial massa of Albano to the local bishop was not the only time that property belonging to the Imperial scus, including land and villas, was donated for the benet of the early Church. In such cases, it is likely that the Church rented the land to several families of farmers; some villas may have been divided into smaller sections to accommodate them. This plausible explanation also accounts for the fact that in the countryside, in medieval times, churches or monasteries were often built on the spots previously occupied by Roman villas, as in the case of the creation of the Pievi in Tuscany. It has already been suggested that, in the late Empire, the increase of farmer-renters, either free or slave, and mostly living on farms and vici, ought to be related to the concentration of property and the reorganization of land-use.45 The transformation of some villas, then, from aristocratic residences to rural establishments coordinating the production of several fundi, as well as an increase in storage facilities,46 should also be attributed to this phenomenon, and not to a generalized crisis in the villa system. The villa excavated at Pieve Vecchia di Casal Marittimo, near Volterra, provides an example of the type of pattern I have presented above. Built in the early Empire, the mansion underwent restorations and changes in plan at several different times, and seems to have ceased

44

See Chiarucci 2000: 179; the source is the Liber Ponticalis, Silvester I.185.XXX. Vera 1994. 46 For example, Site 10 at Tor Bella Monaca on the Via Gabina (Catalogue: L372) presents the addition of a long building in the late Empire, at least part of which can be surely identied as storage space for grain. 45

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to be used as an aristocratic residence sometime in the fourth or fth century a.d.47 Later, a pieve and cemetery were established on the site of the villa. Other sites in the same area, classiable as medium-sized farms rather than villas, with evidence of engagement in a combination of agriculture and animal husbandry, do not seem to show any signs of crisis in the second century. Only where there was a considerable economic intensication before this date, does one observe signs of contraction in this period.48 As I have already discussed in Chapter 5, there seem to be several preconceptions at work in the evaluation of Italian villas and agriculture in the second century a.d. The interpretation of data from some villa-sites in Umbria as suggestive of crisis as early as the late rst century49 can be corrected by comparing these sites with others in the same region, which have been better excavated. Here, the presence of amphorae showing imports of garum, olive oil, and olives in the midEmpire should not be seen as indicative of a cessation of agricultural production; these same items were imported in the early Empire as well, and with reason: they had never been typical of the region. Recent studies focusing on Central Italy are adding new data and working to correct the theory of a second-century crisis.50 Indeed, one of the factors contributing to the development of the secondcentury crisis idea was the result of the South Etruria survey, showing a lack of second- and third-century pottery. But, just as the theory of wide-spread villas employing gangs of slaves is being re-evaluated by scholars, emphasizing various regional situations with a mixed economy, so, too, are new eld surveys, the re-evaluation of materials from the

47 The villa was excavated in 1930 by Paribeni, but no record was made of the abundant ceramics recovered, so it is difcult to establish the chronology of the various phases. The terminus post quem for the abandonment of the villa is a coin of F. Valerius Severus (306–307 a.d.). Catalogue: T50. 48 L. Motta, “Etruscan and Roman Farmers in Northern Etruria: the site at S. Mario and the Cecina Valley Survey,” paper delivered at the 2004 AIA annual meeting, San Francisco. 49 Monacchi 1991: 183, discussing the villa near Penna in Teverina, at Pennavecchia. Different conclusions can bee reached when interpreting the data in the light of the results of the excavation at S. Giustino (discussed in Chapter 4). 50 For instance, see Camilli and Vitali Rosati 1995 about the survey in the Ager Capenas: a majority of the large villa-sites present pottery dating down to the end of the importation of African sigillata; similar data come from the Farfa survey. For the Ager Faliscus, a slight reduction in the number of sites is noted for the third century, but “questa crisi sembra essere di tono ben minore di quanto normalmente asserito,” Camilli, et al. 1995: 399.

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South Etruria project,51 and the development of a more precise chronology for certain pottery types, changing the pattern of villa occupation, and pushing it later into the Empire.52 New data are even now being collected that seem to go against the past tendency to see in the second century the onset of decline. Investigations in central Marche (Picenum) located several sites in the area of Monte Priori, interpreted as large villas occupied down to late antiquity. The entire area seems to have begun to ourish precisely in the second century a.d., in the time of Trajan and Hadrian.53 In the territory of Capena and Veii, the quantity and quality of rural villas datable to the second century show, according to researchers, “no signs indicating a crisis”.54 Needless to say that there are cases when a villa had been clearly abandoned for some time before part of the structures were used again in some kind of fashion,55 but the answer to the question about the density of villas and quality of villa occupation in Italy under the Empire varies greatly according to geographic area. As Lafon noticed, the decrease in the number of elite villas that seems to occur in Latium and Etruria starting in the second century a.d. is balanced by an opposite tendency in “peripheral” regions, such as Calabria and Sicily.56 Similarly, various 51 The pottery material recovered in the South Etruria survey and other data are being re-studied as part of the larger Tiber Valley Project, a collaboration between scholars of twelve British universities under the aegis of the British School at Rome. See Patterson et al. 2004. 52 In regard to the size of rural establishments as determined by eld surveys, it has to be remembered that data from a eld survey are partial and must be handled with the awareness that they are not incontrovertible. When a survey is carried out at different times in a eld subject to cultivation (i.e., to the dispersal of the archaeological material by means of deep plowing), one can have very different outcomes. A test carried out by Graeme Barker in his Biferno Valley survey, in Molise, showed that the same site, surveyed twice at an interval of four years, yielded different results. In fact, a small Classical site with a dense concentration of material became, in the second survey, a large, diffuse scatter of abraded material. Another site, very rich in potsherds and building rubble, was later marked only by sporadic tiles (Barker 1995: 49). 53 F. Vermeule, “The Potenza Valley Survey (Central Italy). From Acculturation to Social Complexity in Antiquity: a Regional Geo-Archeological and Historical Approach”, paper delivered at the 2003 AIAC Congress, Boston. 54 Camilli and Vitali Rosati 1995: 408, “la mancanza di segnali di crisi”. 55 As in the case of the villa on the via Ostiense, in use until the rst half of the second century and then systematically deprived of building material; third century burials at this site were dug into thick ood deposits from the Tiber that covered the villa after its abandonment. See Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003: 154, site 34. 56 Lafon 1994: 221. For instance see the large and luxurious late Imperial residence at Piazza Armerina in Sicily, either belonging to Imperial high class functionary or to the emperor (opinions vary), the Late Antique villa at Patti, near Messina and the “villa del Tellaro” outside Noto, smaller than Piazza Armerina but similar in typology

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villas in Northern Italy in the area of Lake Garda or the territory between the modern cities of Brescia and Bergamo show monumental architectural phases in the third and fourth centuries, comprising bath quarters, large reception halls with apses, etc.57 Furthermore, vessels recovered in villas and related to foodstuffs imported from overseas seem to be connected with phases of occupation by squatters in an unsatisfactory way. What are we to understand when we read that a villa was taken over by squatters? Nowhere in these publications is an explanation given of what the term “squatters” signies in this particular context. Are we meant to understand that people used the structures illegally and temporarily as living quarters? Or that they settled in them for the long-term, cultivating land neglected and forgotten by the property owner? What kind of resources did these “squatters” have? Were these impoverished people living from hand-to-mouth? The vessels of imported goods recovered at villa-sites indicate that the people living there were able to participate in the commercial transactions necessary to acquire such goods, an element that does not seem to be symptomatic of economic crisis. For instance, pottery nds from villas in Umbria pertaining to the later Imperial period show the acquisition in considerable quantities of imported goods such as garum, other sh products and olive oil, provincial goods that were easily distributed in this area from Rome via the Tiber. The villa at Poggio Gramignano showed rich evidence of imported foodstuff for the fourth and fth centuries, when part of the structure seem to have been in ruin and an infant cemetery was installed in another section of the villa; but, as also pointed out by A. Martin, the data indicate that the community on that site was still able to participate in a wide-ranging commercial network, leaving the label of this phase as that “of squatter occupation” rather unsatisfactory.58

and in rich polychrome mosaics, or the later phases of occupation of the villa at S. Giovanni in Ruoti, modern Basilicata. 57 For instance the villas at Desenzano, Sirmione—via Antiche Mura, Monzambano, etc. See Mancassola and Saggioro 2000: 316–317, and Rofa 1997. 58 A. Martin, “Amphorae” in Soren 1999: 329–362 (see also his contributions in the same volume on African red-slip and lamps). See also Marzano 2005 for a treatment of this topic in relation to villas in Umbria and the Catalogue in this volume for data on the villa sites.

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The villa of Settenestre near Cosa, very often taken as the model for the evolution of villas in the area of Central Italy, appeared to have been largely abandoned by the Severan period, after a phase of intense re-modeling of the mansion under Trajan, when the bath quarters and the large courtyard (“slave quarters”) discussed in Chapter 5 were built. But the nearby large villa of Le Colonne, although not excavated as extensively as Settenestre, shows a more complex and less linear occupation history.59 The phases of the villa, as reconstructed by the material nds, appear to indicate alternating phases of occupation and break of occupation that largely coincide with the moment of decline and revival of the town of Cosa itself. The villa, whose construction is dated by Dyson to the late second/early rst centuries b.c., shows a rst break of occupation as early as the rst century b.c., followed by a renewal in the Augustan/Tiberian period; another break of occupation (as attested by the evidence of recovered coins) occurred in the midrst century, in conjunction with serious damage caused by earthquake. Renewed occupation occurred and continued for much of the second century, with the next break of occupation dated to the mid-third, followed by a revival in the Constantinian period that continued down to the sixth an possibly seventh centuries, as attested both by coin nds and abundant African red-slip ware.60 These dates seem to coincide with the development followed by Cosa: break of occupation after the probable sack by pirates in the 70s b.c.; revival under Augustus; damage by earthquake in 51 a.d.; intense economic activity in the Antonine period, as shown by coins and pottery;61 decline again in the Severan period, with vain Imperial attempts to revive the community, but with some kind of occupation continuing until the sixth century.62 Although the structural changes that occurred in the villa of Le Colonne in the later periods showed no sign of the luxury typical of the earlier phases and were mostly utilitarian in nature, Dyson rejects the model of squatter occupation, pointing out that the numerous and

59

The two villas of Settenestre and Le Colonne have similar architectural typology (e.g. wall with fake turrets enclosing the garden area, etc.) and it is supposed that the same architect(s) may have designed them; Dyson 2002: 222. 60 Dyson, cit.: 222–223. 61 Dyson, cit.: 224. 62 Fentress 1994: 212–218; in the forum, the shrine to Bacchus was used throughout this period and Cosa seems to continue its existence as a small service centre for surrounding rural communities.

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varied artifacts recovered attest to the persistence of household rituals, such as formal dining. He reaches the same conclusions that I have delineated above, stressing that “whoever the people were who were living at Le Colonne from the second to the fth/sixth centuries a.d. they were still deeply involved in the Roman market economy, selling their agricultural goods and purchasing products of the Roman consumer culture.”63 The different picture of villa occupation that emerges from two sites so close to each other, Settenestre and Le Colonne, and how these data have been differently related to the wider social and economic history of Roman Central Italy, warns us again against simple generalizations. In this respect I wonder to what extent the construction of the negative picture of decline in rural estates rested not only on the architectural and archaeological evidence discussed above, but also on the concept of a villa’s self-sufciency, acquired from the ancient sources, from Cato onward.64 In other words, I wonder if the presence of imported foodstuffs at country villas was, more or less consciously, seen as a sign of decay because the villa was “supposed” to produce these products, not to acquire them on external markets. This idealistic expectation, combined with evidence of simpler living conditions at once luxurious villas, may have induced scholars to explain the phenomena with a concept of crisis and squatter-occupation rather than to posit a change in the mode of estate-management practiced by the landowners. The frequent presence of burials within the structures of villas in the late Imperial periods—starting in the third century with increased frequency in the fourth, fth and sixth centuries—needs further discussion, since this evidence is problematic if we are to consider villas, if not as elite residences, then at least as being occupied by people that dwelled there regularly. The presence of burials within the walls or grouped around habitation structures, blurring the classical separation between areas for the living and those used for burials,65 has been exploited as the strongest evidence that people living in precarious conditions temporarily occupied abandoned buildings.

63

Dyson 2002: 224. On the idea of rural villas self-sufciency in ancient sources see Chapter 3. 65 In early Rome, continuing a practice attested for the Iron Age, infants were often buried in the house. 64

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This phenomenon is not limited to Central Italy, but occurs in the rest of the peninsula and outside Italy as well: between the fth and seventh centuries the practice is attested in villas in Gaul, the RhineDanube region, Britain and Spain.66 In Chapter 1 we discussed the role of villas as places of memory and the choice made by members of the elite to have their monumental tombs and mausolea built on their estates, but the Late Antique burial practice, of placing tombs in one or more rooms of a villa, is very different from earlier customs. In the former case the tombs of the villa personnel or the monumental tombs of the owners were located at a distance from the habitation quarters or along the road that lead to the villa. How then are we to account for burials within villas in the late Empire? Some recent studies have proposed explanations that do not necessarily see in this practice signs of abandonment and decline. T. Lewit, focusing on villas in the West in the fth and sixth centuries, has argued that rural elites were still inhabiting villas, even if these structures no longer looked like the elegant pars urbana of the classical Roman villa. By drawing comparison with urban dwellings, which in the same chronological period show similar changes in usage and typology (downsizing, creation of workshops in habitations, disregard of elegant features such as mosaic oors, use of poor building materials, burials,67 etc.), she argues: (this) evidence reveals a widespread disregard for the classical aesthetic and lifestyle in both towns and villas. With the fading of Roman power such cultural forms were no longer relevant. Roman buildings continued to be used, but they were used in new ways that suited a new mentality. (. . .) we must reject the equation of non-classical forms with decline or impoverishment.68

Since we know that both urban and rural elite continued to exist,69 Lewit’s rhetorical question “where did they live?” is justied, because one does not nd many residences showing evident elite status. There

66

Lewit 2003: 262, notes 6–9 for bibliographical references on individual sites in the provinces. 67 Also in Rome one nds, in the fth and sixth centuries, burials within the city; Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003: 124. 68 Lewit 2003: 271. 69 For instance Lewit, ibidem: 263, note 19, cites the case of wealthy rural burials in monolithic sarcophagi with luxury items such as jewelry and glass contemporaneous with the disappearance of villas in N Gaul and Rhineland.

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are a few cases where archaeological evidence shows, in a clear manner, that owner occupation continued alongside burials in villas. For instance the villa of Mienne-Marboué had a pars urbana with a fth century mosaic giving the name of the possible Frankish owner and other elegant architectural features, while the former pars rustica was occupied by high-status burials.70 But in most cases architectural décor is absent, perishable building materials are used, as shown by traces of wooden posts, and parts of the villa that had had a fundamental role in the Roman social and daily practices, such as the bath quarters are converted to burial ground or utilitarian use.71 Even when the tomb shows that the deceased had economic means and was not an impoverished person, as in the case of the sarcophagus found in the baths of the villa at Mola di Monte Gelato, the surrounding structures do not show a typology that we would associate with elite status.72 Hence, Lewit stresses the deep social and cultural changes which occurred in the West with the transformation of the Roman Empire into the socalled Romano-barbarian kingdoms, the role of Christianity (for this period, capital investment in long lasting structures employing mosaics and marbles is found in churches and baptisteries), and the use of archaeologically invisible material such as tapestries and painted stucco to decorate residences built in re-used bricks, timber or wattle and daub.73

70

Lewit 2003: 270. Ibidem: 261–262, and notes 3, 5, 6. Among the various villas showing tombs in the former baths are Grand-Couronne, Plasnes, and Menneval in N Gaul; at Séviac (Aquitania) a grain silo was installed in the bath quarters. For examples of villas in Latium where tombs were placed next to the villa’s hydraulic infrastructure, usually related to the baths (thus indicating that the bath quarters had already fell into disuse) see Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003: site 6 and 20 in their gazetteer. 72 T. W. Potter, “Towns and territories in southern Etruria” in Rich and WallaceHadrill 1992, 191–209. 73 Lewit, ibidem: 268, quotes as examples the large building in Toulouse, possibly the Visigothic palace, which was built re-using building materials and whose walls were decorate with polychrome frescoes preserved only in small fragments and the elite settlement at Yeavering (sixth and seventh centuries), built entirely in wood and revealed only through aerial photography. To these building practices, one must add the use of friable, and difcult to date, local pottery. 71

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Lewit’s observations for the fth and sixth centuries in the western part of the former Roman empire74 are valid to a certain extent,75 but cannot be easily applied to the preceding centuries. As noted above, signs of “decadence” appear in Italian rural villas starting in the third century, in some instances as early as the second century, as in the case of Settenestre. If the change in the mode of the administration of land property and the concentration of land and villas in the hands of fewer proprietors, that we outlined above, can in part explain the transformation in the physical appearance of villas in the period, the presence of burials remains problematic.76 In the previous periods, even in the case of farmsteads and vici, there was always a clear demarcation between habitations and necropoleis; thus, positing that some villas were just used “as is” with poor quality repairs and given to coloni does not explain the phenomenon of burials within the walls of villas. It seems to me that one could suggest two possible explanations. We could hypothesize that practical considerations were behind it: since not the whole of a villa was used for habitation it was preferred to use these areas as cemetery, leaving the elds free of burials—it is to be remembered that in the Imperial period inhumation was the prevalent practice—to be used for cultivation. But the fact that in this period the intense network of land-works and irrigation systems that characterized the landscape of Republican and early Imperial Italy (terracing walls, dykes, drainage channels, etc.) fell into disuse seems to be against an interest in intense agricultural exploitation. Alternatively, we should explain the phenomenon as the result of a profound change in the

74

The study of Roman villas in the eastern part of the empire (especially Greece, where research has privileged the Classical period, neglecting Roman phases and Asia Minor, where studies on villas have addressed art historical matters) has only recently started to interest scholars; it would be very interesting to ascertain whether in these regions late Imperial villas follow a different patterns from the ones in the West. Griesbach (Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003: 137, n. 21) mentions that there are examples of the phenomenon also in the East, but we do not yet have the same amount of data as for the West. 75 See Bowes and Gutteridge 2005 for a discussion of the lack of an adequate denition of the term ‘elite’ in Lewit’s article and for the failure to pick up in certain examples a new sociology of occupation (i.e., multiple family groups living in the structures of villas, but whose new focus of aggregation is a church built on site. 76 Cases of Imperial burials occupying earlier structures are also known (i.e. in the territory of Fidenae tombs of the Imperial age occupied Republican structures, Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003: 138), but in these cases tombs are not next to or in residential quarters as for the Late Antique examples.

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spiritual beliefs of the time that affected the established relationship between living and dead. In fact, recent studies, focusing in particular on the territory of Rome and on the practice of burials in villas, have stressed the radical change in spirituality brought about by Christianity.77 Death is no longer feared but is celebrated as the occasion of eternal life; in the same way as burials are placed in paleo-Christian churches or are physically connected to basilicas in relation to the cult of the martyrs (mausolea retro sanctos) and a new funerary cult arises, so could the burials in villas indicate the desire, of the people living there, to have a stricter connection with the departed ones, perhaps mediated by a physical connection within the same architectonical structure.78 Indeed late antiquity is also the period when mausolea are incorporated into villas and Imperial residences, as in the case of the villa ad duos lauros, where in the fourth century the Severan mausoleum is included in the residential complex, or of the mausoleum of Diocletian in the palace at Split, which was included in the complex protocol of the ofcial ceremonies. To recapitulate, although we can say that in certain areas in the mid- and late Empire some rural villas ceased to be used as elite residences, thus showing a transformation in what used to be one of the primary functions of villas (together with production of goods for the commercial market), they ceased neither to be part of the organization of agricultural exploitation of the land nor to participate in the wider system of exchanges of the Roman economy. Factors determining the falling out of use of certain villas as elite residences, or practices such as burials in villas, can be better explained in the context of changed social, political and religious conditions, such as the establishment of a new capital, the absence of the emperor in a given area or the spread of Christianity, rather than with the crisis of Italian agriculture caused by provincial competition.

77 Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003, with a catalogue of villas with burials in Latium, especially in the suburbium of Rome, but also comprising some examples in other Italian regions; the catalogue includes also unpublished data. 78 Ibidem: 146.

CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this book has been to examine the role and function of elite villas in Roman society and economy, bringing together literary and archaeological data, in the regions of Central Tyrrhenian Italy, where villas had a great diffusion from the late second century b.c. onwards. The rst point that emerges from this study and that needs to be stressed is the intensity of human intervention on this natural landscape in the Roman period and the high degree of investment, in capital and labor, that we can observe. This phenomenon has become more and more clear with the completion of new topographical research, and makes Central Italy somehow stand out as atypical in the Mediterranean context. It is a phenomenon that comprised not only the construction of numerous villas and farms, and the centuriation of the land, but also major land and hydraulic works. Terracing of hill-sides against erosion, monumental drainage works—just think of the thousands of Dressel amphorae laid in the plain of Fondi to drain the soil from excess water in conjunction with wine production—construction of dams, cisterns and channels for water supply and irrigation, are some examples of the works aimed at the intensication of agricultural production. In some areas the signs of intense cultivation, such as the trenches for vines dug in the tufa plateau discovered in various areas around Rome, date back as early as the sixth/fth centuries b.c. It was, however, only from the mid-Republican period onwards that this type of intervention on the landscape reached an intensity that points to notable investment of capital and labor. It has been noted that, in the area that in antiquity constituted southern Etruria, the degree of exploitation of the land by humans was much higher in the Imperial period that it is nowadays, as shown by the many villa sites identied in areas currently covered by dense woods.1 Capital and labor, however, were not only channeled into the agricultural sector and rural establishments. The number of maritime villas equipped with elaborate shponds, which

1 Carandini and Cambi 2002: 142; intense deforestation occurred in this area until the third century a.d. Horden and Purcell 2000, ch. VII for discussion of human exploitation of the environment.

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needed specialized labor not only for their construction, but also for their daily maintenance, points in the same direction. Recently, an invitation to be prudent in seeing the emergence of all villas as a direct consequence of increasing agricultural intensication has been put forward. Terrenato pointed out that, while some of the villas intended for display may also have been a form of investment for money amassed through more hazardous enterprise, there is little direct indication that they were source of their owners’ afuence.2 This observation rests in part on the fact that the increase in agricultural exploitation, signied by amphora production, precedes by ca. 150 years the appearance of elite villas in the same areas, and can be instead related to sites that have been classied as Hellenistic farms. From this perspective, villas can be seen as an architectural fashion, rather than as a “system” of land exploitation. It is undoubtedly true that agricultural intensication preceded the appearance of elite villas with rich residential quarters and production areas, but if we take into account the evidence for production quarters attested at most of the sites, and consider not just agricultural exploitation among the production activities that occurred on villa estates, the fact that these properties generated wealth for the owner cannot be underestimated. It was certainly not the only source of wealth, as elite investments had always been diversied. The fact that the works of Varro and Columella on agriculture theorized and systematized the idea of villas as production units, while certainly indicative of the authors’ ideas and agenda, shows that they had an audience receptive to the idea that the villa and its production was meant to generate wealth. Whether in most cases the owner was successful in managing his/her villas we cannot say, but elite expectations in this sense persisted, as shown by the case of the two Quintilii brothers, owners of the famous villa on the Via Appia, who in the second century a.d. wrote a work (now lost) on agriculture in Greek. The second point I would like to raise is that the variation in the settlement patterns between the three regions, which has the number of villas recorded for Latium immensely outnumbering those for Tuscany and Umbria, with all the caveats about the status and quality of the evidence which I have outlined, shows Roman trends in the occupation of the territory as much as it also reects modern research activities in

2

Terrenato 2001a: 27.

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the area. The antiquities of the Campagna Romana, although the area underwent large-scale urban development and increased agricultural exploitation in the aftermath of World War II which destroyed much of the archaeological evidence, have been the object of numerous studies since the days of the Grand Tour. Paintings, drawings and souvenir prints produced by and for travelers at the time offer a precious glimpse of ruins that were once standing in the Roman countryside and have since disappeared. The great attention focused on the territory of Latium is reected also in the number of volumes in the Forma Italiae series devoted to areas in this region, much more numerous than what was done for Tuscany and Umbria, although other projects, such as M. Toarelli’s Atlante dei siti archeologici della Toscana (Rome, 1992) have attempted to redress the balance.3 The analysis of the body of archaeological data assembled in this book for the regions of Tuscany, Latium and Umbria—albeit fragmentary—has shown the deep discrepancies which exist between the “idea” of villas, as constructed in literary works, and the “reality” of villas, as revealed by the physical evidence. This aspect is most evident in the case of maritime villas, where analysis of a sample large enough to highlight trends and patterns illustrate the degree to which coastal villas and surrounding estates offered advantageous settings for a variety of economic enterprises—from sh-breeding and wine-making to quarrying and iron-mining. The idea that these villas, represented in the ancient texts as luxurious, costly, and extravagant leisure retreats for the upper classes, were relatively unproductive is corrected by the archaeological record, which indicates the existence of production quarters in these complexes. It is perhaps the very fact that maritime villas would offer a varied array of possible remunerative economic activities, beyond agriculture, that led to the downplaying of their economic role in the writings of the ancient authors. On an ideological level, agriculture remained the only respectable way of investing capital for a member of the upper classes, and the only way to gain respectability for those who made their fortunes through different pursuits; other forms of investment, even if common among

3 Nontheless, inland Etruria remains not intensively surveyd, and studies had to rely heavily on place names and epigraphic evidence in order to reconstruct the type of settlement patterns in the territory, for instance Chellini 1993.

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the elite, were not openly discussed in literary works, and the country villa remains the focus of the Roman upper-class ideology of prot. Nevertheless, in the case of coastal estates, the desire of members of the elite to possess villas in certain geographical locations was not just a matter of choosing fashionable vacation spots and locations commanding dramatic views of the landscape. In some cases, maritime villas, combining the possibility of exploiting various natural resources with the ease of shipping by sea, had more to offer than did rural estates. Thus, it is important to re-evaluate, in a systematic way, the economic role played by coastal villas in the overall scheme of upper-class economic investments. It seems that studies on villas in the provinces have been quicker to recognize the existence of economic activity at maritime villas, a trend exemplied by J. G. Gorges’s study of villas and salting installations in Hispania.4 If the villa set in the countryside and engaged in agriculture is presented in literary works as the place of production, both production of goods and intellectual production, the constructive otium discussed in many texts,5 maritime villas had a different and ambivalent ideological dimension. On one hand the villa maritima had the potential to symbolize the control and order imposed over a wild natural landscape, with its owner as “civilizer.”6 On the other hand, any excess or exaggeration in the architecture of maritime villas, could be viewed as a subversion of the natural world in an immoral manner, re-proposing the old literary topos of hubris, as in the case of Lucullus and his building projects in the Bay of Naples.7 This dimension can be fully understood only when data from a large number of sites are compared. The long-lasting prevalence in certain modern studies of the same idea originally put forward by the ancient literary sources—namely, that maritime villas best embodied the conspicuous consumption and extravagant habits of the upper class—was in fact the result of partial excavations, which in most cases focused only on the lavish residential quarters, neglecting the service areas of the complexes. Starting with John D’Arms’ realization that even the luxury villas that dotted the Bay of Naples, always described in the ancient

4

J. G. Gorges, Les villas hispano-romaines, Paris 1979. Think also of the many literary works in dialogue form that are set in rural villas. 6 Cf. Stat., Silv. 2.2. 7 Vell. Pat. 2.33.4. 5

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literary sources as the ultimate examples of luxus, were not completely devoid of economic aspects, but incorporated series of satellite farms engaged in agricultural production both for the main villa and for the market, more attention has increasingly been given to the “economic dimension” of maritime villas.8 Where sites have been more completely excavated and consideration given also to their location in relation to the immediate surroundings, the connection between maritime villas and economic activities has emerged. As we have seen, topographical studies in the area of ancient Alsium or of Castrum Novum have outlined the connection between large coastal villas and inland medium and small-sized farms, which were part of the fundi controlled by the larger settlements. In this area, sites such as the villa at Marina di S. Nicola or the one at Punta della Vipera, equipped with presses and storage facilities, remind us how the processing of agricultural produce could take place in what were also very elegant and lavish residences. In southern Latium, particularly in the area of Torre Astura, the relationship between large villa sites, shponds and kilns for the production of amphorae, perhaps used for the packaging of sh products, offers another example of the economic dimension of maritime villas. There is also a noticeable opposition between the literary and archaeological evidence relating to country villas, though it is not nearly as pronounced as in the case of maritime ones. The ideology of villa life—encompassing study, hunting, the enjoyment of the landscape and the immersion in the ars topiaria—is placed rmly in the foreground of accounts such as the one given by Pliny the Younger about his villa in Tuscis, while practicalities such as those revealed by the excavations (the pars rustica and the addition of a large covered working area and a new trading vat) are either left unmentioned or consigned to the background. The economic issues surrounding rural estates, as well as their interrelation with architectural forms and typology are quite complex. Modern scholarship has tended to focus on their association with the introduction of a new mode of production, constituting a linear transition from family-run estates and an economy of self-sufciency, to investment agriculture for the production of cash-crops, based on the intensive exploitation of slave labor. The spread of this villa-system,

8

Lafon 2001.

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conclusions

based on increasingly large estates—the latifundia that according to Pliny the Elder’s famous passage “ruined Italy”9—determined the progressive disappearance of small- and medium-sized property and free farmers. Villas excavated in Central Italy have often been framed in this context. The exceptional character of the villa of Settenestre (one of the very few villas in Italy to have been fully excavated following stratigraphic methodology) has caused it to be proposed as the paradigm of a model that has too often been mechanically applied at other sites with similar architectural features to the one of Settenestre. For this reason, in the area discussed in the ancient texts in relation to slave-staffed villas, modular rooms arranged around a courtyard are too often identied as slave quarters. The reinterpretation of the data from Settenestre offered in this study shows that, in the case of these supposed slave quarters, the interpretation of the data by Carandini and his team is questionable. Both ancient literary testimony and modern models proposed for the Roman economy appear to have inuenced the current analysis of the data from Settenestre. As has been said, that interpretation was a supposition, resting on what the ancient agronomists tells us.10 It is rather surprising that this interpretation was never questioned; so surprising that one might ask how much the inuential personality of Andrea Carandini contributed to the acceptance and longevity of the Settenestre model in villa-studies. Without denying the presence of slaves on the Settenestre estate, a multi-purpose function for the complex seems more probable, since nothing in the archaeological record undoubtedly points to an interpretation of the whole of that courtyard-complex as slave-housing. The implications of this re-assessment are important, since this villa ceases to be a valid model for the interpretation of other villa-sites. The villa of the Volusii Saturnini at Lucus Feroniae is a clear illustration of the scholarly desire to nd archaeological evidence for slave quarters on rural estates, even where particular architectural features speak against it. It seems to me that this desire to nd evidence for slave quarters has led to the underestimation of two possibilities. One is the possibility that such dwellings were built using perishable materials, such as wood, and that therefore they left no traces in the archaeological record. After

9 10

Plin., NH 18.35. Purcell 1988: 197.

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229

all, it makes more sense to posit the existence of subsidiary buildings around the villa than to imagine fettered slaves living in a colonnaded courtyard located next to the pars urbana, as in the case of the Volusii villa. In reality, the possibilities for the usage of space in villas were numerous, and no doubt much more exible than the writings of either Varro or Columella indicate. The second underestimated possibility is that villas employing slave gangs, the Tusca ergastula reported in the literary sources, were less widespread than most have thought,11 and that a combination of slave labor, hired seasonal workers and tenants should be posited in the management of many estates. Although the dubious nature of the “proof ” offered by the evidence from Settenestre with regard to slave quarters in villas does not necessarily imply that current assumptions about the Roman economy and the slave mode of production are incorrect, it should warn us that in this geographic area rural land-management strategies were more varied than the Settenestre excavation and the survey of the Valle d’Oro initially suggested.12 In fact, peasant small-holdings and slave-staffed villas were mutually dependent, and, as Rathbone put it, “the villa system did not operate as a straightforward slave mode of production.”13 Concerning the geographical distribution of villas, I have tried to overcome the polarity emphasized in many modern studies between the countryside on the one hand, and Rome on the other, focusing instead on the topographical relationship of villas to their immediate surroundings. The location of a villa is always related to infrastructure, i.e. roads, aqueducts, harbors and so on; but the most signicant factors in determining the number of elite villas in a given area are the presence and proximity of towns and, in Imperial times, of residences belonging to the emperor. Indeed, large elite villas appear to be more numerous in those geographic areas, like Latium and southern Tuscany, which present a higher degree of urbanization; and the presence of Imperial residences in a given territory was important in determining the maintenance of villas as aristocratic residences. As the cases of Albano and the litus

11

See the observations on this issue in Wilson 2004. See Carandini and Cambi 2002 for the presentation of a more complex and variegated picture regarding settlement patterns and agricultural exploitation in a large area around Cosa. 13 Rathbone 1981: 13. 12

230

conclusions

Laurentinum show, many elite villas were located in close proximity to an Imperial residence. The importance of maintaining social and political connections with the emperor and his court, in addition to the prestige that came to those who could boast a villa in the same area as the emperor’s, had a key role in determining the up-keep of villas in given areas; together with the fact that often such areas would present better infrastructures, i.e., aqueducts or better roads. Tibur exemplies this situation well. The intensity of building activity at villas in Tibur under Hadrian is clearly connected to the construction of Hadrian’s Villa and to the presence of the emperor at this residence. In fact, although beautication of villas is a widespread phenomenon in the second century, various villas in Tibur present architectural phases dated precisely to the Hadrianic period. While aristocratic villas in the area were thus re-furbished and improved to offer their owners every comfort during their frequent visits, they also remained central to the management of the region’s economic exploitation. In these areas, villas ceased to be used as elite residences only after the presence of the emperor became less and less constant. In Albano, the fact that villas ceased to be used as elite residences (but not as units of agricultural production) after the Severans seems to be linked to the increasingly infrequent presence of the emperor at his palaces there. The close proximity of many villas to urban centers, as in the well known case of the Volusii villa at Lucus Feroniae, points to a change that occurred in the Imperial period in the ideological perception of the villa’s architectural space. Just as the involvement of villa-owners in local affairs changed through the institutions of patroni and curatores civitatum, so did the way villas were seen. During the Republic, villas were status symbols, displaying wealth and power (especially maritime villas) and the maximization of economic returns (especially rural ones). Under the Empire, to these aspects we can add the idea that a villa reected the owner’s public persona, just as his domus in Rome or another city did. The architectural space of a villa became the proper frame for the display of one’s achievements in politics and public life. It is in this sense that I read the evidence proffered by the so-called lararium in the Volusii villa, displaying several marble inscriptions with the cursus honorum of various members of the family, which were at the time of the discovery an unexpected nd in a private context; or by the honoric statues of the Neratii, copies of those voted by the decuriones of Saepinum for the forum and placed in a villa belonging to the gens Neratia.

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231

The typology of villa architecture in the mid-Empire may also reect a change in the social function of villas. The addition of larger dining halls and larger baths, with bathing by this time considered part of the banqueting ritual, indicates that these sorts of entertainment were offered on a regular basis and to a larger number of people. Under the Empire the involvement of villa proprietors in the patronage of local communities and the promotion of local notables, as in the case of Pliny and his protégés at Comum, resulted in a new type of social interaction taking place within villas. While for the Republic we know from Cicero’s letters about clientes crowding his villas in Cumae and Formiae to pay him morning visits, it does not seem that in general large numbers of people, including local notables, were invited to villas on a regular basis (though there are, of course, exceptions to this). If my interpretation of evidence such as the statue bases of the gens Neratia is correct, the fact that the villa’s architectural space became an acceptable frame for the display of one’s achievements in public life can be related to the involvement of villa owners in neighboring urban centers and to the presence of local notables among their guests. In the later centuries of the Empire, rural villas in general continued to be retreats for the practice of otium and places for agricultural production, although changes in the social and political background saw an increasingly more centralized organization and the rise of the colonatus.14 As discussed in Chapter 8, with the move of the capital from Rome to Northern Italy, the focus of the villa-owning elite seems to have moved northwards. In Latium, with the exception of the immediate suburbium of Rome where large villa complexes such as that belonging to the Quintilii developed, many sites show signs of decline in the quality of their architectural décor, which implies that they were no longer used as elite residences. However, these signs—subdivision into smaller living quarters, crude repairs, burial within the walls, etc.—do not necessarily indicate that the villas ceased to function as units of production altogether. They suggest only that a villa was no longer used as an aristocratic residence; it might very well have continued to be used by families of coloni, for instance. Besides the weight that the presence or absence of the emperor may have had in determining which villas would be maintained as aristocratic residences, other factors were instrumental, such as the ownership of contiguous estates.

14

Vera 1995.

232

conclusions

But what ought to be stressed is that villas, building complexes serving both residential and economic purposes, did not disappear completely in this period. Most coastal villas continued to perform both these functions until at least the fth century a.d., and in the countryside we even have examples of luxurious villas built ex novo in the fourth century a.d. (e.g., S. Giovanni in Tuscia). The nature of Late Antique occupation at many villa sites has often been seen as an indication of total social and economic decline of the region in that period (i.e., occupation by squatters). Recent studies have stressed how these changes are better explained, for instance, in the context of the new sensibility towards the deceased brought about by Christianity, and I fully subscribe to the recent move, which has occurred in “villa studies”, away from a discourse focusing on the crisis of the villa to one dealing with its transformation. In all three regions the peak in villa construction/occupation occurs in the rst century a.d. However, these data must be considered with great caution, since in several instances they have been drawn from preliminary excavation reports covering only the rst phases of a site’s occupation or from sites excavated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when focus was placed on the recovery of works of art and not on documenting all of the occupation phases of a site. Furthermore, in many instances, those villa sites that were occupied continuously throughout the centuries were during the Middle Ages obliterated by churches and/or monasteries in the countryside, and by forts/watch towers along the coast. This fact implies that only a very partial archaeological knowledge of the Roman structures is possible, preventing in most cases a complete reading of the subsequent chronological phases. The number of sites with late Imperial occupation is probably larger than the current data indicate. Villas, maritime or rural, had complex ideological and economic dimensions, which evolved and shifted through the centuries. If in later periods some of the villas lost their original function as elite residences, while retaining the productive function, this reected not a demise of the villa per se or a generalized economic crisis, but rather important socio-political changes. While the ideological dimension of villas as places for otium remained substantially unaltered in the Imperial period, in late antiquity villas progressively became more and more autonomous in their organization, perhaps, ironically, better incorporating the ideal of self-sufciency that had been put forward centuries earlier than their late Republican or early Imperial predecessors. The scene

conclusions

233

Figure 22. “Dominus Iulius” mosaic. Late 4th century mosaic depicting villa life. Bardo Museum, Tunis (Koppermann, Neg. D-DAI Rome 1961.1532).

on the mosaic from a North African villa, now at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, depicts the all-producing villa universe, enclosed by walls and centered on the gures of the dominus and the domina (Figure 22). This brings us back to the villa-city equation and the concept of villas as metaphors of order and civilization that we have witnessed in operation since the late Republican period. As exemplied by the villa of Torre Gianola near Formia, with its monumental tumulus/nymphaeum carefully oriented according to the cardinal points and with its vault decoration depicting the heavens, the villa was a focal part of the ancient cosmos as much as of the “landscape of production.”

CATALOGUE

INTRODUCTION TO THE CATALOGUE

The following catalogue constitutes the body of archaeological data assembled for the geographic area under consideration and discussed in the previous chapters. In the following pages information on villa sites, either partly or completely excavated or known only from surface nds and eld surveys, has been gathered and classied. Only villas of the elite (the term elite refers to moneyed elite and is by no means limited to senatorial or equestrian gures only) have been included herein, that is to say rural or maritime establishments showing evidence of a residential part with some kind of luxurious features, such as mosaics, marble veneer, sculptures et similia. Except in some cases, when the villas were very partially investigated or are known only from surface nds, usually these complexes have also a pars rustica for production/ utilitarian activities; the combination of a residential part for leisure with a utilitarian part for production is what constitutes an elite villa in the present work. There are few sites that do not fully match these criteria, but whose inclusion seemed relevant for the discussion on villa distribution patterns in the territory, land exploitation, land owning system, and the economy. Villas built and planned ex novo as a residence for the emperor have been omitted. Only those villas once owned by members of the Roman or local elites, which at a later epoch became part of the imperial scus, have been included in the present catalogue. For this reason one will not nd Trajan’s villa at Arcinazzo Romano in this list, but will nd the so-called Imperial Villa of Albano, which had a Republican phase and may have been the villa owned by Pompey before becoming the property of the Julio-Claudian emperors. The entries have been organized into three large groups, according to the modern Italian regions of Latium, Tuscany, and Umbria. Within these sections, areas where villa remains have been identied are presented in alphabetical order, according to the modern name; each site has been labeled with the initial letter of the region it belongs to (L stands for Latium, T for Tuscany, and U for Umbria) and a progressive number. When the ancient place name is also known, it follows the modern one in the entry’s title—e.g.:

238

introduction to the catalogue

ALBANO (Albanum) In the case of multiple villas located in the same area, a sub-category, alphabetically ordered as well, is given—e.g.: Albano L2 – Cavallacci or Albano L3 – Ercolano When general data about settlement pattern and land use in a given area are available, such as in the cases of Blera or Tusculum, a brief description of the territory is given in an introductory paragraph. In some instances, comprehensive monographs on ancient sites in a given territory exist, such as in the case of the volume of the Forma Italiae series. In these cases, to make the identication of sites between different works easier, the original number assigned to a villa site in other catalogues is given next to the bibliographical reference. All those sites located in the territory enclosed within a radius of ca. 15 km from modern Rome have been grouped under a specic subgroup of Latium labeled “Suburbium”. Suburbium was a rather exible category for the Romans; without going into too much detail, sites that were usually considered to be suburbani could be easily reached within a few hours of travel. Although Pliny the Younger considered his villa in Laurentum as suburbana, since he could reach it by evening after having attended his business in the city, and literary references name at times other locations much farther than 15 km as suburbanae,1 I have decided to adopt a practical categorization of suburbium by choosing an area that was certainly considered to be suburbana at the time. Since the concept of suburbium varied according to epoch and situation, this seems a better criterion than trying to determine the maximum extension of what could have been the suburbium.

1

See Mayer 2005.

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239

In the case of the many villas located in what was the Ager Tusculanus, instead of distributing the sites according to the municipal boundaries of the modern towns of Frascati, Monte Porzio Catone, etc., I have kept them together under the heading TUSCULUM ; since the sites were within the boundary of the territory of the famous and popular town, it seemed appropriate in this case to follow the ancient territory rather than the modern one. Some villas, which are always referred to in the literature under a specic name (e.g., a town name, “villa of Frascati”), have been listed under the individual town name to make cross-referencing easier. Other possible criteria for the organization of the material in the catalogue, such as following territorial division according to the Augustan regions, as in the case of the Forma Italiae series, have been put aside in consideration of more pragmatic issues concerning an easier localization of modern localities on geographical maps. In addition to this, the Augustan regional division is not necessarily a more “historically” correct way of grouping villa sites and would have resulted in an anachronism, since most villas were built before the institution of this administrative reform about which, incidentally, we know relatively little. To allow a comparison between the modern regional administrative borders and the limits of the Augustan regions, Map 1 has been included. The catalogue summarizes the data known for each given site and, when available, it includes a plan of the remains described. At the end of each entry, bibliographical references indicate the source of information. The entries and plans are meant to give a quick overview of the nature of the evidence, and are complementary to the discussion carried out in the chapters. The reader who seeks the full detail and information on certain sites should always refer to the original publication. For instance, De Franceschini 2005 not only offers detailed information and thematic charts on the various villa structures and nds, but also presents an excellent graphic apparatus including plans of various phases of occupation, photographs, etc. The limited scope of this book does not allow for the representation of the whole of the archaeological evidence recorded in a given area. For more detailed information about a particular region or the distribution of settlement patterns the reader is advised to refer to the detailed regional investigations such as the Forma Italiae volumes, Carandini and Cambi 2002, etc.

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introduction to the catalogue

Map 1. Central Italy: The Augustan regions with superimposition of modern borders (A. Marzano).

Although I have attempted to offer as complete a list as possible of known villa sites, a series of factors—the delay between archaeological investigations and publishing of the reports; the difculty in locating information when it is published in local journals, as in the case of research carried out by regional archaeological clubs; survey data published in a preliminary form that does not allow the identication of the precise location of sites, etc.—makes me aware that this catalogue does not constitute a complete list of all the villas known for the three regions.

introduction to the catalogue

241

Um bria, 28, 6% Tuscany, 50, 11%

Latium , 384, 83%

Figure 23. Number of Villa Sites by Region.

The catalogue lists a total of 462 villas. Latium comprises 384 entries, followed by Tuscany with 50 entries, and Umbria with only 28 entries. In 49 cases (37, 7, and 5 villa sites for the three regions, respectively), no clear dating element is available. (Figure 23) The difference in the number of attested sites in the three geographic areas in part reects settlement patterns in the Roman period, but is also the result of modern research activities in the territory and of the degree to which collected data were accessible and usable. For instance, precise information was not available for many of the villas indicated only on a map of Umbria published in Ville e insediamenti 1983 (Map 23, p. 710), but not discussed elsewhere; we are not informed on the precise nature of the nds, on the criteria followed in the eld survey in deciding whether to classify a site as a villa or not, on the place name where the discovery occurred, and so forth, so that a catalogue entry could not be prepared. Similarly, various sites identied as villas in the recently published data from the survey carried out in the 1980s in the area of Cosa, Saturnia, and Heba do not appear in this catalogue due to the extremely synthetic information on the nature of the remains/nds pertaining each of them (e.g. “structures”), given in the tabulation added at the end of the volume.2 When the discussion by the various contributors to the volume adds information on the nature of the remains at a given site, or when they were known from previous bibliography, then the sites have been included in the present catalogue.

2

Carandini and Cambi 2002.

242

introduction to the catalogue

300 250

Villas

200 150 100 50 0

2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Latium

81

218

290

196

110

71

27

Tuscany

9

29

40

33

20

14

13

Umbria

2

8

21

12

12

6

2

Centuries

Figure 24. Villa-occupation in the three regions.

The much higher number of sites attested for Latium with respect to the other two regions also makes the presentation and comparison between them and the trends they display in villa occupation and chronology problematic (Figure 24). Since the sample for Latium is so much greater than the other two, a comparison by percentage of sites can offer a better understanding of what the trends for the three regions were (Figure 25). Nonetheless, the smaller sample available for Tuscany and Umbria posits some perplexities on the degree to which we can see their trend as truly representative of the region. Needless to say, these data show the chronological phases of occupation known for each site, and it is evident that in the case of unexcavated or partially investigated sites, the data are partial and subject to possible changes. We can observe that according to the available evidence, in all three regions the peak in villa occupation occurred in the rst century a.d., an element well in line with the intensication in public building activity

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introduction to the catalogue

35 30

Villas %

25 20 15 10 5 0

2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Latium

8

22

29

20

11

7

3

Tuscany

6

18

25

21

13

9

8

Umbria

3

13

33

19

19

10

3

Centuries

Figure 25. Villa-occupation in the three regions (in percentages).

attested in towns of Central Italy starting with the Augustan period. The diagram shows a progressive drop in the number of sites with attested phases of occupation in all three regions from the second century a.d. onwards. Interestingly, the number of villas in Umbria remained stable between the second and the third centuries a.d., while in Tuscany and Latium it continued to decrease. If we organize the data differently, according to start and end date of occupation, i.e., the number of sites that were built or ceased to be used in a given century, we can see that the three regions show different patterns. In Latium and Tuscany the concentration in the number of sites that were built in a given period is greatest for the rst century b.c., whereas in Umbria the increase in number occurred in the rst century a.d. (Figure 26). In this case, although Umbria is the region with the smallest sample, the trend ts what we know of the general socio-political development of the region, with the appearance, during the triumvirate and the Augustan period, of villa proprietors from other geographic areas, often involved also in the local administration of towns as duoviri, as seen in the case of the senator Granius Marcellus, who owned the villa near Tifernum Tiberinum that later belonged to Pliny the Younger.

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introduction to the catalogue

140 20 Number of Villas

Number of Villas

120 100 80 60 40

15 10 5

20 0

2 BC

1 BC

1 AD 2 AD 3 AD Centuries - Latium

4 AD

0

5 AD

2 BC

1 BC

1 AD 2 AD 3 AD Centuries - Tuscany

4 AD

5 AD

Number of Villas

15

10

5

0

2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries - Umbria

Figure 26. Number of villas and attested beginning of occupation for Latium, Tuscany and Umbria.

As concerns the end date of occupation (Figure 27), in Latium the highest number of sites that go out of use is attested for the rst century a.d., followed by the second century; in Tuscany the highest number of sites that ceased to be occupied occurred in the second century, followed by the fth century (villas that ceased to be occupied in the sixth century or later will still show in this chart an end of occupation in the fth century); nally, in Umbria we have the rst century, followed by the third century. In this case one would have expected to see a more general trend, even if with minimal regional variation, but instead, the pattern followed by the three regions varies greatly. In Chapter 8, I have analyzed the possibility that the high number of sites which ceased to be occupied in Latium may reect the normal pattern in “occupation habits” and the great increase in the number of villas constructed in the period. If the same possible connection between an increase in the number of sites (14 villas) and ‘abandoned’ ones (seven villas) could be seen for rst century a.d. Umbria, the other

introduction to the catalogue

245

15

120 Number of Villas

Number of Villas

100 80 60 40

10

5

20 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD 2 AD 3 AD Centuries - Latium

Number of Villas

0

4 AD

0

5 AD

2 BC

1 BC

1 AD 2 AD 3 AD Centuries - Tuscany

4 AD

5 AD

6

3

0

2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries - Umbria

Figure 27. Number of villas and attested end of occupation for Latium, Tuscany and Umbria.

high number of villas for the available sample that go out of use in the third century a.d. may instead reect a natural disaster, for instance the earthquake of 242 a.d., which affected the region.3 It is not clear how to read and interpret these data due to the problem with the sample highlighted above, which invites great caution in attempting generalizations, but it seems nonetheless important to point out these variations between the three geographic areas.

3 The villa U20 presented clear structural damages caused by earthquake, but the excavation could not clarify whether the damages were caused by the earthquake of 242 or of 346 a.d.

LATIUM

Map 2a. Villa sites in Latium (A. Marzano).

Map 2b. Overview of detailed maps for Latium (A. Marzano).

Figure L1. Acilia, Malafede-Fralana (after Chiarucci 2000).

250 catalogue: latium

latium: acilia

251

ACILIA (Acilia) (see Map 7, p. 312)

L1 – Malafede-Fralana The remains discovered near Acilia, in the territory of Ostia, relate to a villa rustica. Most of the existing structures date to the mid-Empire, but a late Republican phase and late Imperial restorations were also detected. A small necropolis is located about 250 m from the villa. Most of the tombs date to the 2nd century a.d. The partially investigated villa (the excavated area measures ca. 24 u 10 m) consists of some rooms of the pars rustica, located on the E side of the complex (not indicated on the plan). In this sector the torcular and vats were identied and dated to the 2nd century a.d. In a later phase the opus spicatum oors of this sector were covered by a crude cocciopesto. Some rooms of the residential part were also identied, with black and white geometric mosaic oors [A] and walls in opus mixtum, resting on tufa blocks of the Republican phase. The villa was occupied until the 4th/5th century a.d. In the area of MalafedeFralana three other rural buildings dated between the late Republic and the mid-Empire are known. It seems that all the villae rusticae in the area were also of medium size in the Imperial period; each villa had its necropolis and aqueduct. This site was close to Rome and the Vicus Augustanus Laurentius, and it does not seem to have been abandoned in the mid- or late Empire. Pellegrino 1995; De Franceschini 2005, #92

252

catalogue: latium

Map 3. Albano (A. Marzano).

latium: albano

253

ALBANO (Albanum) The ager Albanus coincided with the territory to the west of Monte Cavo, including the whole Albano Lake, and the area crossed by the Via Appia. Cassius Dio talks about Domitian’s choice to have his villa in Albano (67.1). Before building this residence the emperor used the “old Imperial villa” there (66.9). Many elite members had villas in the area of Albano starting in the Republican period. Illustrious names of proprietors known from literary evidence include Q. Aurelius, Sulla (Plut. Sull., 31), P. Terentius Afer, C. Scribonius Curio (Cicero’s friend, see Cic. Ad Att., 9.15.1), M. Iunius Brutus, who also had a property in Privernum (Cic. Pro Cluent. 51.141), T. Sergius Gallus (the battle between Clodius and Milo took place ante ipsum sacrarium bonae deae, quod est in fundo T. Sergii Galli, Cic. pro Mil. 31), Pompey (who was buried there by his 5th wife Cornelia), Seneca (Ep. 123), Statius (Silv. 3.1) (from Lugli 1915: 257). About Falcidius’ villa, for sale in 59 b.c., see Cic., Pro Flaccus, 91.

Albano L2 – Cavallacci A villa was located in 1975 between Via Verdi and Via Mascagni, and partially investigated starting in 1986. The villa was organized on three different terraces on a position dominating the surrounding landscape (to the south are the plain and the Mediterranean Sea; to the north the woods on the slopes of Mount Albano). The villa was conveniently located in proximity to the routes of the Via Appia, Via Albana, Via Antiatina, Via Ardeatina, and Via Cavona. The rst phase of the villa dates to the late Republican or Augustan period. The building technique used is opus reticulatum. The cubilia of the rst phase walls measure 8.5 u 8.5 cm, similar in size to the third phase walls of L4 – albano imperial villa, a villa attributed to Pompey the Great, and dated by Lugli to the early 1st century a.d. The rst phase oors consist of a crude sort of opus signinum decorated with large white marble pieces, forming a grid, as for instance in Room [A], or mosaic oors, both monochrome or with geometric patterns in black and white tesserae. Material culture belonging to this phase consists of black glaze pottery, and Italic sigillata. Some brick stamps have also been recovered; a rectangular one reads Fuevei Erotis between a palm branch and a winged caduceus. Traces of wall decoration were found in Room [B] (monochrome light blue background with white stucco decoration), and in Room [A] (gurative panels among garlands on a white background). The villa underwent many restorations and enlargements and was used for a long time. The second phase is dated to the mid-1st century a.d. and consists of opus sectile oors (often covering previous mosaic oors, like in Room [A]), numerous “Campana” terracotta slabs, fragments of many revetment slabs in precious marbles (in total twenty different types of marble have

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Figure L2. Albano, Cavallacci (after Chiarucci 2000).

Figure L3. Albano, Ercolano (after Lugli 1915).

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been documented at this site), brick stamps (Cuspi Melichrysi), and a marble head, identied as a portrait of Tiberius Gemellus. The pars rustica may have been located towards the southeast, since in that area a vat faced in opus signinum was discovered. A third phase, dated to the 3rd century, is indicated by a large number of African pottery and amphorae, and by changes in the villa plan, like the retrenching of Room [C] by new walls built using small bricks, typical of the Severan period. To a late Imperial phase, dated between the late 3rd and the 5th centuries, belong the moving of a staircase, crudely done repairs, and many tombs recovered in some rooms of the villa. Chiarucci suggests that maybe this phase is to be related to the demographic and socio-economic crisis caused by the abandonment of the castra Albana by the II Legio Parthica Severiana in the mid-3rd century. At a certain point in the early Middle Ages many walls of the villa were intentionally cut and the terrain leveled with debris and covered with soil transported from nearby locations to create an agricultural terrain. Chiarucci and Gizzi 1990; Chiarucci 2000

Albano L3 – Ercolano Ancient remains pertaining to a large Republican villa were visible in Villa S. Caterina, once property of the Orsini family, at mile XIV of the ancient Via Appia. The villa had massive substructures in opus quadratum in peperino and it is traditionally identied with Clodius’ villa mentioned in the literary sources. Lugli observed that possibly other structures identied in the so-called “Vignole Barberini”, near km 13 of the modern Via Appia, were to be related to the same villa. These remains were also substructures. The villa was close to the Appia and had a paved diverticulum leading from the main entrance on the southeast side of the villa to the Appia. The private road was between 3 and 4 m wide. Another entrance, probably for carriages, was on the northeast side, in correspondence with corridor [A]. An atrium with impluvium with Doric columns was in alignment with the entrance. On the northwest side of the atrium were three rooms, the central one [B] labeled as a tablinum. Room [C] was in a later phase transformed into a probable nymphaeum, with the walls articulated in round and square niches. This is the only room where opus latericium was detected. All the other remains are built in opus reticulatum. Rooms [D] and [E] on the east side of the atrium had mosaic oors in white tesserae. The function of a pipe, which seems to have brought water into Room [E], is not clear. At a lower level, to the west of the atrium, was a large peristyle (26.7 u 26.7 m), with 19 columns per side in Ionic style (Lugli reports this information in his text but the plan he published has 16 columns). On the east side this peristyle presents a series of cellae. Their height reaches the above level where the atrium is, and it seems that they had two stories,

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Figure L4. Albano, Imperial Villa (after Lugli 1915).

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one with the rooms opening onto the lower peristyle, the other with the rooms opening onto the atrium. Water pipes have been detected in different points of the villa, together with various openings to the underground wells/cisterns (indicated as [F] in the plan). The property possibly passed to the Imperial scus at some time. An inscription found in the area (CIL, XIV.2261) mentions an Imperial freedman, possibly of Commodus or Lucius Verus (on the basis of the freedman’s praenomen Lucius). Lugli 1915

Albano L4 – Imperial Villa, also “Villa Comunale”, so-called The remains located in the modern Villa Doria in Albano have been included in the catalogue since it is believed that the villa belonged to Pompey the Great before becoming an Imperial residence. This proposal was rst made by Lugli, who excavated the site in 1923–24, but not everyone agrees (e.g., Coarelli 1981: 83). The villa was oriented toward the southwest, following the slope of the terrain, and presented massive substructures, with large cisterns in the substructures on the east side. It seems that the villa was on at least two levels: the lower was organized around a garden area; the upper one around a peristyle [A]. To the south, the exterior of the back wall is articulated in round niches and is to be dated to the mid-Imperial period. In an old plan published by Lugli a long terracing wall with nymphaea, a round building, and a possible portico or gymnasium are reported. New building activity was started under Hadrian and included the construction of new baths. Lugli was of the opinion that this estate may have been one of the Imperial properties sold by Trajan and Hadrian. New excavations undertaken in 1984–86 discovered new structures with mosaic oors. Finds from these campaigns include fresco fragments, marble, stucco decoration, architectural pieces, gilded stucco (acanthus leaves), antessae, “Campana” plaques, and two statue fragments: a female head carved in local stone and part of a female body in Greek marble. Both pieces have been dated to the late Republic. One of the “Campana” plaques depicts a winged female gure amid vegetal elements, a well-known iconography usually found in Imperial properties or in properties of members of the Julio-Claudian family. Chiarucci suggests that maybe this fact could support the attribution of this villa to Pompey. Once it was conscated after Pompey’s death, a new décor embedded with Augustan symbolic meanings alluding to victory, immortality, and eternal rebirth was commissioned for the villa. Lugli 1915; Coarelli 1981; Chiarucci 2000

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Figure L7. Albano, villa on the Lake (after Chiarucci 1981).

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Albano L5 – Palazzolo The villa had already become part of the Imperial scus by the reign of Augustus. Lugli saw only a few remains of walls in opus reticulatum, but reported a description of the ruins written in 1462, mentioning columns, marble, fountains, and statues. The remains of the villa must have been greatly destroyed in the 12th century, when the Church of S. Maria de Palatiolis was built on this site, using columns, marbles, and other building material from the ancient site. According to Lugli, the paved diverticulum discovered in 1903 between the modern road to the left of the Cappuccini convent and the one leading to Palazzolo is related to this villa. Lugli 1915

Albano L6 – Train Station area This villa has been known since the end of the 19th century. Most of it was destroyed by the construction of the train station of Albano. The destroyed structures consisted of an imposing basis villae with cryptoporticoes, bath quarters, and a peristyle with rooms. The villa had a paved diverticulum connecting it to the Via Appia. In 1883, fragments of a stamped stula aquaria (CIL, XV.9309) were found. The pipes came from a large cistern built on the slope of the hill, about 500 m away from the train station. Lugli records three different building techniques employed at the villa: opus quadratum, reticulatum, and latericium. He also attributes a room measuring 3 u 7 m and paved in black and white mosaic to a bath suite of the rst phase. Remains of opus sectile oors displayed porphyry and granite. Marble fragments and pottery are still recovered with any building activity in the area. Two interesting nds discovered recently are a fragment of a terracotta “Campana” plaque depicting a female gure and a stamped tile ([D]omiti), dated to the 1st century a.d. Lugli 1915; Chiarucci 2000

Albano L7 – “Villa on the Lake”, so-called In a 1915 article Lugli wrote about a villa along the shore of the Albano Lake called “villa on the lake”. He refers to a study of the remains published in 1912 by the engineer Giovannoni, which I could not consult. Lugli’s description is synthetic; more recently Chiarucci surveyed the remains, and was able to conrm, and in part correct, what Giovannoni and Lugli had recorded. The villa had a large portico, 200 m long, with arches, semi-columns and peperino pillars [A]. The portico had two stories. At both ends two wings protruded towards the lake [B]. Behind the portico, there was a building with a semi-circular plan [C], probably an exedra, large rooms and corridors. On the hill slope 260 m from the

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catalogue: latium main part of the villa is a cistern. Chiarucci recorded part of a retaining wall for an upper terrace; the building technique employed in the various structures is opus reticulatum with bondings in small tufa blocks, dated by him to the mid-1st century b.c. In the central area of the villa Chiarucci was able to record completely a structure, whose function remains unclear [D]: ve long, barrel vaulted rooms, communicating by means of small openings; in one of these rooms was a circular space, formed by two exedrae with niches. The walls were covered with thin white mortar. In the 19th century, a statue, a copy of a Greek original by Teisicrates, was found and was at rst attributed to this villa, but Chiarucci indicates that the nd spot was another structure, probably a small temple/sanctuary on the lake shore. Lugli thought that this villa was later incorporated into Domitian’s palace, since the docks in opus quadratum that ran along the shore from Domitian’s villa reached this site.

Lugli 1915; Chiarucci 1981

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ALBANO – ARICCIA

L8 – Poggio Ameno The remains of the villa consist of a cryptoportico in opus incertum, and of walls to the E of it. The cryptoportico formed the substructures of the villa, as indicated by the remains of two different types of oors recovered on the hillside, right above the starting point of the vault covering the cryptoportico. One oor was paved with large pan tiles, one bearing the stamp CNAEVIPMRIL; the second oor, covering the previous one and about 0.6 m higher in elevation, was in opus sectile. Many fragments of polychrome stucco decoration, probably belonging to the rooms above the cryptoportico, have been recovered. Chiarucci 2000

Albano – Ariccia L9 – Via Cipressetti The villa remains are located near the boarding school Istituto PP. Somaschi, in the outskirts of Ariccia. Large blocks of peperino, probably belonging to the substructures, were accidentally recovered, together with numerous fresco and marble fragments, which included Carrara, green serpentino, alabaster, and red porphyry. One antessa with a gorgon head and palm leaf has been dated to the mid-1st century a.d. Chiarucci 2000

Figure L10. Anguillara Sabazia, Albucetto-Tragliatella (after Soprintendenza per l’Etruria Meridionale).

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ANGUILLARA SABAZIA (Angularia) The area of Anguillara Sabazia, in particular the shores of the Lake Sabatino, presented various villas in antiquity, but not many sites have been properly identied. This situation is in part due to the variation in the level of the waters of the lake; ancient ruins of various nature are currently submerged. The appeal of the area might have rested also in the potential offered by the exploitation of the lake resources. We learn from Dig., 18.1 that a certain Rutilia Polla bought the lake Sabate or the rights to sh in the lake (de contr. emtione Rutilia Polla emit lacum Sabatenem Angularium . . .). On the basis of this passage, it is assumed that she also owned a villa there.

Anguillara Sabazia L10 – Albuccetto-Tragliatella A villa with an impluvium [A] was partially excavated by the Soprintendenza to recover mosaic oors in black and white tesserae: one depicting a marine scene, another presenting a geometric design. A bath complex came to light, possibly with a round laconicum [B]. Archives of the Soprintendenza per l’Etruria Meridionale

Figure L11. Anguillara Sabazia, Mura di S. Stefano, plan and elevation of inner S wall (after Painter 1980).

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Anguillara Sabazia L11 – “Mura di S. Stefano”, so-called The rectangular structure in brick-faced concrete, dated to the 2nd century, has been variously interpreted as mausoleum, tomb, or villa rustica. It has been suggested that the building was a tower, part of an elite villa complex, with an apartment in it, like the one described by Pliny for his Laurentine villa. The structure, in fact, belongs to a larger group of buildings, only partly investigated. The recovery of fragments of sunken dolia in a rectangular room at rst labeled as a “cistern” suggests that in reality this was a storage space. Traces of occupation stop after the early 4th century, until a church was built on site in ca. the 9th century. Lyttelton and Sear 1977; Painter 1980

Figure L12. Anguillara Sabazia, Villa dell’Acqua Claudia (after Vighi 1940).

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Anguillara Sabazia L12 – Villa dell’Acqua Claudia A late Republican villa was partially excavated in 1934. The complex was by some interpreted as a public bath complex or possibly a valetudinarium. The excavated part consists of a very large hemicycle with a covered corridor for ambulatio. Of the main part of the villa only some rooms are known, distributed on two terraces. The hemicycle (ø 82 m) looked into a garden and at both ends had nymphaea [A]. It has niches between semi-columns; at the center of each niche is an opening in the wall, and large terracotta vases were placed in correspondence with these openings. Since the niches are faced with hydraulic mortar, water jets probably came out of the openings. Two Late Antique burials were discovered, and lamps dated to the 4th/5th centuries. Vighi 1940, 1941a; Mielsch 1987; Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003

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Figure L14. Anzio, villa Mastrella (after De Meis 1986).

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ANZIO (Antium)

L13 – “Villa di Nerone” In the late Republican period on the central part of the cliff of modern Anzio, between the lighthouse and the Arco Muto, was a large villa with a frontage ca. 200 m long. The architectural façade on the sea side was characterized by a hemicycle front, with semi-columns protruding into the sea. These features are scantly preserved due to the erosion of the coastline. It is believed that the villa originally belonged to the Octavii and later became part of the Imperial scus through Augustus. This Imperial residence is attached especially to the gure of Nero, who, according to literary sources, undertook major works at the port of Antium (Suet., Nero, 6.9). The villa had a very long architectural history, and its surviving parts have not been comprehensively studied yet. It may have been built in the 2nd century b.c., and then enlarged in the 1st century b.c. During the Julio-Claudian period the complex was modied; other building phases date to the reigns of Domitian (baths in opus latericium, on two levels), Hadrian (opus mixtum), Septimius Severus, and Caracalla. The substructures belonging to the Imperial phases rest on the above mentioned hemicycle. The complex may have had a private theater, reported in a plan dating to 1727, but the existence of the theater is disputed. If the architectural feature seen in the 18th century was indeed a theater, it was located to the west of the caldarium of the baths built by Septimius Severus. The famous statue of the “fanciulla d’Anzio” discovered in 1878 and the Artemis Lansdowne type were found in this villa, in niches belonging to an articial platform along the beach frontage. Coarelli 1982; Brandizzi Vittucci 2000; Tosi 2003

Anzio L14 – Villa Mastrella The remains of this maritime villa are located not far from L13 – Villa di Nerone and in antiquity were outside the town of Antium. They are in private property along the modern street Via di Villa Neroniana. The structures date to the 2nd century a.d., but a pre-existing nucleus built in opus reticulatum was identied; it is not clear whether these earlier structures date to the late Republic or to the Augustan period, since no excavation data are available. The 2nd century structure consists of an atrium with impluvium [A], which features a mosaic in black and white tesserae with a pattern of intersecting circles. The walls of the atrium had cipollino marble revetment. To the southeast of the atrium is a partially uncovered room with traces of cocciopesto oor; to the west, remains of walls with facing in reticulate and in brick are visible. A small room with a curved wall may have been an exedra [B]; traces of marble crustae and red painted plaster are visible on the walls. To the east of the atrium are rooms interpreted as service quarters, including a large room paved with tiles and one paved with bessales, with walls in opus latericium. This room presents a circular vat (ø 2 m; h. 0.4 m) faced with brick. No traces of

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Figure L16. Artena, Pian della Civita (after Brouillard and Gadeyne 2003).

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pipes or channels were noted; the channel-like feature departing from the vat is a feature added at a later time and unclear in function. Below this room was another room connected to a corridor and barrel vaulted structures, probably the substructures of the villa. A stamp recovered at the villa bears the name C. Malle; a similar stamp is known also from the theater of Antium, and has been dated to the 1st century a.d. Another possible villa was located where now Villa Spigarelli stands. Villa Spigarelli was built in 1922 in an area with various remains belonging to an aqueduct, a probable water distribution tower, and other structures interpreted as belonging to a villa. A large cistern, used as substructures for the modern villa Spigarelli is also known. It seems that the Roman villa unfolded on various terraces on the south and west sides of the hill, where remains of rooms and a hypocaust system were noted. The aqueduct is dated, on the basis of building technique, to the 2nd century, while the villa-complex was in use at least until the 4th century a.d., as indicated by numerous restorations. The building technique used in the re-modeling of the eastern part of the complex, featuring various rooms of which one presents good quality wall paintings and rich marble ooring, has been dated to the 4th century. The existence of other underground rooms on the western part of the complex, with a tunnel that would have led to the sea, is also reported. De Meis 1986; Brandizzi Vittucci 2000 AQUINO

L15 – S. Pietro a Campea In the area of S. Pietro in Campea remains of substructures in opus polygonale indicate a basis villae. Attempts to link the villa to the poet Juvenal have been made on the basis of a dedicatory inscription recovered in the area of Aquino. Coarelli 1982 ARTENA

L16 – Pian della Civita 1 km to the south of the modern town of Artena, at the north end of the Monti Lepini range, are the remains of an ancient town (4th/early 3rd century b.c.). The town, whose ancient name has not yet been discovered, was abandoned sometime before the end of the Republican period, and a villa was built on the large terraced area. The terrace where the villa was built measures ca. 166 u 90 m. The part of the villa so far brought to light is in the middle of the terrace. The structures, oriented northeast-southwest, cover an area of ca. 1,000 m²

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catalogue: latium (23 u 46.5 m). The plan unfolds around the atrium tetrastylum, with rooms symmetrically placed to the east and west of the atrium. On the south side, there is a large peristyle [A], provided with an underground, twonave cistern in opus caementicium (10 u 11 m). In the northwest corner of the villa is the bath suite [B], comprising praefurnium, caldarium, and frigidarium. The frigidarium has a white tesserae mosaic oor with a black band; fragments of fresco decoration were recovered in both caldarium and frigidarium. Next to the baths is a large room [C], whose use is not clear: it had a 0.07 m thick layer of clay covering the oor. On the east side of the atrium is the torcular room [D]. The area of the press measures 7.5 u 6 m; the vat is 1.6 u 1.7 u 1.65 m deep. It was not determined whether it was a torcular olearum or vinarium. The rst phase of the villa is dated to the 1st century b.c. The peristyle and bath suite were added in a second phase, and were dated on the basis of stamped tiles and coins to the 1st/2nd century a.d. During this same phase the internal partitions of some rooms were changed, creating larger rooms, which are suggested by the excavators to have been for storage. The rooms on the north side of the peristyle were at a certain moment lled with building material from the villa, like mosaic fragments and stones from the opus reticulatum walls. Also, in the area next to the bath suite some walls were built re-using building material from the villa. It is not yet possible to date this phase. During the 1998 campaign, at a higher elevation, remains of an underground aqueduct were excavated for a total length of 70 m. The aqueduct, with an inclination of 2.5–3% was connected to a large cistern on the top of the mountain. It is not clear whether this structure is to be put in relation to the Roman villa or to the second phase of the town settlement. The excavators note that the absence of calcareous deposits in the canal might indicate that the aqueduct was never in use; however, this depends on the source feeding the cistern. If the cistern were collecting rain water, then one would not have the formation of calcareous deposits, which would occur if the cistern were fed by an aqueduct, or if it were tapping a spring.

Brouillard and Gadeyne 2003

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Map 4. Astura (A. Marzano).

ASTURA The Astura area was surveyed by Piccarreta in the 1970s for the Forma Italiae survey series. As for the other studies in this series, sites are usually mainly dated by their building technique. Various pottery scatters were also recorded, but as no systematic sampling of these scatters was carried out, only very generic dates were assigned. The Pontine Region Project (PRP), a long term reseach program of the Groningen Institute of Archaeology, starting from the late 1990s has conducted surveys and mapping projects in the Fogliano area, the Astura valley and the coast near Nettuno. Among the ca. 200 sites mapped by Piccarreta, the PRP revisited 46 sites that were still accessible in order to retrive more precise dating evidence. A preliminary note on their ndings mentions that many of the villa-sites have post-Archaic and/or Archaic predecessors and some of them yielded red slip ware which indicates that they functioned well into the 3rd century a.d. Attema and van Leusen 2004; Attema and De Haas, “Villas and farmsteads in the Pontine region between 300 b.c. and 300 a.d.: a landscape archaeological approach”, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005, 97–112 (see esp. 104 f.)

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Figure L18. Astura, La Banca: shpond (after Piccarreta 1977).

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Astura L17 – La Banca, Villa In the area called La Banca, ca. 2 km northwest of L24 – torre astura are the remains of two coastal villas. The site was very scantily preserved; Piccarreta saw surface scatters of tiles, bricks, amphorae, ceramic, marble fragments, black and white mosaic tesserae, and painted plaster. Of the structure proper, only the nucleus of a conglomerate wall emerged; in the sea in front of the villa he saw a dock in opus caementicium at least 20 m long. Piccarreta 1977, #4

Astura L18 – La Banca, Villa The second site is located ca. 250 m to the northwest of villa L19. The most visible feature was a rectangular shpond, built on a large rock-shelf. The walls of the pond had a nucleus in tufa conglomerate and facing in opus reticulatum. The remains recorded by Piccarreta presented a pond with two rectangular tanks (ca. 10 u 9 m and 10 u 10 m), with a covered opening between the two. One of the tanks showed a later phase in brick. The southern tanks had in the middle a reticulate wall; to this structure at a later phase was added a semicircular exedra [A] in brick. The bottom of the shpond that was visible in this spot was paved with large terracotta tiles. The external mole, built in opus caementicium, continued towards the beach before disappearing under the sand. However the shpond must have been larger and more complex in design, as one can see from the sketch by Lanciani that Piccarreta published (1977: 13). A 14 m long wall with reticulate facing ran parallel to the coastline ca. 200 m northwest of the shpond and probably belonged to the terracing structure of the villa. In the area two gray marble columns (one 4.30 m long) and white marble capitals were found. 50 m inland from this spot, ancient structures were incorporated as a cellar in a modern building, the so-called “Casa Banca”. The Roman feature consisted of two barrel vaulted rooms; few spots where modern plaster was lacking showed a reticulate facing for the walls. Piccarreta suggested that these may have been cisterns. A large area was covered with surface scatter: cubilia; bricks; pan and cover tiles; amphorae; pottery; white, giallo antico, gray, and cipollino marble fragments; sectile tiles. A date within the Augustan period is proposed on the basis of the reticulate structures, with a later Imperial phase shown by the brick addition in the shpond, but nothing more can be said about the period of occupation of this villa. Piccarreta 1977, #5

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Astura L19 – Colle Falcone Colle Falcone is one of the two rural sites, together with L21 – pantano dei frati that Piccarreta classied as “villa” in the Astura region, the others being surface scatters of pottery difcult to classify into settlement typology. The bulldozing of part of the hill revealed in section walls and oor of a villa; on the remaining part of the hill Piccarreta saw a dense scatter of fragments of tiles, bricks, amphorae, dolia, black glaze, thin-walled ceramic, sigillata, and kiln slags. Parts of reticulate wall and opus signinum oors indicate a late 1st century b.c/early 1st century a.d. date. Fragments of black and white tesserae mosaic, columns (in bricks), travertine, marble opus sectile elements, etc. attest that the villa had a well-appointed residential part. The presence of opus sectile may indicate a phase in the Imperial period, although the type of marble use for the tiles is not indicated in the publication. Piccarreta 1977, #112

Astura L20 – Le Grottacce This maritime villa was rather large, although sea erosion has greatly damaged the structures. Piccarreta saw retaining walls in tufa conglomerate forming the basis villae, preserved up to 3 m high; a reticulate wall on the terrace formed by the substructures, with a tufa threshold, running for 30 m perpendicular to the coast, before disappearing into the sand dunes. On the beach front the collapsed structures and substructures had a 50 m frontage, up to a group of rooms which appeared of have been the bath quarters. The walls that are visible in a hall with an apse show different techniques: good quality opus incertum dated to the 1st century b.c. and opus latericium, dated in the Imperial period. The hall was heated as shown by the recovery of tubuli and suspensurae. The oor of this hall also shows two phases: on a white tesserae mosaic a terracotta-tile oor was laid. Part of another room with a white mosaic oor and walls in opus latericium (modulus 0.32 m), resting on reticulate walls, was seen. Near the bath complex, Piccarreta saw in section on the sea side a deposit of kiln wasters that he suggested may have been used to raise the level of a structure. The wasters are near a structure with pillars and reticulate facing interpreted as a drying room connected to the kiln. Recent investigations by The Pontine Region Project suggest that the kiln produced amphorae for oil. The majority of the diagnostic sherds collected belong to unknown amphora types that, judging from the handles, were small in size with a rim reminiscent of early Tripolitanian amphorae. In the 19th century the presence of an underground aqueduct was reported. Local shermen reported that in the 1960s vaulted rooms with stucco decoration

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and painted plaster were still standing on the shore. Piccarreta observed numerous marble and mosaic fragments scattered around. Piccarreta 1977, #15; Attema, de Haas and Nijboer 2003; Attema and de Haas, cit. p. 275, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005

Astura L21 – Pantano dei Frati As far as concerns rural villas in the area of Astura, Piccarreta recorded few villae rusticae, but many surface scatters of pottery and building material. The remains at Pantano dei Frati he classied as “villa”, relying on the accounts of local people that remembered standing structures and mentioned the existence of vaulted rooms in reticulate alternated with brick courses, called locally “Grotte dei Frati”. However, the site was so poorly preserved that it is difcult to determine whether it was a small farm or a well-appointed villa rustica. Piccarreta observed on the surface only amphora fragments, some with mollusk incrustations, and pieces of cocciopesto oor. Piccarreta 1977, #65

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Figure L22. Astura, La Saracca: shpond (after Higginbotham 1997).

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Astura L22 – La Saracca, also La Chiesola The remains of this maritime villa and its shpond are located 2.1 km northwest of L24 – torre astura. Sand dunes cover most of the remains of the villa and not much can be said about its layout. However, the walls present the same concrete core and facing in good quality reticulate as the walls of the pond, and therefore the construction of the shpond and villa are considered contemporaneous. It appears that the villa was constructed on barrel vaulted substructures, creating a basis villae. The area covered with surface scatter (marble fragments, tiles, amphorae, etc.) measured ca. 100 u 50 m. The vaulted rooms and the terrace have walls in opus reticulatum, dated to the late 1st century b.c./early 1st century a.d. A barrel vaulted room located in correspondence with the middle of the shpond was locally known as “la Chiesola”; the room was lled with sand up to the beginning of the vault, which had a stucco coffered ceiling with oral motifs. Repairs and additions to the villa built in concrete walls faced in opus vittatum (bricks and tufa blocks) were identied, thus indicating that the villa was in use also during the late Empire. The shpond is clearly visible and interesting in its typology. It was constructed on a rock shelf and linked to the villa on the shore. As is the case with other shponds in this area, it was built where the rock shelf emerges from the sea bottom. The circle based piscina proper (ø 90 m) was protected by a 3.5 m wide mole. Several openings into the mole allowed sea-water circulation; the largest opening was connected to an external channel [A]. Piccarreta recorded that the secondary openings in the mole were blocked at a later time, and the hexagonal tank [B] added to the main protruding channel, as attested by the fact that it cuts some of the tanks of the rst two rows. Remains of an aqueduct carrying fresh water from the shore to the pond are located on the east side. The piscina was divided in three rows of rectangular tanks; in most cases the rock shelf was left as the bottom of the tanks. A network of covered channels allowed water exchange in the individual tanks. The external channel, according to Higginbotham, had a twofold purpose: 1) to improve water exchange within the pond by increasing the force of the ow directing the surf and tide through a narrow pathway; and 2) to act as a sh-trap. The shpond is built in opus caementicium; the mole and the long sides of the tanks were faced with tiles placed vertically and covered with a thick layer of cocciopesto. On top of the perimeter mole was a small concrete wall with reticulate facing, decorated with small protruding pillars ending with attached brick columns. This faux portico looked towards the interior of the shpond, and therefore towards the villa. It is preserved only on the east side of the shpond. At a later stage the openings between the pillars were blocked with walls using broken tiles. Other repairs to the shpond are in bricks and opus vittatum, indicating that the shpond was used in the late Imperial period. Piccarreta 1977, #7; Higginbotham 1997

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Figure L23. Astura, La Saracca (L23) (after Piccarreta 1977).

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Astura L23 – La Saracca, Villa Less than 200 m northwest of the site L22 – la saracca, la chiesola, Piccarreta recorded another site (Site 8), in part exposed by marine erosion of the coastal sand dunes. The terracing walls forming the basis villae came to light, made in opus caementicium with no facing. Fragments of polychrome geometric mosaics with black, red, yellow and green tesserae, stucco decoration, painted plaster, opus signinum oor with white tesserae, and marble indicate the high level of décor that the pars urbana had. Portions of visible walls show opus reticulatum technique, with the joint between the walls made by 6–7 cm long tufelli blocks. One hundred meters northwest of this villa Piccarreta recorded structures of uncertain interpretation, labeled as Site 9 in his publication, which might be another villa. He saw a wall made in tufa conglomerate with an opus latericium facing (modulus 0.30 m), which ran parallel to the shoreline, and inland from this one part of a reticulate wall. A attish area behind the coastal dunes was covered with fragments of building material and pottery. In the portion of coast between this site and the villa L20 – le grottacce, Piccarreta recorded four other sites (labeled 11 to 14), located at ca. 50 m from each other. The nature of these settlements is not clear; Site 11 presented a kiln and scanty structures in conglomerate; the surface scatter showed cubila and many amphora fragments around the kiln (type of amphorae not recorded). Site 12 presented on a small area a scatter of tiles and bricks and part of an opus caementicium wall; at Site 13 the action of the sea eroded the archaeological deposit, showing in section a deposit of pottery 200 m long, 0.60 m thick, extending inland up to the coastal dunes for about 50 m. The fragments belonged mostly to large dolia, dated by Piccarreta to the Iron Age. Recent excavations by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology revealed a late Bronze Age settlement in connection to production of salt or salted sh. Finally Site 14 presented another Roman kiln with fragments of amphorae, tiles, bricks, but the amphora types were not recorded. Piccarreta 1977, #8–14; Attema and Leusen 2004: 88

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Figure L24. Astura, Torre Astura: shpond (after Piccarreta 1977).

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Astura L24 – Torre Astura, also “Cicero’s Villa”, so-called The villa is located on the promontory of Torre Astura. The rst phase of the villa is late Republican. It became part of the Imperial property, and the rst three emperors used to stop here on their journeys to Campania. During this time the harbor, clearly visible in aerial photographs, was added. Only scanty remains of the main part of the villa exist, covered by sand dunes and pine trees. Piccarreta recorded a retaining wall forming the basis villae made with a conglomerate core and opus vittatum facing, clearly not belonging to the rst phase of the villa. The terrace thus formed had a mosaic in white tesserae for paving and a staircase leading to the sea. Near to this part of the villa Piccarreta saw in section a kiln, perhaps to be connected with the enlargement of the villa in the Imperial period. From this section a bridge-aqueduct [A], rst built in the late Republic, judging from the opus reticulatum in tufa, led to an articial island [B] with a pavilion, maybe a cenatio, overlooking the large piscina. Around 100 a.d., and then again in the late Empire, the living quarters on the articial island were enlarged, incorporating as foundation part of the walls of one of the compartments of the shpond (the lozenge-shaped tank). One of these rooms had an opus sectile oor. In the rst phase, the residential part built on the island measured 6,000 m²; two staircases on the east and north corners of this platform allowed someone coming from the bridge/aqueduct to reach the shpond without walking through the pavilion. Piccarreta reports the abundant presence on the beach, promontory, and in the sea of marble revetment and opus sectile tiles in giallo antico, verde antico, rosso antico, pavonazzetto, africano, red porphyry, alabaster, white and gray marble. The columns currently in Palazzo Braschi were found at this site, and also a statue depicting a comic actor dressed as Papposilenus. The shpond, the only feature together with the bridge aqueduct that is clearly visible today, is the largest known Roman shpond, measuring 15,000 m². Schmiedt 1972; Piccarreta 1977

Astura L25 – Valle di Foglino Near the Valle di Foglino, ca. 2.5 km northwest of the villa L20 – le grottacce, were the scanty remains of a maritime villa. Walls in opus caementicium with no facing, pertaining to the substructures were seen by Piccarreta; above the terrace created by the substructures he saw an opus signinum oor with white tesserae, and scatter of amphora fragments, tiles and coarseware. Piccarreta 1977, #54

Map 5. Bassano di Sutri and Capranica (A. Marzano).

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285

BASSANO DI SUTRI (Vicus Matrini) In the Forma Italiae survey dedicated to the area of Vicus Matrini few of the sites are reported as villas because of the poor preservation of the archaeological evidence, but the number of surface scatters (building material and pottery), cisterns, and monumental tombs identied and listed in the volume is a sign of the diffusion of villas in this area. In most cases nothing can be said on the chronology and the type of settlements (i.e., farms vs. villas). Please also refer to other entries under Capranica.

Bassano di Sutri L26 – Castellina The remains of the villa covered a large area on the top of a hill. Part of a conglomerate platform was seen, with a portion of oor in opus spicatum (2 u 1.40 m); a wall with facing in opus incertum and latericium was to the west of the platform, with a cocciopesto oor in phase with it. Mosaic tesserae and marble fragments were also seen nearby. A few meters to the north of these structures, modern construction revealed tufelli, bricks for columns, dolia fragments, opus spicatum bricks, and cocciopesto fragments. Andreussi 1977, #37

Bassano di Sutri L27 – Pecugliaro The large and rich villa was discovered in 1912 and then backlled. A diverticulum of the Via Clodia-Cassia was probably near the site. The walls were preserved only to a height of 0.5 m; many rooms had mosaic oors. Two separate nuclei constituted the villa, the original one probably being the north part, which featured reticulate walls and restoration in bricks, whereas the southern part was completely built in opus latericium. These later additions to the villa belonged to bath quarters. At the time of the excavation the nicest of the mosaics were cut and removed; only three fragments are preserved. The mosaic depicts, in black and white tesserae, subjects common in baths: erotes and a Nereid on a hippocampus; another fragment presents a Triton and various shes. The mosaic is dated to the 3rd century. Many lead stulae were also recovered, with the stamp P. Clodius Venerandus fec(it). Andreussi 1977, #98

Bassano di Sutri L28 – Prato Casale The villa was discovered in 1889, and the remains no longer stand. It had mosaics and marble revetments. Andreussi 1977, #60

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Map 6. Blera (A. Marzano).

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Bassano di Sutri L29 – S. Pietro On the western side of the Foglietti Mountain the remains of a considerable villa were recorded. On the northwest side of the site was a tufa conglomerate terracing wall 18.50 m long, with facing in tufa blocks. Mosaic fragments, opus spicatum, marble, and a probable statue fragment in black marble indicate a moderately rich residential part. Sherds of Dressel 2/4 and sigillata chiara A and D were also seen. Andreussi 1977, #72 BLERA The territory of Blera had three major roads: Via Clodia, Via Cassia, and the Via Tarquiniense. Secondary roads created a capillary communication system in the territory. Blera and Forum Cassii were the two urban centers. Numerous settlements have been identied on the territory by eld survey. In general we have villae rusticae or farms, marked by surface concentration of tile fragments, dolia, amphorae, coarse pottery, and the remains of walls using local material such as yellow tufa and limestone. The use of bricks is uncommon, probably showing economic and practical reasons, preferring the use of local natural resources, rather than a chronological feature. With the exclusion of some cases, remains of villas consist of only small to medium sized sites, usually underground-built cisterns. S. Quilici Gigli in her survey identied the remains of only one aqueduct feeding the cistern of a villa, and this is a striking datum. These villas usually were built on a single terrace and, in comparison with other areas, not particularly monumental. From surface nds, most of the sites offer a date between the 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D. Poorer surface nds scattered in the areas around the villas seem to indicate a network of farms, houses, and huts, built in perishable material but roofed with tiles, the only feature identied during the survey. Many tombs have been identied in the area, mostly alla cappuccina, but some villas also have monumental tombs built along the major access routes to the villa, a possible indication that the current status of the evidence is failing to show the elegance and monumentality that these villas may have had. S. Quilici Gigli noticed that the density and distributions of establishments, pointing in the direction of small and mid-sized agricultural estates, is in contrast to what sources say about large latifundia in southern Etruria. The recovery of parts of torcularia proves the production of wine and/or oil. The following list of villa sites reports only the most prominent ones.

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Figure L31. Blera, Conserva (after Quilici Gigli 1976).

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289

Blera L30 – Casale Valle Falsetta In the valley one can observe a large quantity of tile fragments, pottery, white marble fragments, together with the remains of brick walls. In the past, the remains must have been much more conspicuous, since the antiquarian Serani wrote of “ruine antiche che paiono castelli interi”. The site is dated broadly to the Imperial period. A group of tombs is located nearby. Quilici Gigli 1976, #39

Blera L31 – Conserva The villa 1.5 km west of Blera, partially excavated by the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome, was built on a tufa spurn, close to the Via Tarquiniense (500 m) and the Via Clodia, going from Blera to Luni sul Mignone (300 m). The rst trench opened by the excavators uncovered a small room (2.50 u 2.50 m) with hypocaust and suspensurae, marble slabs and painted stucco. Then the excavation focused on the west wing of the villa, probably the pars rustica. Thirteen rooms and parts of two additional rooms were uncovered. Rooms [A] and [B] had thresholds showing the holes for hinges and for a vertical latch, and were supposed to be storerooms. In the middle of Room [C] was a well, excavated to 1.15 m in depth. An underground rectangular space was labeled by the excavators as “silos” (contra Quilici Gigli, who considers it a cistern, as is usually the case in villas). Three accesses to it from the above rooms were also located. A sewer/drain in opus caementicium oriented from south-southwest to north-northeast collected waste from Room [D], where a vat was. Most of the objects found in the excavation, fragments of architectural terracottas, lamps, razor, needles, glass fragments and many animal bones, came from this drain. Although in the brief report of the Swedish Institute published in Quilici Gigli there is no systematic attempt to distinguish different chronological phases for the villa, it seems that a homogeneous occupation dated to the 1st century a.d. is suggested. Some important points should, however, be kept in mind: 1) Only the perimeter walls were excavated, with some limited exceptions. This fact precludes any information on the original ooring of the rooms, if preserved, and on material nds within the rooms. 2) The only material nds come from the refuse deposits in a drain. 3) It is not clear on what basis Room [E] was proposed to be the original press room. In Room [F ] traces of some kind of metal working activity have been found: a kiln and metal slag (compare with T14 – Ossaia). We lack any information from the east part of the complex, where only the small room with hypocaust was uncovered, thus precluding any further consideration about the chronology. Quilici Gigli 1976, #297

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Blera L32 – Fornaci The ruins of the villa consist of different terracing walls, a cryptoportico, and architectural elements, such as column parts in peperino, a Tuscan and a Doric capital. Remains of mosaics were also recovered. The front of the basis villae measured at least 120 m. Three different building techniques are present: opus incertum, opus reticulatum and polychrome opus reticulatum. This last type does not seem to have been commonly used in the area. There were at least two phases, one dated to the 1st century b.c., and the other to the 1st century a.d. Quilici Gigli 1976, #77

Blera L33 – Marchionato In the area known as Marchionaro are remains of a villa, which include cisterns and a cryptoportico. Surface pottery scatter was also noted by Quilici Gigli, who, however, is of the opinion that the remains belong to a group of small villas and farms, rather than to one unitary complex. Quilici Gigli 1976, #68

latium: blera

291

Blera L34 – Pian della Creta Only the terracing wall and a long rectangular cistern of a villa located about 200 m east of km 28 of the modern road Aurelia-bis remain. Walls in opus reticulatum emerge from the ground, one of which has an apse. The villa is dated between the late 1st century b.c. and the 1st century a.d. Quilici Gigli 1976, #46

Blera L35 – Pian della Noce This villa, on the right bank of the small stream Fosso di S. Antonio, was once quite large and rich. It had a monumental terrace overlooking the valley; different structures and abundant architectonic and building material emerged from the ground: tiles, bricks for opus spicatum, coarse pottery, one black glaze fragment, one sherd of 4th century sigillata, plaster fragments, white revetment marbles, fragments of mosaic in blue glass paste tesserae, and paving stones. Two building phases are identiable, one in yellow tufa opus reticulatum and the other in brick. Many stone elements of torcularia were found in addition to a circular press bed. The black glaze fragment and the sigillata can give a chronological span for the occupancy of the villa from the late Republic to the 4th century. Quilici Gigli 1976, #54

Blera L36 – Piscina To the north of Cerracchio farm a concrete pond is visible (1.60 u 5.80 u h 1.20 m). It has in the middle of one of the long sides a protruding podium (1.30 u 0.35 m). At the beginning of the 20th century two rooms were found, paved with black and white mosaics on suspensurae (3.40 u 3.20 m). One room was connected to a semicircular room. Re-used in the construction of the villa, a peperino slab was found with the inscription: Q. Iunius Ca Vhcus/sibi et.Iuniae Eglogen/colibertae suae. Also two stamped tiles and a stula were found (CIL XI, 2.2, p. 1404 n 26: GLC). Quilici Gigli 1976, #122

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Blera L37 – Poggio delle Cerquete The most prominent visible feature of this villa, situated in the area called “Muraccioli”, was the cistern, situated on the southeast end of the complex, built in conglomerate with a facing of peperino blocks. To the north were the remains of two walls in opus reticulatum, one using limestone and the other tufa cubilia. To the west, and overlooking the valley, were the remains of a large basis villae. The preserved part of the terrace is 26 m long. The terracing wall was probably a double wall with cryptoportico, since Quilici Gigli identied a collapsed wall with a series of windows. Numerous pottery fragments were visible on the terrain. A mill-stone was also recovered. Quilici Gigli 1976, #399

Blera L38 – Poggio di Formello A large villa was located on the top of the hill, where the cistern was visible. On the south slope were remains of terracing walls and an underground cistern. To the east, next to the modern road, was a monumental round tomb, an architectural type used in the late Republic. The terracing walls of the villa used three different building techniques, probably signs of three chronological phases. The rst wall used large stones and no mortar; the second had a concrete core with a facing of square limestone blocks; the third was of limestone conglomerate. With the construction of the new terracing walls, the frons of the terrace was advanced, thus enlarging the platform. Quilici Gigli 1976, #258

latium: blera

293

Blera L39 – S. Giovanni in Tuscia A very large villa was identied under the town of Villa di S. Giovanni in Tuscia, during public and private works in different parts of the town. A rough calculation gives a gure of about 75 u 75 m for what seems to have been only the residential part. The datable evidence points to the late Empire. Two rooms, probably a bath suite, have been identied. The rooms are built in opus latericium, the oors present mosaics dated on stylistic grounds to the early 3rd century a.d. A barrel vaulted large cryptoportico in opus caementicium with a wall facing of tufa blocks and mosaic paving in black and white pebbles was also discovered. Other nds include a statuary group of Eros and Psyche and an African lamp, both dated to the 4th century. From this partial data it seems that the large villa was built in the 3rd century, although the cryptoportico may refer to a previous phase of the villa, later lavishly enlarged, but no clear evidence is available to determine when the villa was constructed. Quilici Gigli 1976, #358

Blera L40 – S. Mariano The extent of remains identied in this area indicates a large villa. The only standing structures are the long cryptoportico and two rooms, incorporated in the ruins of a 17th century villa; the building technique is tufa opus reticulatum. Traces of a Roman road have been located between S. Mariano and Madonna del Ponte. Quilici Gigli 1976, #83

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Figure L41. Blera, Selvasecca (after Terrenato 2001b).

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295

Blera L41 – Selvasecca The excavators have dated this villa to the 2nd century b.c., but Terrenato proposes a much earlier date for the villa. The layout presents a central peristyle [A] with eight columns, and on the northeast side a long, rectangular room [B] divided into two naves by pillars. The walls are built in well-executed ashlar masonry. Many architectural terracottas dated to the 5th and 4th centuries b.c. were recovered, and also a few molds. Terrenato 2001b

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Figure L42. Boville, Casal Morena (after Coarelli 1981).

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297

BOVILLE (Bovillae)

L42 – Casal Morena The villa, commonly known as “Villa of Casal Morena”, in antiquity was located near the VIII mile of the Via Latina, southeast of Rome. The rst phase of the villa dates to the late 1st century b.c.; the complex was restructured several times: under Domitian, under Hadrian and again in the 4th century a.d. It seems that after the 4th century the villa was no longer in use. The complex was rst discovered in 1740, when it was reported that several statues were discovered. Among the identied statues coming from this villa are an Athena bust, now in Monaco, philosophers’ heads, and a group with Dionysus and a satyr (see Neudecker 1988). The unearthing of the villa occurred in 1929 on the initiative of the land owners; in the 1970s De Rossi studied the surviving remains. The surviving part of the villa was, in the rst phase, part of the substructures of the complex; above them was the upper terrace of the villa with the residential part proper, of which only scanty traces were identied. These substructures were in part lled with soil and in part used as cisterns (all the rooms on the eastern side of the complex were originally cisterns). In the 1st century a.d. the substructures were transformed into living quarters. The cisterns were abolished and the rooms covered with barrel vaults. The ponds [A, B, C, D] continued to contain water and have been interpreted by De Rossi as shponds for shbreeding. In the 2nd century the bath quarter was added, with walls built in opus mixtum [E], and new mosaic oors were laid. In the rst phase of the villa on the west side was a garden, surrounded on three sides by cryptoporticoes [F]. In a second phase the garden was transformed into a covered hall, illuminated by windows opening in the east wall. Above the vault covering the former garden, mosaics with vegetal scrolls on white background were found, dated to the 2nd century. Another garden was on the south side of the villa [G], surrounded by a portico, probably barrel vaulted. In the northern section of the villa was a courtyard [H] with central pillar, probably to hold wooden roong or a pergola. The pillar had an octagonal base and, on each of its faces, a fresco depicting a large dolium with a lid; on the four faces of the pillar were human gures, probably related to a Dionysiac train (one identied gure was a dancing Maenad). On the walls were other frescos depicting agricultural chores: men and women picking grapes; pitching dolia; perhaps the personication of a Season; and tools related to wine making. The paintings have been dated to the 3rd–4th century a.d., and probably were illustrations of the menologia rustica, agricultural calendars related to seasons. De Franceschini suggests that the pars rustica of the villa probably had a wine press, considering the emphasis on wine making in the decoration of area [H]; she also suggests that perhaps the vats for shbreeding in reality related to the processing of grapes. De Rossi 1979; Coarelli 1981; Carandini 1985b; Neudecker 1988; De Franceschini 2005: #85

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Figure L43. Boville, Centroni (after Cozza 1952).

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Boville L43 – Centroni Villa The villa is located on the hills to the left of the Via Anagnina (km 12), not far from casal morena. Built on different terraces, it dates to the late Republic/early Empire. The building technique used in the villa is opus incertum. A complex system of underground rooms created the substructures for the upper platform of the villa. Most of these rooms had vertical shafts communicating with the upper level for ventilation. Some of these rooms were in fact cisterns [A]; for others a use as storerooms has been proposed. The villa had a monumental natatio (33.18 u 9.60 m), with three different levels of depth [B]. Two staircases, added in a second phase, provided access. Towards the hill side at the level of the natatio is a retaining wall with a series of arches and openings for water channels. The water, coming from the cisterns, would have fallen into the pool in a series of small cascades. In the ll of this pool, fragments of stucco, wall paintings, and mosaic elements (sea shells and glass paste tesserae) were found. According to Lavagne the structure of the walls of the natatio is clearly late Republican; Mielsch dates it to the Augustan period. A private aqueduct, coming from nearby springs and cisterns provided the large water supply needed. Two public aqueducts run in the proximity, the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. The villa had cryptoporticoes and a nymphaeum. In 1926, structures possibly belonging to farmsteads and/or the pars rustica of the villa, also comprising a deposit of wine amphorae, were discovered at the bottom of the hill where the villa stood. Paribeni 1926; Cozza 1952; Devoti 1978 (for the cisterns); De Rossi 1979; Carandini 1985b; Mielsch 1987; Lavagne 1988

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CANTALUPO (Ager Foronovanus)

L44 – Colle Tulliano The site, in antiquity part of Sabina, was in the territory of Forum Novum. Only scanty remains of structures in opus reticulatum are visible. The antiquarian tradition related this villa to Cicero, on the basis of the place name Tulliano, and of an inscription found in the area mentioning a freedman of the gens Tullia, Tulius Epaphra (CIL, IX.4840; XV.1441). Coarelli 1981; Sternini 2004

Cantalupo L45 – Oppitola A modern farmhouse incorporates a buttressed opus reticulatum wall, clearly part of a terracing structure. The wall seems to delimit also an impluvium but no other structures are visible. Sternini 2004

Cantalupo L46 – S. Adamo A survey carried out in 1985 identied the presence of ancient structures around the Church of S. Adamo, including remains of walls in opus caementicium re-used in a modern farm. These remains can be related to the discovery of various fragments of columns and statues during works for a modern road, and should refer to the villa described by Ashby. In his description, reported by Lugli, we nd mention of a wall in opus latericium dated to ca. 2nd century a.d. In the 1600s various statues were discovered around the Church of S. Adamo, and in the 19th century a portion of a paved Roman road was visible in front of the church. All these elements are indications of a villa with a certain degree of décor, and not of a simple farm. Sternini 2004

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Cantalupo L47 – S. Stefano On the S. Stefano Hill are the remains of a villa, currently poorly preserved as it was used as a source of building material in the past. Besides the remains of walls, one can observe an intense pottery surface scatter, but the presence of fragments of columns, statues, and entablatures used as building material in the nearby farms indicates that it was a villa. The only chronological indication comes from tombs and coins recovered in the area, dating to the Republican and Imperial periods. Sternini 2004

Cantalupo L48 – S. Vito The villa in the area of S. Vito was already described in the 19th century when Guattani recorded a tower in opus reticulatum, probably a castellum aquae. Lugli wrote about impressive remains, especially the basis villae with retaining walls in opus reticulatum and a cistern in the middle of the substructures. The remains of the villa were converted into a convent in the Middle Ages. Sternini 2004

Figure L49. Capena, Giardino (after Potter 1979).

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303

CAPENA (Ager Capenas) (See Map 10, p. 364)

L49 – Giardino This villa, located near S. Oreste, was organized on three terraces, measuring ca. 200 u 70 m. It is dated on the basis of building technique and material nds to the 1st century a.d., with traces of changes and restorations in the 2nd century a.d. The lower terrace [A] was never excavated and presents only terracing walls. Potter suggests that the pars rustica is to be located here. It is also possible that a garden occupied this terrace, since this is usually the architectural type occurring in other rural villas. The second terrace [B] had several water cisterns on its southern side. Another big cistern [C] (ca. 63 u 5 m) separates this terrace from the upper one. The upper terrace [D] has remains of oor mosaics and a hypocaust system. Jones 1962; Potter 1979

Capena L50 – Monte Canino An early Imperial villa with a wine press was discovered at Monte Canino. The villa was probably built over an earlier, late Republican farm/villa, since a wall in tufa blocks in association with black glaze pottery was discovered. In the Imperial period the villa was enlarged. The known part of the villa measures ca. 70 m² and has large rooms decorated in stucco and marble veneer.Two side wings probably unfolded around a central courtyard. In the southwest wing a wooden press was found. Other structures are located to the southeast of the building, possibly a courtyard with barns. The nds recovered show an occupation down to the late Empire. Later the area was used as a cemetery. In Mazzi 1995: 77, the site of the villa, located by Jones towards Monte della Casetta, is instead located to the immediate east of Ponte della Madonna, along the southern boundary of the municipal (modern) territory of Capena. Pallottino 1937; Jones 1962; Potter 1979; Mazzi 1995 CAPRANICA (Vicus Matrini) (See Map 5, p. 284) In the Forma Italiae survey dedicated to the area of Vicus Matrini, few of the sites are labeled as villas because of the poor preservation of the archaeological evidence; however, the number of surface scatters comprising building material and pottery, combined with the cisterns and monumental tombs identied and listed in the volume, indicates that the diffusion of villas in this area was high. In most cases nothing can be said on the chronology and the type of settlements (i.e., farms vs. villas). Please refer also to villas listed under Bassano di Sutri.

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Capranica L51 – Fonte del Lupo The site presented only scanty remains of a villa known since 1940. Part of a mosaic oor with black, white and red tesserae was uncovered in the northeast corner of a room. About the structure, archive documents report only that the wall discovered was part of a “building polygonal in shape”. Andreussi 1977, #253

Capranica L52 – Muracciolo Remains of a villa and a cistern have been located in the area known as “Muracciolo”, 250 m northwest of the Via Cassia. The structures of the villa were partly uncovered by clandestine excavations, which revealed a reticulate wall, painted plaster fragments, and a oor. The oor had two phases: a white tesserae mosaic was later covered by a cocciopesto oor. Andreussi 1977, #176

Capranica L53 – Oriano A surface scatter of building material indicated the presence of a villa at Oriano. Besides numerous tile and common ware fragments, spicatum bricks, mosaic tesserae, marble and lead pieces were also seen; tufa ashlar blocks and column shafts were re-used in modern constructions nearby. The local population also remembered the existence of a circular cistern connected to a tank. Andreussi 1977 #206

Capranica L54 – Poggio Cavaliere This villa was recorded by Duncan, who saw a surface scatter of tufa blocks, bricks, white marble and blue glass paste mosaic tesserae. Andreussi reported the testimony of local people, who said that during agricultural works part of a mosaic was uncovered (and destroyed). The oor apparently had two phases: a polychrome mosaic was covered by one with blue tesserae. Andreussi 1977, #232

Capranica L55 – Vico Lake On the hill crest of the crater lled by the Vico Lake large terracing walls in opus caementicium, belonging to a villa, were recorded. The presence of walls both in reticulate and in opus latericium indicates two chronological

latium: casperia

305

phases. Red plaster fragments, tufelli, tiles, marble, Italic sigillata and amphorae were seen. The villa had a cistern. Andreussi 1977 #228 CASPERIA

L56 – Paranzano Nowadays only some walls in opus reticulatum are visible, but in 1871 a nymphaeum with a series of niches for statues and an opus sectile oor featuring giallo antico, africano and other marbles was discovered. Two statues depicting female gures were found; one is currently in Geneva, the other in Copenhagen. The gures were holding in one hand shells showing traces of water spouts; also the belly button of the statues were shown to have housed water spouts. Many stamped stulae referable to Antonia C. L. Pallantiana were found, together with brick stamps reading ex g. Pallant. Caes. N. opvs doliare, perhaps an indication of ownership of the villa, also in consideration of the modern place name, which seems to derive from Pallantianus. Brick stamps recovered during the 1871 excavation date to the 1st century a.d. and in one case to 133 a.d., as indicated by the name of the consuls for that year. The size and nature of the ruins seen by Lugli made him consider the possibility that the remains belonged to more than one villa. Portions of reticulate walls were described in various parts of Paranzano, and also fragments of black and white tesserae mosaics. The church itself is built over a previous structure, probably Roman. An area measuring ca. 100 u 80 m can be related to the platform of the villa. Also a structure in opus mixtum dated to the 2nd century a.d. was recorded. Sternini 2004

Casperia L57 – S. Maria in Legarano The villa was quite large and its structures have been in part incorporated in the Church of S. Maria. On the south and east sides the retaining walls of the basis villae are still visible, built in opus incertum with buttressing walls of brick. It seems that the villa had two terraces. Two mosaic oors are visible; one with geometric pattern with white, black and red tesserae is located in the church; the other mosaic is outside the church. Other remains include a room and a vat paved in opus spicatum. In addition to these elements, granite and porphyry columns, marble capitals, a statue and a block belonging to a press indicate that the villa had both a pars urbana and a pars rustica. The substructures are dated to the early Empire. In an undetermined date the villa became Imperial property, since it was included in Constantine’s donation to Pope Sylvester. Migliario 1988, Sternini 2004

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catalogue: latium

Figure L58. Castel Fusano, La Chiesola (after Lauro 1998).

latium: castel fusano

307

CASTEL FUSANO (Ager Laurentinus) (See Map 7, p. 312)

L58 – La Chiesola, also “Villa del confine”, so-called The remains of this villa have been labeled “Villa del Conne” or “boundary villa” because part of the ruins is located in the presidential estate of Castelporziano and part in the city park of Castel Fusano. The portion in the estate of Castelporziano was really never excavated or studied, whereas the part in the park of Castel Fusano was cleaned from vegetation and recorded in 1954 under the direction of A. Colini. At least three distinct units, connected with each other, formed the complex. The building technique is opus latericium, indication of a construction in the 2nd century a.d. Some walls built in opus reticulatum show a previous phase for the complex. The northeast portion of the villa, measuring 60 u 20 m, presents a series of long, parallel walls, which could be porticoes, corridors or gardens, ending on the north side with a hall with apses [A], like a triclinium. On the sea side this hall is anked by probable service rooms. On the southeast side, the Via Severiana deviates slightly, possibly showing that the villa extended to this point. The area occupied by the villa in the Castelporziano estate shows a great quantity of building material. The chronology of the complex goes from the 1st century to the 3rd century a.d. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #B1

Figure L59. Castel Fusano, Villa Plinio (after Ramieri 1995).

308 catalogue: latium

latium: castel fusano

309

Castel Fusano L59 – Villa Plinio, also Palombara Possibly this is Pliny’s Laurentine villa. The excavated part of the villa consists of essentially two blocks. The rst block is a large quadri-portico in opus reticulatum with two series of columns, enclosing a garden [A] with a curvilinear fountain/pond; baths are located in the west corner [B]. One of the rooms of the baths has a mosaic oor depicting Neptune and hippocampi. Another rectangular block constituted the residential quarters [C], with a cryptoportico in its southeast end. Most likely another cryptoportico was located also in the southwest, completing the substructures for the residential part. The two parts were linked by some rooms in opus reticulatum on the southwest side, similar to the one used for the quadri-portico and dated to the mid-1st century. These rooms [D] show constant repairs and usage up to Severan times. Traces of ooring in precious marbles were recovered. It seems that the main entrance to the villa was from the sea side and not from the Via Severiana. Ramieri 1995; Ramieri 2002

310

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Figure L60. Castel di Guido, Colonnacce (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: castel di guido

311

CASTEL DI GUIDO (Lorium?)

L60 – Colonnacce In the territory of Castel di Guido, at km 16.8 of the modern Aurelia (mile XI of the ancient Aurelia) part of an elegant villa was excavated. Ancient sources mention that the Antonine family had a villa in Lorium; whether this site should be related to the Imperial property or not is not clear. A central peristyle [A] was excavated along with some rooms unfolding around it. The villa was built in the 2nd/1st century b.c., as indicated by walls in opus incertum; in this phase it presented the typical atrium [B] with impluvium. In the 1st century a.d. it was enlarged, with the construction of the peristyle, the rooms on the south side, and the free standing cistern [C] (10 u 6 u 3 m). From one of these rooms [D], rectangular in plan, barrel vaulted and with two doorways, come over 3,000 fragments of nely executed wall decoration in the Third Style, which has recently been reconstructed and restored. The paving of this room was a polychrome mosaic oor with an elaborate geometric pattern, dated to the early 1st century a.d. Rooms [E] and [F] had an opus sectile oor. The villa also had an underground cistern, dug in tufa, made by a network of tunnels, which belongs to the earlier phase of the building. On the north side of the peristyle were the press rooms [G and H], where the press bed was found, three vats and some dolia; room [I] was a storage area. This part of the villa existed already in the rst phase. Brick stamps reading L. Coelius Nicephorus have been recovered, and since they are currently attested only in this villa it has been suggested that maybe he was the owner. The excavators report that the villa was used until the 3rd century a.d., but the nds recovered in the excavation have not yet been published. Sanzi Di Mino 1990; De Franceschini 2005, #54

Map 7. Castelporziano (Ager Laurentinus) (A. Marzano).

312 catalogue: latium

latium: castel giuliano – castelporziano

313

CASTEL GIULIANO (Cerveteri)

L61 – Quarticcioli On a small hill along the valley of Fosso del Tavolato remains of a Roman villa are located on different terraces. The villa was rst dug by clandestine excavators, and later investigated by the Soprintendenza in 1989. Field survey identied pottery fragments and building material spread over an area of 1 ha. In the nearby area are several mineral springs. The villa, dated to early Imperial times, was close to two roads: the road that connected Rome to southern coastal Etruria, between the Clodia and the Aurelia; and the road that connected the area of the Sabatino Lake with Cerveteri. Five rooms have been identied, but the research focused on a single room (only 35 m² have been excavated) with a mosaic oor with central emblema. No oor plan is published in the article. The walls of this room are built in small blocks of red tufa and mortar. Adinol and Carmagnola 1991 CASTELPORZIANO (Ager Laurentinus)

Castelporziano L62 – Fosso del Pantanello Immediately to the south of the villa L63 – grotte di piastra are the unexcavated ruins of a villa. The remains are L-shaped, covering an area of 120 u 175 m, and seem to be oriented east-west. The modern channel del Pantanello cuts the remains in two. One can see walls in opus mixtum and in opus latericium and a notable quantity of building material. The orientation of these remains and of those of grotte di piastra seems to indicate that in antiquity there was a bay. The site is generically dated to the 2nd century. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #C4

Figure L63. Castelporziano Grotte di Piastra (after Castelporziano 1985).

314 catalogue: latium

latium: castelporziano

315

Castelporziano L63 – Grotte di Piastra, also Villa Magna The ruins of the so-called Villa Magna at Grotte di Piastra are, according to Salza Prina Ricotti, to be identied with Pliny’s Laurentinum. The identied area of this U-shaped complex measures ca. 180 u 165 m. The walls are in good quality opus reticulatum dated to the late 1st century b.c.; some poor quality walls are dated to the late Empire. Two nuclei, protruding towards the sea, are the main features of the complex [A and B]. Nucleus A rests on substructures formed by barrel vaulted rooms. The rooms on this platform present various phases, dating from the 1st century b.c. to the 3rd century a.d. In one of these phases, dated on the basis of brick stamps to 123 a.d., the baths were built [C], obliterating the previous area of the cryptoportico and terrace overlooking the sea. A probe trench found another bath suite, a little inland from the front of the villa. Salza Prina Ricotti believes that these are the baths with spheristerion described by Pliny. Area C, connecting the two main parts A and B, shows walls dated to the 2nd and 3rd centuries, whose layout is difcult to interpret. Area B was not excavated, but mounds regularly oriented indicate the presence of walls. Only 50 m away from Villa Magna is a site showing a regular square shape (ca. 100 u 100 m). The base of a pillar built in brick emerges from the ground. It seems that this was a quadri-portico. Castelporziano 1985

Figure L64a. Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa: E4–5 (Castelporziano 1988).

316 catalogue: latium

latium: castelporziano

317

Castelporziano L64 – Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa This villa, Imperial in date (late 1st century/early 2nd century a.d.), is located at Tor Paterno and was identied as Pliny’s Laurentinum by some scholars. Currently, it is widely accepted as the Imperial residence of Laurentum, but because of the past identication with Pliny’s villa it has been included in the catalogue. The villa had an aqueduct, which ran partly underground and partly in elevation. In recent years the aqueduct has been restored and studied. It was fed by springs located at La Santola and was connected to a complex system of water management structures, denitely organized in the Imperial period (see Bedello Tata 1995). The ow capacity of the aqueduct was calculated to be 149 l/s and it is possible that, although built for the needs of the Imperial residence, it also fed other residential villas (Lauro 1998: 66 ff.). The various cisterns known in the area must have been connected to the aqueduct, although studies are still in progress. The discovery in 1990 of a long pipeline still in situ also shows the complexity of management of the water supply. The pipeline runs northeast, with an inclination towards Tor Paterno. The stulae present several stamps of Ti. Claudius Pompeianus, Marcus Aurelius’ son-in-law, and of C. Ostiensis Felicissimus, the owner of the pipe factory in Ostia. Several sectors of the Imperial residence are known, over a large area, but the complex was never excavated as a whole. About 80 m away from the modern Via del Telefono, moving northeast, a series of rooms is visible, probably excavated in the early 1900s. One can distinguish two parallel corridors and various rectangular rooms. The discovery of fragments of ne stucco decorations, polychrome mosaics, marble, etc. in these rooms identies them as residential quarters. Traces on the terrain show that the structures continue in unexcavated areas. The rst phase of this sector, labeled E4, is to be dated to 160 a.d. on the basis of brick stamps. Later building phases were also detected, in opus latericium and opus listatum, dated between the 3rd and the late 4th centuries.

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Figure L64b. Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa: E6 (after Lauro 1998).

latium: castelporziano L64 – Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa,

319

CONT.

On the opposite side of E4 is a bath complex, labeled E6, dated to the second half of the 2nd century, and constituting the westernmost limit of the Imperial villa on the sea side. The ruins visible 250 m to the right of Via del Telefono and labeled F1 must also have been part of the Imperial villa. A hall with an apse is visible, with traces of marble revetment. Numerous fragments of marble are visible (giallo antico, alabaster, African marble, etc.), together with remains of walls.

Figure L64c. Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa: F3–4 (after Lauro 1998).

320 catalogue: latium

latium: castelporziano L64 – Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa,

321

CONT.

Not far from this site are the baths F3, drawn by Lanciani, but then later by mistake published by Lugli as referring to buildings at Portus Traiani. These were large and monumental baths. The entire layout is preserved as well as many walls in elevation. The frigidarium [A] was a large rectangular room, in the Lanciani plan divided by a colonnade. From here one would pass to two tepidaria with pools with apses [B], and to the rooms of the caldarium [C]. One end of the natatio [D] also presented an apse. The southern part of this complex was built later than the nucleus just described. The exedra [E] visible in this southern part on the plan was also a later addition, both having static structural purposes and offering a spectacular façade on the sea side. Below the frigidarium were some barrel-vaulted rooms, possibly service rooms. The position and orientation of the complex seem to indicate that the baths were on the coastline in correspondence with a cove. The complex dates to the 1st century a.d. with restorations until the 4th century. Possibly to be considered part of F3 are the so-called Terme Lanciani (F4), a small bath complex, partly excavated and showing phases form the 1st to the 4th century.

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catalogue: latium

Figure L64d. Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa: F12 (after Lauro 1998).

latium: castelporziano

323

Other baths are located to the southeast of the previous structures (F12). The whole layout of the bath quarters, the foundation level and, in some spots, also part of the walls are preserved. Not far from the baths is a very large, rectangular cistern. Bedello Tata 1995; Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998

Castelporziano L65 – Tor Paterno, Villa and NYMPHAEUM It is not clear whether this villa, labeled F15, was part of the large complex of the Imperial residence or not. The remains were discovered in 1985–86 during construction and consist of a series of walls in opus reticulatum belonging to the rst phase of the villa (1st century a.d.), later cut and in part obliterated by other walls. In the south portion, after the rst phase, several rooms with hypocaustum were added. Building phases span from the 1st to the 4th century a.d. In conjunction with this villa is another complex. A small nymphaeum, labeled F16, is visible, as well as a cistern, built on top of previous structures very likely belonging to a villa rustica. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #F15 and F16

Castelporziano L66 – Villa This villa, never excavated, is located between L58 – castel fusano, la chiesola villa and the ancient settlement of Vicus Augustanus. The area occupied by the remains emerging from the ground measures 50 u 80 m. Bricks, tiles and cubilia cover the surface. The side inland is intersected by a modern road, Via del Telefono, but the portion on the sea side presents opus latericium walls, it seems circularly shaped, and might have been the bath complex. It is possible that this site was in some kind of architectonical relationship with the Vicus, since one portion of the Vicus shows the same alignment as these structures. Surface material gives a chronology from the 2nd to the 3rd century a.d. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #B3

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catalogue: latium

Castelporziano L67 – Villa Located between the ancient site of Vicus Augustanus and L63 – grotte di piastra, the area covered by the ruins of this villa measures ca. 140 u 80 m. The modern Via del Telefono cuts the ruins almost in the middle. The portion on the sea side presents an L-shaped mound, rising above ground level for 3.50–4 m, and measuring ca. 82 m and ca. 40 m, which may be the remains of a portico. This mound and the area next to it are covered by tiles, bricks, tufa cubilia, and pieces of cocciopesto. Also, a column fragment in white marble from Luni was seen. The surface material offers a generic date of the 2nd century a.d. It seems that in the 3rd century phase dated under Septimius Severus the villa belonged to M. Antonius Balbus. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #C1

Castelporziano L68 – Villa This site is in alignment with, and close to, villa L69 and villa L70. The area where traces of ancient walls, 3–4 m high, can be seen measures 175 u 90 m. In the section opened by the cut of modern Via dello Chalet one can see structures in opus reticulatum and fragments of painted plaster. The structures are dated to the 1st/2nd century a.d. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #D3

latium: castelporziano

325

Castelporziano L69 – Villa The site shows a rectangular form (80 u 40 m) with a central area at a lower elevation. Traces of walls in opus reticulatum can be seen in two spots: along the southeast side, in relation to a piece of mosaic oor, with black and white tesserae dated to the late Republic/early Empire. Other portions of the wall present larger cubilia, possible indication of two phases. At the moment no phases later than the 1st century a.d. are known. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #D5

Castelporziano L70 – Villa This site is very similar to villa L69. The square area, measuring 80 u 40 m, was probably the peristyle. Traces of walls in opus reticulatum are visible. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #D6

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catalogue: latium

Figure L71. Castelporziano-Capocotta G2 (after Lauro 1998).

latium: castelporziano – capocotta

327

CASTELPORZIANO – CAPOCOTTA (See Map 7, p. 312)

L71 – Villa The bath quarters of this villa are visible, constituting the northernmost extension of a large villa. The structures show three building phases from the 1st century to the 4th century a.d. and consist of a frigidarium with a rectangular pool [A] and heated rooms. Behind the baths remains of walls and of paving stones, probably pertaining to the Via Severiana, are visible on the surface. The southern part of the villa was never excavated, but traces of walls in opus reticulatum are visible. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #G2

328

catalogue: latium

Figure L72. Castelporziano-Capocotta: Discobolos villa (after Lauro 1998).

latium: castelporziano – capocotta

329

Castelporziano – Capocotta L72 – Villa of the Discobolos This large villa was partly excavated in the early 1900s. The complex consisted of two main parts separated by a garden. The northwestern part, excavated in 1906, measures 22 u 24 m, and its rst phase was dated, on the basis of brick stamps, to 142 a.d. However, the presence of an underground cistern [A] in opus reticulatum below the colonnaded terrace indicates an earlier phase. Other phases down to the 3rd century were identied. The name of the villa comes from the discovery of a copy of Miron’s Discobolos [B], now in the Museo Nazionale Romano. The plan of the northwest part published by Lanciani shows a colonnaded terrace on the side of the Via Severiana, and three accesses by staircases on the sea side. The rooms unfold around a large central hall, with a curved wall in the center delimiting an alcove [C]. The hall had a black and white tesserae mosaic oor, except in front of the alcove where there was opus sectile. Lauro and Claridge in Lauro 1998, #G3

Figure L73. Castro dei Volsci, Casale di Madonna del Piano (after Laurenti 1990).

330 catalogue: latium

latium: castro dei volsci

331

CASTRO DEI VOLSCI

L73 – Casale di Madonna del Piano Part of a villa, built on at least three terraces, was excavated in 1984 ca. 1 km away from the bank of the Sacco River, between the ancient urban centers of Fabrateria Vetus and Fabrateria Nova, modern Ceccano and S. Giovanni Incarico. An area measuring 60 u 20 m was uncovered. The villa plan presents a series of rooms on three sides of a corridor [A], which surrounds a rectangular courtyard. Only part of the south, west and east sides of the courtyard were excavated. Twelve rooms are located on the south side of the corridor, which has a mosaic oor in black and white tesserae. On the northwest side of this corridor another corridor [B] was found, in relation to two large semi-circular rooms. The interpretation of the function of these rooms is problematic. In a previous phase Rooms [C, D], and [E–L] were connected to each other; subsequently the doorways between Rooms D, E, F, and G were blocked. All the rooms had mosaic oors, except Rooms E, F, I, L, and [M], which had opus sectile oors. In Room K and L fragments of the marble crustae from the walls were also found. During the phase of demise of the villa, numerous fragmented marble crustae and other marble pieces from various parts of the villa were piled up in Room G. Corridor B did not have any ooring preserved. A stula ran through this corridor, coming from Room [N], where there was a vat faced in bricks and cocciopesto. The ooring of the room was in opus signinum. It is not clear for what kind of service activity or production this room was used. Another room south of this one also had two vats. Only a preliminary study of the nds was completed; at the moment the villa appears to have been built in the 2nd century a.d.; the mosaic in Room L is dated to the late 3rd century, together with the new marble decoration of the walls. Maybe at this same time the apse at the end of the corridor was added. Among the pottery nds are numerous fragments of Palichet 47 amphorae. Many fragments of spatheia and African kitchen ware were recovered in the upper part of the ll of the drains and indicate use of the villa until late antiquity. In the late 4th–early 5th centuries a religious building was erected in one of the courtyards. 13 Late Antique burials (6th–7th centuries) were discovered along the walls of the pars rustica, with luxury items such as gold jewelry and glass vessels. A cistern was located 30 m to the east of the complex and is possibly related to an aqueduct that was discovered in the area years ago. Perhaps the Roman structures known in the area as the “baths of Nerva” also belong to this villa. Laurenti 1985; 1990; Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003

Map 8. Circeo (A. Marzano).

332 catalogue: latium

latium: circeo CIRCEO (Circeii)

333

Figure L74. Circeo, Casarina (after Lugli 1928).

334 catalogue: latium

latium: circeo

335

CIRCEO (Circeii)

Circeo L74 – Casarina On the southern shore of the Lake of Paola, at the end of a promontory, was a large villa, of which the bath complex was identied. A large hall with apses and windows [A], later incorporated into a medieval monastery, presented walls in opus incertum and in opus vittatum. Not far from this site Lugli lists another villa, although it is possible that the remains of walls in opus mixtum he saw emerging from the vegetation belong to the same complex as the baths. Lugli 1928: 51, #14–15

Circeo L75 – Grotta dei Banditi Scanty remains of a villa were recorded by Lugli in this location. He saw a platform with retaining walls built in opus incertum and in the middle of the substrucutre a vaulted cistern measuring 16.05 u 1.86 m. Lugli 1928: 38, #42

Circeo L76 – Grotta della Carella On the northern side of Circeo, Lugli noted remains of a two-nave, vaulted cistern and retaining walls in opus incertum forming the platform for a villa. Lugli 1928: 34, #35

336

catalogue: latium

Figure L77. Circeo, Grotta della Sibilla (after Lugli 1928).

latium: circeo

337

Circeo L77 – Grotta della Sibilla A platform formed by a retaining wall in opus incertum was the basis for a villa. A vaulted cistern [A] was part of the substructures (20 u 2.60 m; h. 2.70 m, to the start of the vault). The cistern seems to have been fed by a nearby stream. Fragments of opus sectile tiles and tufelli showed chronological phases subsequent to the one represented by the opus incertum of the retaining wall. Lugli 1928: 34, #36

338

catalogue: latium

Figure L78. Circeo, Imperial Villa (after Lugli 1928).

latium: circeo

339

Circeo L78 – Imperial Villa Domitian’s residence on the shore of the lake was built on a spot occupied by an earlier villa; Lugli suggested that the villa was where Augustus conned his colleague M. Lepidus (Svet. Aug 16). Domitian re-used part of the earlier structures, which included a courtyard with a portico or ambulatio with reticulate walls and with a rectangular pool [A] in the centre (59 u 32 m), curved at the northeast end. The wall enclosing this space was decorated with engaged pillars and semi-columns, plastered in imitation of marble veneer. On the lake shore was a building with a semicircular plan [B]. Radial walls departed from the inner circle towards an outer wall which Lugli saw only in a few places. He judged that these radial walls were not visible in antiquity, since they had no nishing; hence the uncertainty about the nature of the building. A terracing wall in opus incertum and a cistern also belong to the earlier villa. To the south of this nucleus is the sector built under Domitian [C]. A generic 1st century b.c. date was assigned to the Republican nucleus on the basis of building technique. Lugli 1928: Imperial villa #11–15

Circeo L79 – Monte Circeo Lugli described remains of a villa located about midway from L86 – torre moresca and Torre Cervia, on the southern side of the Circeo peninsula. He identied an ancient platform made of two walls abutting each other (l. 6 u h. 1.5 m). One wall, built with stone footing and triangular bricks is dated to the late 1st century a.d.; the other, employing only small limestone chips, is dated to the Republican period. To the west of this structure was a court paved in opus spicatum, and in the middle of it a masonry fountain basin (2.60 u 2.75 m) with rounded angles. On the surface Lugli observed fragments of tiles, bricks, dolia, and limestone columns. Two cisterns were recorded not far from the villa, according to Lugli fed by the stream coming from the Valle Caduta. One cistern (5.95 u 2.50 m; h. not recorded) was divided into two naves and was covered by a barrel vault; the second cistern, probably an open-air tank, had a circular shape (ø 6 m). Lugli 1928: 26, #29

Figure L81. Circeo, Murone (after Lugli 1928).

340 catalogue: latium

latium: circeo

341

Circeo L80 – Monte di Leano To the east of the Sisto River, on a hill at the foot of Monte Leano, Lugli recorded a large villa built on an articial platform. On the north side of the platform the retaining wall was buttressed and had large arched windows, which illuminated the barrel vaulted rooms on the upper level. Lugli saw on the walls the sockets for the wooden posts that created the two levels of the villa. On the west side of the complex the retaining wall and cryptoportico were mostly in ruin. Cisterns were located to the north of the platform, and probably in the middle of the platform as well. On the surface of the articial terrace Lugli saw large walls and fragments of vaults. The walls were built in opus incertum, dated by the scholar to the period between the Gracchi and Sulla. Lugli 1928: 62, #44

Circeo L81 – Murone The remains of this villa were identied between the town of S. Felice al Circeo and the coast, and consisted of a building on an articially attened rock spur, with two porticoes ( porticus in gamma). The north side of the portico measured 54.70 m and was built in opus incertum with small stones. The lower part of this wall had blind arches. The west side, built with a similar technique and design, measured 29.70 m. Lugli noted large fragments of collapsed vaults and two stone blocks, in situ, with protruding rectangular elements, possibly belonging to pillars of a portico or atrium, paved with opus spicatum. He reported seeing on this oor “in alcuni punti si trovano incastrati dei cerchi fatti con frammenti di coppi messi per taglio, a somiglianza dell’opera spicata stessa”. I wonder if these “circles” might be related to press beds, but unfortunately no measurements or record of the number of circles was given. This site is not far from the villa L90 – villetta. Lugli 1928: 9, #10

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catalogue: latium

Circeo L82 – Peretto The scanty remains of this villa were located to the northwest of S. Felice; the villa was built on an articial platform, and Lugli could see the walls emerging from the ground. At a higher level was a two-nave cistern, already partly destroyed when Lugli surveyed it. Lugli 1928: 38, #43

Circeo L83 – S. Maria della Sorresca The Church of S. Maria della Sorresca, on the shore at the north end of the lake of Paola, was built in the 6th century a.d. by the Benedictines on a spot previously occupied by a villa. Various architectural elements and columns are re-used in the church walls. Nearby was a cistern (6 u 4.5 m) in opus mixtum, dated to the late 1st/early 2nd century a.d. Lugli 1928, #31–32

latium: circeo

343

Circeo L84 – S. Vito In the middle of what was once the marsh area inland from the Circeo peninsula, in the vicinity of the Church of S. Vito, a large villa rustica was recorded. The little church was in part built using the Roman structures as the foundation, and used a cistern of the villa as a crypt. Farmers reported nding walls and black and white mosaic tesserae when ploughing their elds. Lugli 1928: 54, #27

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Figure L85. Circeo, Torre del Fico (after Lafon 2001).

latium: circeo

345

Circeo L85 – Torre del Fico Remains of a shpond together with some structures on the coast were recorded in a small cove on the south side of the Circeo peninsula. The structures were badly damaged by a quarry, which cut the hillside creating a theater-like shape. In the past some scholars and travelers were misled by this shape and mistakenly identied the remains as belonging to a theater. The shpond was rectangular (50 u 30 m), sub-divided into two circular tanks on the sides and a rectangular one in the center [A]. Other rectangular compartments seem to have been on the sea side. Lugli reported that the construction was not of good quality; the foundation and core of the walls were in conglomerate which used large limestone and tufa pieces, possibly with a facing in opus incertum. On the shore, scanty remains of walls in opus incertum were visible, including, on opposite sides, two trilobal apses [B], maybe part of the bath quarters. Two sites listed by Lugli as villas are located ca. 200 m from this shpond, very close to each other (19 and 20). In both cases the articial platform forming the basis villae is visible. At Site 19 the surviving platform measured 16 u 30.20 m and was built in opus polygonale; Site 20, located 120 m to the northeast of the previous one, had at least two terraces. One measured 32.10 u 36.40 m, and was also built in opus polygonale. Lugli 1928: 13, #18–20; Lafon 2001

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Figure L86. Circeo, Torre Moresca (after Lugli 1928).

latium: circeo

347

Circeo L86 – Torre Moresca Only the terraces and the cisterns belonging to this villa were visible when Lugli surveyed the area located immediately inland from where Torre Moresca once stood. On the upper terrace was a rectangular cistern (17.20 u 5.90 m; h. not recorded) [A] in opus incertum, with an inow made of roof tiles. Lugli recorded two other terraces at a lower level, with retaining walls in opus incertum, of which the bottom one measured 30.70 u 32.60 m. On this terrace was another cistern, smaller in size (6 m. long; width and height not given) [B]. Lugli 1928: 26, #30

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Figure L87. Circeo, Torre Vittoria (after Lugli 1928).

latium: circeo

349

Circeo L87 – Torre Vittoria Remains of a maritime villa were identied by the sea, right under Torre Vittoria. Immediately inland Lugli saw a rectangular enclosure (57.20 u 32.90 m) [A] and a possible portico or corridor [B], which ran under a modern farmhouse. The walls had footings made with large stones and were built in opus reticulatum. Lugli 1928: 7, #8

Circeo L88 – Villa Two villas were identied by Lugli on the shore of the lake between the L74 – casarina site and the large L78 – imperial villa. At the rst site he saw the retaining wall built with triangular bricks and, on the platform above, rooms in opus mixtum with polychrome reticulate walls. Lugli 1928: 54, #19

Circeo L89 – Villa The second of the two villas identied by Lugli between the L74 – casarina site and the large L78 – imperial villa presented walls in opus mixtum protruding towards the lake. Lugli judged it a fairly large villa, but could not examine the ruins closely because of the thick vegetation. Lugli 1928: 54, #20

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Figure L90a. Circeo, Villetta: rst terrace (after Lugli 1928).

Figure L90b. Circeo, Villetta: second terrace (after Lugli 1928).

latium: circeo

351

Circeo L90 – Villetta, also I Quattro Venti The maritime villa, close to L81 – murone, had a very large basis villae formed by multiple substructures. Two parallel retaining walls created the platform, connected by perpendicular walls every 5.90 m. Because of the morphology of the terrain, the south side of the platform is not straight; the resulting triangular space was probably a garden, where at a later epoch a circular nymphaeum was built. The entrance to the villa was on the northwest side, on the third terrace (Lugli seems to discuss four levels for this villa). The rst terrace had a vaulted portico which ran around it [A] and two cisterns in the middle [B], the remainder of the platform being lled with soil. A small barrel vaulted corridor, ending with six steps, connected the cryptoportico to the second terrace. On this terrace was an atrium [C] (17.60 u 10.55 m), paved with local stone slabs and surrounded by a portico featuring pillars, measuring 0.60 u 0.45 m each. Although it did not have a proper impluvium, a water channel ran around it, collecting water from the roof and sending it into the cisterns below. A few rooms of the pars urbana were discovered on this terrace, some featuring black and white tesserae mosaics and frescoes. The villa was built in very regular opus incertum, using stones of the same size and with little mortar. Lugli dated it to the late 1st century b.c., and attributed the ownership of the complex to some rich person from Circeii. On the coast, there are remains of two breakwaters in conglomerate, in two coves next to each other. The largest of the structures is 45 m long and has foundations more than 1 m wide. Very likely the structure belonged to a small private harbor which was part of this villa. Lugli 1928: 8, #11

Map 9. Civitavecchia and S. Marinella (A. Marzano).

352 catalogue: latium

latium: civitavecchia

353

CIVITAVECCHIA (Centumcellae) In his study on the territory of Civitavecchia published in 1939, Bastianelli recorded the presence in the territory of fty villae rusticae or more, usually located on the tops of hills and surrounded by walls built a secco delimiting the property. In most cases the surface nds consisted only of cover tiles. In one instance, at Campo Reale, Bastianelli also documented the discovery of fragments of columns. He recorded that all the villas had presses, and that one could see remains of the calcatorium and of the vats. In S. Francesco di Paola a large villa rustica had also two sunken dolia recovered in situ.

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Figure L91. Civitavecchia, La Mattonara (after Lafon 2001).

latium: civitavecchia

355

Civitavecchia L91 – La Mattonara The promontory of La Mattonara is located 3 km northeast of Civitavecchia. The remains of a villa, including also a harbor and shpond, were located here. Almost nothing is known of the villa structures. The shpond was cut into the rock shelf projecting around the promontory and was nished with concrete walls, faced in opus reticulatum. It is divided into three tanks, the main one (25 u 30 m) being rectangular, with traces of further internal divisions. The other two tanks, smaller in size, are trapezoidal in plan, and are to the west of the main tank. The seaward (western) side of the enclosure is connected to the sea by two channels cut into the rock bed. Higginbotham suggests that the smaller of the trapezoidal tanks was used as a holding tank for selected sh or shellsh. The small port was protected by a long rocky arm protruding into the sea (115 m). At the end of this arm, cut into the rock, there is another pond, circular in shape (ø 7.6 m), the so-called “Buca di Nerone”, maybe also used to hold sh. The shpond has been dated to the third quarter of the 1st century b.c. on the basis of the type of opus reticulatum. Schmiedt 1972; Higginbotham 1997; Lafon 2001

Civitavecchia L92 – Punta del Pecoraro The villa, already completely destroyed by Bastianelli’s time by the construction of a sports complex, had a sea front of ca. 60 m, mosaic oors, and a shpond. Gianfrotta saw along the shore remains of conglomerate walls, collapsed brick structures, and two opus reticulatum walls with hydraulic mortar running parallel to each other towards the open sea, probably related to one of the channels of the shpond. Remains of other structures in opus signinum were visible in the sea at low tide. Bastianelli 1939; Bastianelli 1954; Gianfrotta 1972, #117

Civitavecchia L93 – Punta S. Paolo The site, 1.7 km north of Civitavecchia, was much disturbed by modern construction. In the sea, just off the south end of the small promontory Punta S. Paolo, was a square shpond divided into four tanks, partially cut into the rock shelf and nished with concrete walls. The northwest corner of the pond was buttressed by a concrete pier, which possibly also served as anchorage for boats stocking the pond. The possibility that this pier was the base of a watchtower also needs to be considered. Higginbotham did not detect any datable element for this shpond. Bastianelli, describing the no longer existing remains of the villa on the shore wrote of a “large villa”, with “lavish mosaic oors”. One of these mosaics featured polychrome tesserae and depicted Nereides on dolphins. Bastianelli also described remains of opus reticulatum walls and

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catalogue: latium large terracotta pipes in addition to a portico/terrace with stuccoed columns on the sea side.

Bastianeli 1939; Bastianelli 1954; Schmiedt 1972; Higginbotham 1997

Civitavecchia L94 – Torre S. Agostino Bastianelli documented a maritime villa in this location; he saw scanty remains, consisting of walls employing small tufa blocks with layers of bricks, and in the sea two granites columns, one of which was ca. 8 m long. Bastianelli 1954

Figure L95. Civitavecchia, Torre Valdaliga: shpond (after Schmiedt 1972).

latium: civitavecchia

357

Civitavecchia L95 – Torre Valdaliga Torre Valdiga is located just north of ancient Algae, 4.5 km northeast of Civitavecchia. On the seashore the poor remains of a Roman villa are visible. The villa was largely destroyed in 1616 during the construction of the tower by Pope Paul V. In front of the villa, on a rocky shelf extending into the sea, are the remains of a shpond. The piscina was built in a large natural cove of volcanic rock, which is easily eroded by the sea, with walls faced in opus reticulatum. At least six channels supplied the pond with seawater. The northwestern part of the pond has concrete walls dividing it into three separate tanks. Remains of a concrete vault and tesselatum oor indicate that these walls also supported a terrace or platform, which covered almost a third of the pond. Another cove was used as a private harbor for the villa. An early 1st century b.c. date for the construction of the villa is inferred from remains of walls in opus incertum, with a major phase of construction in the third quarter of the 1st century b.c. Opus reticulatum walls with stone blocks for corners and opus signinum oors with tesserae of limestone are dated by Bastianelli to this period. The villa in this phase occupied at least 3,000 m² and had a terrace-belvedere on the sea side with columns faced with stucco. Brickfaced walls and vaults attest restorations during the Empire. Bastianelli 1954; Schmiedt 1972; Higginbotham 1997

Figure L96. Cottanello (after Sternini 2000).

358 catalogue: latium

latium: cottanello

359

COTTANELLO (Ager Foronovanus)

L96 – Cottanello The villa, which has an excavated extent of 37 u 45 m, is located in the territory of ancient Forum Novum in modern Vescovio, in the province of Rieti. The town became a municipium in the 1st century a.d., and had a forum with a basilica, and an amphitheater, recently discovered. The villa very likely belonged to the gens Cotta (see place name and infra). Literary sources mention properties of this family in Minturno and Ostia. M. Aurelius Cotta Messalinus may have owned a villa on Elba Island, as inferred from Ovid (Ex Pont., 2.3.83–90, referring to their last meeting on Elba before Ovid’s departure for exile). The Cotta mentioned on a stamped dolium (M. Cottae) found at the site was possibly Maximus Cotta Messalinus, cos. in 20 a.d., a gure close to Tiberius and the author of two books on agriculture. The excavation carried out by the Soprintendenza in the early 1970s unearthed remains of the atrium [E], bath suite [F], cryptoportico [D], peristyle [A], and rooms with black and white tesserae mosaics, some with an insertion of polychrome tesserae. Some of the mosaic oors were lifted, consolidated and then replaced in the original position. Three chronological phases were identied: (1) 3rd–1st centuries b.c.: Probe trenches opened in the atrium and the bath suite revealed an earlier phase in opus incertum. Traces of oors in opus spicatum, scutulatum and painted plaster were also found. It is impossible to reconstruct the plan of the building in this phase. (2) 1st century b.c.–2nd century a.d.: In this phase the villa was of considerable size with rooms placed around the atrium, and a peristyle court with a large room [C] facing it. This room may have been an oecus. To the west of the atrium is the bath suite F, added in phase 2b.To this phase belong also the mosaics and possibly the architectural terracottas recovered. An exedra [B], with elaborate mosaics constitutes the elegant entrance to room C. The oor mosaic of the room forms a pattern of white squares with a lost emblema in the middle. It is a design similar to the one in Room 18 of the volusii villa (L106). The walls are in opus reticulatum, the foundation in opus incertum. (3) 2nd century a.d.—unknown: It is not clear when the villa was abandoned. Despite of pottery of the 4th–5th centuries, Sternini expresses doubts as to whether the villa at this time was still functioning as a residence or was in ruin. The pottery nds date from the end of the 2nd century b.c. to the 6th century a.d. and include: Italic wine amphorae dated from the 2nd century b.c. to the 2nd century a.d. (Dressel 2–4 and Spello); garum amphorae from Baetica and Lusitania dated to the 2nd century a.d.; North African amphorae and sigillata dated to the 3rd–6th centuries a.d. The African sigillata does not go beyond the mid-5th century. The pottery dated to the 6th century belongs to a class with a wide chronological range; therefore, the 6th century date is not certain. No black glaze pottery is attested, but Sternini notes that some boxes containing pottery recovered in the old excavation were lost.

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catalogue: latium Two funerary inscriptions were also found, one mentioning a scriba rei publicae Foronovanorum; the other, dated to the 2nd century, is dedicated to Iulia Felicitas by her husband Ulpius Florentinus. Velocia Rinaldi alludes to a stula found in Cottanello stamped with L. Cotta’s name, but Sternini 2000 does not mention this nding in her publication. She also mentions that an ergastulum was excavated in the area of S. Paolo dei Cavalieri, but I could not locate any further information about this. Sternini 2004, reports a recent discovery of an underground aqueduct, probably a private aqueduct for the villa.

Velocia Rinaldi 1994; Gaffney et al. 2000; Sternini 2000; Sternini 2004

latium: crocicchie

361

CROCICCHIE

L97 – Crocicchie Three buildings were identied on a hill along the Via Clodia; two of them are known only from surface nds. In the early Imperial phase, the complex was probably a modest villa, with a possible barn, dated to this age on the basis of the opus reticulatum technique and Arretine sigillata. Some cisterns are located in the proximity. In the 3rd century, however, a bath-house with mosaic oors was added. It consisted of ve rooms, including a caldarium with an apse. Potter and Dunbabin 1979

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FARA IN SABINA

L98 – Cures, Monte Elci This site is located along the ancient Via Salaria, in the Fosso di Corese, on the border between the territory of Cures and that of Trebula. At the foot of Monte Elci, between the route of the Via Salaria Nuova and the Via Salaria Vecchia, about 600 m up the hill from Osteria di Nerola, is an articial terrace which formed the platform for a villa. The terrace measures 70 u 70 m (= 2 actus) and is partly built in Third Type opus polygonale. No superstructure pertaining to the villa is visible, only scattered material brought to the surface by ploughing, such as tile and amphorae fragments, plaster fragments, etc., dated by Quilici to the Imperial period. The establishment of the villa is dated to the second half of the 2nd century b.c. A series of retaining walls along Valle delle Fontanelle is interpreted by Quilici as forming small terraces for pasture (nowadays the area is still used for horse-pasture). Quilici notes that the villa had large and expensive installations, and it showed planning in the agrarian techniques used, indicating specialized cultures and the availability of a large supply of manpower. He thinks that the production was market oriented, very likely serving Rome’s needs, through the Via Salaria. Quilici 1995

Fara in Sabina L99 – Cures, Zara Madonna This villa was built sometime in the late Republican period. Before the excavation of the villa, in that same area a dedication to L. Iulius Marinus Caecilius Simplex (AE 1947: 156) was found, giving his full cursus honorum. Simplex was legatus of Trajan in Lycia and Pamphylia in 96–7 a.d. and consul in 101 or 102 a.d. An inscription with the same text recovered here was also found in the nearby town of Canneto Sabino (CIL IX.4965 = ILS.1026). It seems that the villa was abandoned due to the barbaric invasions and then reoccupied, re-using building material from Cures, such as architectural pieces, and a fragment of Constantinian sarcophagus. Several tombs dated post-3rd century were dug in the deposits lling the rooms of the villa. Marella Vianello 1944–1945; Muzzioli 1980

Fara in Sabina L100 – Passo Corese Only the nding of a stula may indicate that Sex. Baius Pudens, the governor of Mauretania Caesariensis in 167 a.d., had a villa here. He is also mentioned in an inscription from Tofa, in the province of Rieti (CIL, IX.4964). Paribeni 1928

latium: fianello

363

FIANELLO

L101 – Fianello The villa is located near the church of S. Maria in Fianello and had a pars urbana and a pars rustica. Many examples of its Hellenistic sculptural decoration, now in the Museo delle Terme in Rome, were recovered in the 1950s in a pit intended for the making of lime. Most of the sculptures date to ca. 100 b.c. and come from Delos, although some statues of Imperial date were also found. The statues, although in fragmentary status, were well preserved; some still showed traces of painting, and it is assumed that they were housed in the villa until the construction of the paleo-Christian church in the 5th century, when they were removed. This discovery led to the excavation of the villa. Two rooms were found, one of which had cocciopesto facing on the walls and a ooring made with marble slabs, on which were fallen fragments of painted plaster. At the end of the room the oor was inclined slightly towards a stula connected to a drain. In 1972 a probe trench under the left apse of the church recovered a torcular room paved in opus spicatum, with the sockets for the arbores and the circular press bed. Two mosaics were also found, giving the rst phase of the villa a date of the late Republic. The other rustic parts date between 1st and 2nd century a.d. Sternini 2000; Sternini 2004

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Map 10. Fiano Romano (A. Marzano).

Figure L102. Fiano Romano, Baciletti (after Fontana 1995).

latium: fiano romano

365

FIANO ROMANO (Lucus Feroniae)

Fiano Romano L102 – Baciletti This villa had two major phases. In the rst phase the building measured 40 u 30 m and had a press room and portico on the west side, featuring a kiln. The second phase of the villa, generically dated as late Imperial, consisted of a building measuring 50 u 30 m, with a portico on the west side and, in front of it, a barn. In this phase the press room was transformed into a rectangular room (30 u 10 m), maybe used as a stable or a storeroom. The villa was abandoned in the 6th century a.d. Among the nds were kitchen knives and eastern containers, which have been dated to the late Empire. Poster in the museum of Lucus Feroniae

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Figure L103. Fiano Romano, Prato La Corte (after Fontana 1995).

latium: fiano romano

367

Fiano Romano L103 – Prato la Corte Starting in 1982 remains of a large villa were discovered in the area of Le Cese—Prato la Corte, located 1.2 km from Lucus Feroniae. In connection with the villa were three kilns for lime production [C]. When the kilns fell out of use, the villa was enlarged, partly obliterating them. The paved road that connected Lucus Feroniae with Capena was identied 40 m south of the production area. A diverticulum ran between the villa and the production area; another private road (via glareata) ran along the south side of the kilns. The width of both of these roads was 3.68 m. Only part of the peristyle garden of the villa was excavated [D], an area in later times transformed into a necropolis, as well as part of a rectangular pond, located to the south of the kilns. The largest kiln is on the west side of the excavated area; next to it are three rooms [A] which must have been connected with the production process. Two of these rooms pre-date the kiln, since their walls are in part cut by the kiln structure. The two other kilns were obliterated by three rooms [B], dated to the Imperial age. Preliminary studies of the pottery recovered date the rst phase of the complex to the mid-1st century b.c. (Italic sigillata and Dressel 2–4) and the abandonment of the large kiln to the early 2nd century a.d. Fontana 1995

Figure L104. Fiano Romano, Villa “della Standa” (after Gazzetti 1992).

368 catalogue: latium

latium: fiano romano

369

Fiano Romano L104 – Villa “Della Standa” The villa was built in an area that belonged to the grove sacred to Feronia and had a life span from the 2nd century b.c. to the 5th century a.d. To the rst phase belong an impluvium (later obliterated by walls), a cubiculum with oor in cocciopesto decorated with small square marble tiles, and a larger room with cocciopesto oor decorated with marble lozenges (later divided into two rooms). The building technique is opus incertum employing local limestone. The villa is delimited on the northeast side by a wall in opus incertum, along which ran a paved road. It seems that an original area with a portico was in a second phase provided with a torcular olearium, a torcular vinarium with lacus, an olive-mill, a room paved in opus spicatum, and a courtyard with a drinking-trough. The residential part of the villa was enhanced ca. 40–30 b.c., the third building phase of the villa, by the addition of a bath suite (including apodyterium, frigidarium, tepidarium, caldarium), black and white mosaics with geometric patterns, and opus sectile. The walls belonging to this phase are in opus reticulatum. A garden peristyle with central open air cistern or pool was located in the eastern part of the complex. From this area, which was divided into smaller rooms in a later phase, come planting pots. In the west corner of the garden peristyle was a kiln and a well. On part of the garden in a Late Antique phase a building with an apse was also added (not in plan). The enlargement of the structure to the south, with the addition of several rooms around the paved courtyard also seems to date to Phase 3. The function of these rooms is not certain; they could have been stables or storerooms for tools (the excavation report lists the nding of tools but does not specify the type). The villa had a paved diverticulum leading to it on the southwestern side, and the travertine threshold and jambs for the gate at the end of the diverticulum were found. Finds include: an inscription mentioning a Volusius, which could be not in situ, considering the closeness of this site to the L106 – Volusii Saturnini villa, black glaze fragments (Campana B), Dressel 1 amphorae, Italic sigillata, “Campana” plaques, ne and coarse ware, small marble slabs, metal laminae, nails, bosses, tools, rings, glass fragments, a loomweight, fragments of an olive-mill, a small marble Minerva head and a double headed herma of Bacchus; brick stamps date between the 1st and 3rd centuries a.d. The pottery dated to the end of the 1st/beginning of the 2nd century a.d. includes ceramics from southern Gaul. African sigillata D, spatheia, and a follis of Constantine show an occupation of the villa in the 4th century. Brunetti Nardi 1981; Carandini 1985b; Gazzetti 1992; De Franceshini 2005, #98; Poster in the Museum of Lucus Feroniae

Figure L106. Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini villa (after Sgubini Moretti 1998).

370 catalogue: latium

latium: fiano romano

371

Fiano Romano L105 – Villa Nocioni – Gigliotti This villa was built along the Via Capenatis about 1 km from the Porta Capena of Lucus Feroniae. It was a large complex, but as a consequence of agricultural work, poorly preserved. Three major chronological phases were identied: late Republican, Augustan, and late Imperial (4th–6th centuries). A limestone quarry, lled with waste and pottery fragments dated to the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 1st century b.c., was identied below a terracing wall in opus incertum, dating to the Sullan period. In the Augustan period the villa was enlarged and the enclosed area to the west, delimited by a wall in opus reticulatum, was transformed into a garden where many planting pots were recovered. In an undetermined later period the area delimited by the walls in opus incertum and reticulatum was used for burials. In this same period an olive press was installed; the villa had also a torcular vinarium, whose lacus was found along the south wall of the peristyle, but it is unspecied to which phase of the villa it refers. The villa was connected to the main road by a paved diverticulum. Between the late 4th and the early 6th centuries a.d., a new building was erected on the front on the Via Capenatis. This building used earlier building material taken from the villa and the necropolis; it was probably a taberna, then divided into two sections in the 5th century, and possibly used for different purposes, judging from ne materials and marble revetments of this phase. In this period, the production area to the north of the villa was restored and another one was probably built on the north side of the peristyle. Brunetti Nardi 1981; Gazzetti 1992

Fiano Romano L106 – Volusii Saturnini villa The villa of the Volusii Saturnini featured a pars urbana [A], a pars rustica and the so-called “ergastula”, the peristyle courtyard with modular rooms added in the Augustan phase [C]. The villa was probably built by Q. Volusius around 50 b.c., as shown by the opus incertum building technique, and later restored and enlarged by his son under Augustus (building phase in opus reticulatum). The villa rested on a basis villae with cryptoportico and in its original phase comprised a hortus and press rooms [B] to the east of the residential part. The recovery of an oil mill indicates oil production, but possibly the press was used for both oil and wine, since the villa also featured a storage area with dolia defossa, typical of wine production. In the Augustan phase a large garden [D] was added, the west side of which had an exedra [E] with three niches, where statues of Heracles, Euripides, and Menander were found. A wall surrounded the villa, which occupied about 1/3 of the enclosed area. Other constructions were located along this enclosing wall. The complex [F] featuring a small press room, near the exedra, has been interpreted as a possible farmhouse for a colonus and tentatively dated to the 2nd century.

372

catalogue: latium The last members of the Volusii Saturnini family attested are the two brothers who lived under Domitian; since pottery nds and coins go down to the 4th century a.d., it is believed that this villa became part of the Imperial scus probably during Domitian’s reign or by the time of Trajan at the latest, who is mentioned as restitutor coloniae in an inscription recording the restorations of the Augusteum and basilica of Lucus Feroniae. Some of the mosaics in the residential part have recently been re-dated to the 2nd century (De Franceschini 2005: 274 ff.). In the 3rd and 4th centuries poor quality restorations are attested; some tombs alla cappuccina were recovered in the rooms, dated on the basis of their typology to the 3rd–4th centuries. A marble head of Sabina, wife of Hadrian, was recovered at the villa site.

Volusii Saturnini 1982; Sgubini-Moretti 1998; Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003; De Franceschini 2005, #99 FONDI (Fundi) For villas in this area see sites listed under Sperlonga. Fundi was traversed by the Via Appia, and this fact was important for the economic life of the town. It received full citizenship in 188 B.C. and also remained prosperous after the colonial deduction carried out under Augustus. Near the modern village of Monte S. Biagio, in the area of Portella, was thought to be a villa owned by Frontinus on the basis of mention in an 18th century work of the recovery of stulae stamped Sex.Iul. Frontinus. In the area only a portion of a wall in opus reticulatum is visible, and whether it belongs to a villa is uncertain. Di Fazio 2006 FORANO

L107 – Gaviniano, Colli Rotti The basis villae of this complex was a platform made with conglomerate, buttressed retaining walls. The architectural elements visible in the area of the modern cemetery, such as column drums and capitals, were related to this villa. Sternini 2004

Forano L108 – Gaviniano, S. Maria Assunta The presence of ancient remains in this area has been noted since the 19th century; in documents of the time there are various references to mosaic oors and “antichità”. Recent restoration works in the church of S. Maria Assunta have discovered a wall in opus quasi-reticulatum, which offers the only chronological element available for this site. Sternini 2004

latium: forano – formia

373

Forano L109 – Gelsetta Not much is known about this villa; the area was excavated in 1827, and the discovery of statuary and brick stamps is reported, but no description of the structures. Some of the stamps date to Domitian; also dated to the 1st century a.d. is the fragment of an inscription mentioning a member of the gens of the Cocceii Nervae together with a member of the gens Flavia. Sternini 2004

Forano L110 – Le Fornaci, also Colle dei Gradini The area where the villa stood was rich in surface scatter consisting of painted plaster and marble fragments; Lugli had observed remains of barrel vaulted substructures and at a lower level, probably in the garden of the villa, an open air circular cistern (ø 40 m), with nearby a oor in opus spicatum. Sternini 2004 FORMIA (Formiae)

L111 – Torre Gianola Ancient ruins covered a large area on the promontory of Gianola, in the Gulf of Gaeta, at the east end of Formia (near Scauri). P. Mattei described the remains of the villa in 1845. Previous scholars like Pratilli in 1745 (bibliographical references in Ciccone 1990: 5) interpreted the ruins, without any grounds, as a temple to Janus. An interesting piece of information in one of these antiquarian sources is the mention of a paved road departing from the Via Appia (km 148.350), in alignment with the “temple”, evidently a diverticulum for the villa. The cove of Porto Gianola is indicated in a document of 1391 as portum Janule prope Scaulum, (the oppidum Pyrae in Plin., NH, 3.59), an urban center abandoned and incorporated in the construction of the villa L187 – Scauri. To the north of the promontory of Gianola the place name Mamurrano has been related to fundi owned by Mamurra, the equestrian gure close to Caesar. The eques was indeed from Formia.

Figure L111. Formia, Torre Gianola (after Ciccone 1990).

374 catalogue: latium

latium: formia

375

The ruins of the villa are concentrated on the summit of the hill and along its southern slope, on three terraces. The top of the hill is occupied by a monumental and original tumulus structure [A] with an octagonal plan in which the sides of the octagon are carefully aligned with the cardinal points. The entire layout of the villa seems to be a unitary project with the axis along which the terraces are located determined by the position of the octagonal structure. The complex has an open-fronted architecture marked by terraces and porticoes. The columns were made of bricks and plastered with uted opus marmoratus. The remains of a piscina are at the mouth of the little river Gianola (note the place name of Piscinola for this area). Another shpond was in the cove of Porto di Gianola. The best preserved structures are a large cistern [B] divided by four rows of pillars and known in antiquarian works as the “Hall of the Thirty-six Columns”, and a covered staircase, “Janara Grotto” [C], leading to a balneum [ D] built on the rocks by the sea with pools cut directly into the rock bed. At this level, remains of rooms and corridors indicate a complex layout. A second cistern [E] is located at the east end of the middle terrace. This one is larger than the above-mentioned cistern and presents next to it a series of vaulted rooms which are the substructures for the upper terrace. The building technique is typical late Republican with opus incertum and quasi-reticulatum. Signs of 1st century a.d. restorations are few. Abundant traces of decoration were recovered: stucco decorations, opus marmoratum with white background and linear decoration or blue, red and black plaster. Different types of marble and stones were used for oors, walls revetments, and moldings. The mosaic oor presents a white background and geometric patterns in green tesserae. Many glass tesserae were also found. Considerable ingenuity was shown in connecting the various terraces, whose difference in height is quite large; for example, the above-mentioned staircase “Janara Grotto”, a combination of stairs and cryptoportico, overcomes a difference of 18 m. Attention was given to “scenographic” settings even in this part of the villa. At the end of the staircase and before the entrance to the corridor was located a rectangular room which had a plaster decoration imitating walls of a grotto, a shaft to allow daylight, and on the side resting on the rocky hill slope, a horizontal, rock-cut surface for a statuary group. The source of water supply for the villa, which besides the baths had various fountains, is not completely clear. The cisterns show signs of the in-ow lead pipes, and a castellum aquae is at the east end of the rocks, but from where the water came to the castellum is not known. This water tower is connected to some arches holding a channel that seems to lead to a hypogeum. On the plateau to the east of the octagonal building is a long ornamental pond [F], a euripus measuring 75 u 5.30 m (1 m deep). The over-ow is at the east end of the pool, so the in-ow was probably at the other end. According to Mattei, pools or vats were located in the octagonal building, possible indication that a spring was channeled at this point, and explanation for having a euripus at this elevation.

376

catalogue: latium The vault of the octagonal hall was decorated with mosaic marble tesserae depicting stars, and the room had a central pillar. Around the central room unfolded a series of rooms with apses. The walls of the central hall present, only on the internal side, hydraulic plaster. Ciccone suggests that in this hall springs were intercepted, hence the necessity to isolate the walls from the rock bed rich in water. The entire interior of the building was decorated to imitate a grotto: the ambulacrum around the hall had imitation stalactites on the vaults. The width of the central walls of this peculiar structure and archaeological nds from the covering indicate an earth-mound top (tumulus), probably with vegetation, thus making the rendition of the grotto more realistic. Ciccone thinks that the complex structure, which had a sophisticated system of aeration, illumination, and drainage, was a nymphaeum/museum (according to Pliny’s usage of the term musea for articial grottos in buildings) and that the series of spaces with apses were possibly intended for the display of works of art.

De Rossi 1968; Ciccone 1990; Lafon 2001

Formia L112 – Torre Mola The scanty remains of a Roman villa are located in the area of Torre Mola. Possibly the villa belonged to Mamurra, since the place name for the area is “Mammorano”. Coarelli 1982

latium: formia

377

Formia L113 – Villa comunale The remains of a villa concealed by the municipal garden Umberto I were briey mentioned by Aurigemma and de Santis in the mid-1950s. Recent works in the urban center to build a new sewer line uncovered ancient structures that belong to this villa. Four rooms were partly investigated in front the city hall; one presented First Style wall decoration with panels imitating marble veneer and a cocciopesto oor with limestone tesserae; a second room had a white tesserae mosaic oor with black tesserae, and a third one a cocciopesto oor decorated with rosettes. The proposed dating, on the basis of the type of oors and wall decoration, is the late 2nd century b.c. This last room was in a subsequent phase divided into two rooms; the presence of Third and Fourth Style wall decoration suggests a date for this second phase in the mid-1st century a.d. A probable garden was also identied: a threshold with hinge holes leads into an area with no oor, interpreted as an internal garden. The villa originally consisted of various terraces overlooking the sea. The substructures under Piazza della Vittoria, discovered in the early 20th century and recently reinvestigated, were part of this same complex. The substructures formed a cryptoportico, with a vault decorated by a fresco depicting squares formed by ivy leaves with gryphons. The villa, which in antiquity was a suburban villa built right outside of the city walls, also had a rectangular shpond with fresh water springs next to it. Ca. 200 m to the northwest of Piazza dell Vittoria, remains of another building were found, whose relation with the villa complex is not clear. In one trench a large wall and part of marble oor were related, on the basis of old archival documents, to the discovery made in the 1920s of a monumental natatio in Via Nerva and never fully published. The natatio was at that time only partly investigated, and although two building phases were recognized, their chronology was not dened; the rst building phase has been attributed to the future emperor Nerva on the basis of a fragmentary inscription reading: M. Cocceius M. f. Pap. Nerva cos II s.p. At the time of the discovery, large interest was created by the recovery of statues, which were placed in the pool, of Nereids on sea-monsters, a large statue of Apollo (now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples), and a statue of Venus (currently in the museum in Formia). The sculptures, in particular the Nereids, are considered Greek originals, part of war booty, and have been variously dated by scholars (dates range from the 4th century b.c. to the 2nd or 1st century b.c.). A reconstruction of the complex proposed by Jacono at that time indicated a trapezoidal pool measuring 85 u 50 m, with marble veneer and, on the short sides, an architectural prospectus: six columns in front of a central sacellum. In consideration of the inscription it has been suggested that the natatio complex was built by Nerva in a villa he owned, which, at least to some extent, was accessible to the people (hence the inscription recording the construction). Many points about this complex remain unclear, however.

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Figure L113. Formia, Villa Comunale: shpond (after Aurigemma and de Santis 1955).

latium: formia

379

We cannot be sure that Nerva built the whole complex, since we lack data on the building technique of the complex; he may have restored or embellished a pre-exiting structure. Having the inscription with ofcial nomenclature to record a construction in his villa appears odd, although in another case a monumental inscription recording the restorations of a theater in Nemi by a certain Volusia has been attributed by some scholars to a villa she owned, an opinion rmly rejected by others (see Chapter 7); perhaps we should think of some kind of public building Nerva built/restored? Finally, considering the proximity to the remains described above, their relationship is not clear: if the natatio did belong to a villa, we do not know whether it was one large complex, including the structures found in Piazza della Vittoria, or two separate complexes. Between “le Saline” and the villa di Fava, to the west of the docks for the new harbor, Aurigemma reported that shponds were visible, probably also to be attributed to villa/s. Aurigemma and de Santis 1955; Cassieri 2003

Figure L114. Formia, Villa Rubino (after Coarelli 1982).

380 catalogue: latium

latium: formia – frascati

381

Formia L114 – Villa Rubino The modern villa Rubino incorporates the remains of a villa attributed to Cicero by the antiquarian tradition. The ancient remains consist of three terraces overlooking the sea, two badly preserved shponds [A], and a harbor [B]. On the lower terrace are two nymphaea. One with a vaulted ceiling with lacunars is dated to the mid-1st century b.c.; the other, which features a fountain dated to the late 2nd century b.c., presents stucco decorations dating to the 1st century b.c. The shponds were rectangular enclosures, 25 m apart, measuring roughly 75 u 45 m and 25 u ? m (width indeterminable). To the west of the harbor are the remains of a building [C], maybe part of the same villa-complex: a rectangular court surrounded by long rooms, probably storehouses and tabernae. Coarelli 1982 FRASCATI (see also Tusculum and Map 16, p. 590)

L115 – Frascati After the destruction of Tuscolo in 1191, the town of Frascati was built over the substructures of a very large villa. Traditionally, it has been attributed to L. Licinius Lucullus, since in the area of Villa Torlonia starting in the 16th century inscriptions with his name were recovered, together with a relief depicting two freedmen of the Licinii. Finds in the area of the villa also include stulae with the names of Agrippina, Nero, and Domitian, so that a passing of the property into the Imperial scus is supposed. The complex had a rectangular plan (166.50 u 163 m), with a forepart 123.50 m long, and was probably articulated on 5 or 6 terraces. The substructures have two phases. To the rst phase belongs the cryptoportico in opus reticulatum, divided into two naves by columns. In a second phase the basis villae was enlarged to the southwest. The northwest section of the villa has ve vaulted rooms above the cryptoportico, with traces of frescoes depicting natural landscapes with garden backgrounds and stucco decoration. The rst phase of the villa should be dated to the late 2nd century b.c.; in the late Republican/early Imperial period the complex had a general re-organization of structures and space as shown by the numerous reticulate walls. Structures in opus mixtum and latericium indicate a mid-Imperial phase. For all the remains that can be related to this villa discovered throughout the centuries in Frascati see Valenti. Coarelli 1981; Egidi 1981; Valenti 2003, #437–487

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Figure L116. Fregene, Campo delle Corse (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: fregene – gaeta

383

FREGENE

L116 – Campo delle Corse The villa, located 600 m inland at the time of its discovery in 1927, was originally a maritime villa built along the Via Ostiensis. It was built in the 1st century b.c., as attested by walls in opus reticulatum, and was enlarged and restored in the 2nd century a.d. Not much of its layout was uncovered: part of two courtyards, divided by a wall and a series of rooms to the west of them. Rooms [F, G, H] were originally one large room, later divided into three by walls in opus mixtum. Room [E] had a black and white mosaic with a pattern attested in Pompeii, but also in later complexes, as in the villa L231 – cimitero flaminio, where the mosaic is dated to the 3rd century a.d. Remnants of mosaic oors were also in B, C and D, dated to the 2nd century a.d. Lugli interpreted the rooms as bath quarters for the presence of vats [A, G]. But these features are later, being built in opus mixtum and should instead related to a change in the use of the rooms. Both vats are faced in cocciopesto; vat [A] had steps in one corner leading into it and may have been used for wine making. Lugli mentions next to it a “round feature”, which in his opinion may have held the boiler to warm up the water, but may have been for a dolium. There is no mention in Lugli’s report of nds recovered during excavation, and the date of abandonment cannot be determined. De Franceschini 2005, #68 GAETA

L117 — Villa della Nave also Villa di Serapo The villa was located on a promontory between Torre Viola and Spiaggia di Serapo. Very little remains: only the substructures on the sea side, part of the cryptoporticoes, and some rooms, plus traces of a shpond. The villa was built on a series of terraces. About 10 m from the beach, currently under sea level, the rock bed was cut to form ve large square blocks, possibly the base for a protruding architectural element, maybe a belvedere with pavilion according to De Rossi. To the east of the main cryptoportico, which, according to a description from the 1800s, had mosaic oors and wall decoration, was a staircase leading to the upper terrace, while a second staircase led down to the beach. The main residential part was probably on the middle terrace, now occupied by modern constructions. Schmiedt dates the villa to the second half of the 1st century b.c., but Gizzi talks of a construction in the early Empire on previous, not specied late Republican structures. Schmiedt 1972; De Rossi 1980; Gizzi 1990

Figure L118. Genzano, villa of the Antonini (after Cassieri and Ghini 1990).

384 catalogue: latium

latium: genzano

385

GENZANO (See Map 3, p. 252)

L118 – Villa of the Antonini This suburban villa on the Colli Albani (mile XVIII of the Via Appia) is commonly known as the “villa of the Antonini” for the discovery in it, in 1701, of several busts of the Antonine Imperial family, now in the Musei Capitolini in Rome. It has been suggested that perhaps it belonged to Aurelius Fulvius and was the villa where, according to SHA, Antoninus Pius and Commodus were born. The villa complex was connected to the Appia by a diverticulum running from northwest to southeast. The complex was organized on two levels. On the lower one the substructures and service area were located; on the upper one the bath quarters were identied. The villa was never completely excavated, but in 1826 and 1884 some partial explorations were carried out, discovering a portico with red granite columns, painted stucco decoration similar to that of the Farnesina villa, opus sectile, and sculptures, among which was a terracotta statue of Jupiter. In 1989 the Soprintendenza Archeologica del Lazio restored the standing ruins, consisting only of some rooms of the bath complex. Cassieri and Ghini 1990

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GROTTAFERRATA (See Map 3, p. 252 and also Tusculum)

L119 – Grottaferrata The abbey of Grottaferrata was built on the two-nave cryptoportico of a large Roman villa. The substructures, built in opus reticulatum, are visible and are dated to the late Republic. Coarelli 1981

latium: ischia di castro

387

ISCHIA DI CASTRO

L120 – La Selvicciola The villa of La Selvicciola is situated on a travertine bank, oriented northeast-southwest, resting on layers of yellow tufa. The southwest side of the complex seems to be in line with one of the axes of the land centuriation. The villa was built on three different elevations, adapting the plan to the geomorphology. Several underground rooms were at a lower level, dug into the tufaceous bank. At this level manure pits were also identied. This area, however, was disturbed by several later building phases and by the 7th century Lombard necropolis. On a second level was the pars urbana, located in the south/southeast section, around a quadrangular peristyle, while the pars rustica was in the north/northwest section, probably separated by a courtyard from the residential part. The pars rustica included a torcular olearium, and a storage room with dolia. Some of the rooms of the eastern part of the peristyle collapsed due to the erosion of the plateau caused by the river Strozzavolpe. Several building phases have been identied: 1. I Phase (late 3rd century b.c.): the Roman villa is built over a preceding Etruscan farm of the early 3rd century b.c. 2. II Phase: enlargement of the villa in the second half of the 2nd century b.c. It is during this phase that the largest expansion is reached. 3. III Phase: large restoration and refurbishment in the Julio-Claudian age, probably under Augustus, of all the rooms of the villa. The atrium with cistern and pond, the torcular, and the residential part around the peristyle all belong to this phase. A working courtyard paved with pebbles and terracotta sherds covers the Republican pars rustica. To this phase is also dated the construction of an aqueduct which fed the villa and was connected to the large aqueduct coming from the Monti di Canino and serving the area of Roman centuriation. 4. IV Phase: minor restoration in the late 2nd century–early 3rd century a.d. 5. V Phase: abandonment in the second half of the 5th century a.d. 6. VI Phase: partial re-use of the structure, including the torcular, in Lombard time (7th–8th centuries) and establishment of the necropolis. Finds ascribable to the II phase are dated between the late 2nd century and the early 1st century b.c. and include black glaze oil lamps, black glaze pottery produced in Vulci and Tarquinia; a denarius of L. Flaminius Cylo (108–100 b.c.), cover tiles stamped “Minucius C.f.”, “Minuci ”, and “L. Minuc.” Possibly the stamps indicate ownership by the gens Minucia. In the pars urbana the hypocaust and three rooms of the bath complex, dated to the Imperial age, were excavated by the Soprintendenza per l’Etruria Meridionale. Romanizzazione 1985; Gazzetti 1995

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catalogue: latium

Map 11. Ladispoli (A. Marzano).

latium: ladispoli

389

LADISPOLI (Alsium)

Ladispoli L121 – Fosso Sanguisuga The remains of a large villa are located to the East of Ladispoli and of Fosso Sanguisuga. Concrete walls faced in opus reticulatum and opus testaceum, dated to the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., are scattered over an area measuring ca. 200 m². The villa had a euripus situated 20 m inland and parallel to the shore. The euripus measured at least 39 u 5.4 m, and has an apse at the east end. The pond’s walls were faced in opus reticulatum. The villas also had a shpond, which possibly measured 25 u 10 m (Lafon 2001, 354). On the spot where the villa stood, there was a sanctuary in Etruscan or Republican times. De Rossi 1968; Higginbotham 1997; Lafon 2001

Ladispoli L122 – Marina di Palo In January 2001, the press reported the accidental discovery, during public works along the “lungomare” of Marina di Palo, of Roman walls, probably related to the villa, Imperial in date, located in the nearby Piazza della Rugiada. This villa was discovered in 1867 by Luigi Tocco. Preliminary reports by the ofcials of the Soprintendenza indicate a 2nd century date for the remains, probably the external part of the walls of the bath quarters of this villa. De Rossi 1968

Ladispoli L123 – Torre Flavia To the northeast of Torre Flavia are the remains of a circular piscina, (ø 22 m). The pond is formed by two concentric concrete walls, faced in red triangular bricks. On the shore De Rossi reported seeing fragments of opus spicatum ooring and a small marble column, probably ascribable to a coastal villa. Further north along the coast, 700 m from the mouth of Fosso di Zambra, and between the Zambra and Fosso Turpino, three Roman villas were noted by Mengarelli, but no further information on these sites exists. De Rossi 1968

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catalogue: latium

Map 12. The Licenza Valley (A. Marzano).

latium: licenza

391

LICENZA (Ager Tiburtinus) The following sites are all located in the Licenza Valley, close to Tivoli (Tibur), and mostly consist of medium and small-sized villae rusticae. These sites have been related to the large elite villas built in Tibur and were therefore included in the present catalogue.

Licenza L124 – Capo Le Volte On the Colle del Poetello Lugli saw walls in opus latericium dated to the end of the 1st century a.d. and traces of black and white mosaics. On a higher elevation the vault of a cistern is visible. The cistern was fed by a tunnel connected to a well. In the area, a marble bearded head was also found. Mari 1994, #30

Licenza L125 – Catino Hill, also della Villetta Hill A basis villae formed by substructures in opus polygonale is located at the bottom of the hill, along the street leading to Mola del Ricupo. No other structure is visible. The front of the terracing wall measures 31 m. Mari 1994, #20

Licenza L126 – Cerri hill On the south side of Cerri hill one can see the terrace (ca. 28 u 12 m) of a villa, oriented east-west. The corner of a terracing wall in opus polygonale is visible. Fragments of amphorae, dolia, tiles and bricks were recorded by Mari. Mari 1994, #43

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catalogue: latium

Figure L127. Licenza, Horace villa (after Lugli 1966).

latium: licenza

393

Licenza L127 – Horace villa The villa, commonly known as the villa of Horace, was excavated in 1911, 1915, 1957 and 1997–1998. To the rst phase of the villa belong three walls in opus incertum. The complex has three different parts: the residential quarters [A], organized around two courts with fountains; a large court surrounded by a portico; and a bath complex [B], enlarged later with structures in opus latericium, Flavian or Hadrianic in date. In the middle of the large court is a rectangular pond [C] with bases, perhaps for statues. An oval construction with exedrae [D] next to the baths, where in the Middle Ages a church was built, has been variously identied as a shpond, nymphaeum, or laconicum. The long east side of the portico was in a subsequent phase divided into smaller rooms by walls, maybe to use the space for the production activity of the estate, but due to the scarcity of the remains it is difcult to ascertain the use of the space. An extension of 160 iugera (40 hectares) has been suggested for this fundus, on the basis on the number of slaves (eight) and families of coloni (ve) that Horace mentions in his literary work. This size is close to the average size for late Republican villas in Sabina calculated by topographical studies. Many loomweights, spindle whorls, and bone needles were recovered during the excavations. Lugli 1966; Coarelli 1982; Sabinis 1993; C. Centroni, “La villa di Orazio a Licenza” in Atti Licenza 1993, 107–162; Mari 1994; Frischer et al. 2000

Licenza L128 – Mandela At the foot of the Mandela hill, on almost at ground along the Licenza River, an area covered with pottery fragments and building material, including fragments of dolia, amphorae, and limestone blocks, maybe from a torcular, was identied. The earliest pottery found dates to the 2nd–1st centuries b.c. It was probably at this site that E. Ege excavated in 1912, discovering walls in opus reticulatum and black and white mosaic fragments. Mari 1994, #19

Licenza L129 – La Muraccia The terrace of the villa destroyed by modern construction was probably located in this area. A cistern in opus mixtum (bi-color opus reticulatum in limestone and tufa, 1st century a.d.) is visible at the beginning of the nearby S. Vito road. This street probably follows the route of an ancient road, coming from the settlement of Varia and must have connected this villa to the one on S. Vito Hill (L133). Mari 1994, #3

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catalogue: latium

Figure L130. Licenza, Prato La Corte (after Mari 1994).

latium: licenza

395

Licenza L130 – Prato La Corte The exact spot where the villa stood is no longer identiable, but in 1913, the pars rustica of a villa was excavated, extending over an area of ca. 36 u 36 m. The main feature of the pars rustica was a large rectangular room [A] (29.50 u 14.80 m), oriented east-west and divided by three rows of pillars. This room was interpreted as a granary. To the west of this room, a doorway led into a narrow rectangular room [B]. On the south side of the ‘granary’ were seven rooms in a row. In one room on the west side [C] was the press bed on cocciopesto oor (ø max. 1.15 m), with canalis rotunda and three vats (two smaller vats, placed next to each other, and a larger one). In Room D, the only one of these seven rooms communicating with A, a vat with cocciopesto facing, in which two drains coming from Room E ended, was found. No precise data are available on the remaining rooms. Mari suggested that Room E might have housed the torcular olearum (D being the lacus). According to E. Gatti, assistant to the excavation, the three rooms excavated to the south were residential rooms. The walls in opus reticulatum offer the only chronological evidence. Rossiter 1978; Mari 1994, #18

Licenza L131 – Roccagiovine Near the road intersection for Roccagiovine some rooms featuring a hypocaust, frescoes, and black and white mosaics were found. Surface nds, including building material and common ware fragments, are visible. The earliest date offered by the pottery is the 1st century b.c./1st century a.d. Mari 1994, #26

Licenza L132 – S. Cosimato In the 19th century the ruins of a large villa were known in this area, located at km 47 of the Via Valeria. Nowadays only a cistern (24.50 u 3.25 m) is clearly visible and an opus reticulatum wall, maybe part of the substructures. Possibly, some granite and white marble column drums seen around S. Cosimato belong to this villa. Mari 1994, #11

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catalogue: latium

Licenza L133 – S. Vito Hill Remains of a villa rustica, consisting of structures in travertine opus quadratum are visible on this hill. In 1917, a rectangular well and a room with black and white mosaic ooring were discovered. Among the material nds only two coins offered any chronological indication: the 3rd century b.c. and the 3rd century a.d. A cistern located on the east side of the hill was destroyed in 1982. Mari 1994, #4

Licenza L134 – Spineto In 1913, a room in opus reticulatum was discovered near the spring “del Signore”, on a hill overlooking the Via Licinese. The walls were plastered in cocciopesto, and the oor had a black and white mosaic representing a marine monster. It was probably part of a bath suite. Mari 1994, #22

Licenza L135 – Via Licinese Building material can be observed spread over a large area on the surface of a hill to the west of the 37 km of the road Via Licinese. Several blocks probably belonged to a terracing wall. The highest concentration of surface material and pottery, including many dolia fragments, is on a higher elevation. Also, along the same road many black mosaic tesserae are visible. Mari 1994, #23

latium: magliano sabina

397

MAGLIANO SABINA

L136 – Colle Manno During works for the construction of the highway “Autostrada del Sole”, numerous fragments of pottery and painted plaster were recovered in the area where in the 19th century “noble ruins with marble threshold, worked stones and tubuli” were found. The remains have been related to a villa, perhaps to be connected with the Massa Malliana mentioned in the Liber Ponticalis. Sternini 2004

Magliano Sabina L137 – Foglia Remains of a Roman villa with walls in opus reticulatum are located on a ridge overlooking the Tiber; the villa had docks in opus quadratum along the river bank, at Porto S. Agata. Sternini 2004

Magliano Sabina L138 – S. Sebastiano Recent survey in the area of S. Sebastiano conrmed old accounts mentioning a villa in this area. The survey recovered good quality architectural elements and various kinds of marble in addition to pottery dating from the 3rd/2nd century b.c. to the 5th/6th century a.d. Wine amphorae, a mill stone, and architectural terracottas found at S. Sebastiano are in the museum of Magliano Sabina. Sternini 2004

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catalogue: latium

Figure L139. Marina di S. Nicola (after Caruso 1995).

latium: marina di s. nicola

399

MARINA DI S. NICOLA (Alsium; see Map 11, p. 388)

L139 – Marina di S. Nicola The villa was located in the territory of ancient Alsium (see also listings under Ladispoli and Palo). Several villas are known on the coast of Alsium, placed at an average distance of 2 km, with farms interspersed in between the larger villas. The estimated area of the pars urbana of these villas is ca. 200 u 400 m. Lafon estimates the extension of the fundi in hundreds of hectares. Traditionally, the construction of this maritime villa is related to Pompey, on the basis of Cic., Pro Milone 20.54, but at the moment no archaeological evidence can support a Republican date for the villa. Soundings made in 1986, but in peripheral areas of the villa, revealed no levels pre-dating the Augustan age. Two farms were identied in the property of Marina di S. Nicola and were in use in the rst centuries of the Empire as the recovery of Italic sigillata and African “chiara” A indicates. The villa was built on two small hills and consisted of the following parts: 1) The main part, located on the south hill and parallel in orientation to the shoreline [A], with a ‘block’ protruding into the sea (not shown in plan; compare with so-called Catullus’ villa at Sirmione); 2) A gestatio along the stream Fosso di Cupino [B]; 3) two inland nuclei, one on the north hill, with different orientation, and labeled ‘tabernae’ by the excavators [C], and the other to the northwest of it. Opus reticulatum is largely used in the building. In the pars urbana the larger rooms opened into the quadri-portico, which has remains of brick columns and mosaics. The quadri-portico is partly sustained by two cryptoporticoes. The cryptoportico parallel to the coastline is next to a ramp paved in opus spicatum leading to the beach. The second cryptoportico, almost 100 m long, was divided in two naves by columns and ran parallel to Fosso Cupino. Along the coast, to the west, are the probable remains of the thermae built in opus mixtum, an indication of renovations in the 2nd century a.d. The main block looking inland had gardens on two different levels separated by corridors or cryptoporticoes. The northwest part seems to have had a mixed function: pars rustica (two rooms being press rooms or “cellars”), and residential. The only inscription recovered is a stamp on a stula aquaria, attesting that the villa belonged to the Imperial scus (see Caruso 1995: 294, Dei Solis Magni Elag). The chronology spans from the 1st to the 6th centuries a.d. Lafon 1990; Caruso 1995

Figure L141. Marino, s.c. villa of Voconius Pollio (after Mielsch 1987).

400 catalogue: latium

latium: marino

401

MARINO (Castrimoenium) (See Map 3, p. 252)

L140 – “Valerii Villa”, so-called The scanty remains of a villa located in the area of Marino have been related either to the Valerii, on the basis of stamps on stulae bearing the names of Valerius Messala and C. Valerius Paulinus (see CIL, XV.7849–50), or to Mamurra, Caesar’s praefectum fabrum, on the basis of an inscription, dated to the Julio-Claudian period, found in the area (CIL, XIV.2431: Eutychus Disp(ensator) Vill(ae) Mamurranae). Coarelli 1981

Marino L141 – “Voconius Pollio Villa”, so-called The villa, commonly known as the villa of Q. Voconius Pollio, was built on three terraces. Located between Via Cavona and Via dei Laghi, it was excavated at the end of the 19th century. The main part of the complex, measuring 100 m in length, consists of a peristyle [A], followed by an exedra with statues [B], then an oecus [C] opening onto the peristyle garden [D]. Another very large peristyle [E] (ca. 100 m) was on the upper terrace. A bath suite was located in the main complex. Most of the complex, at least in its layout, dates to the mid-1st century b.c. In the impluvium, stulae stamped with the name of T. Prifernius Paetus were found (CIL XIV.2434; XV.7846). They refer either to Pliny the Younger’s friend, proconsul of Africa in 140 a.d., or to his son, cos. in 146 a.d.; Prifernius Paetus pater had particular links with Trebula Mutuesca, where inscriptions dedicated to him were recovered. De Rossi 1979; Coarelli 1981; Mielsch 1987; Neudecker 1988; Andermahr 1997; Granino Cerere 2003

402

catalogue: latium

Figure L142. Montebuono, Grignano (after Sternini 2004).

latium: montebuono – monte calvo

403

MONTEBUONO

L142 – Grignano The remains of a villa excavated in the 19th century are located on the hill of Grignano, near the church of S. Pietro ad centum muros [A]. The site has been related to M. Vipsanius Agrippa on the basis of an inscription mentioning his consulate found in the area and walled in the church (see CIL, IX. 4677, 4779). In the 1970s, excavations outside the perimeter of the cemetery, next to the apse of the church, uncovered a oor in opus spicatum and part of the bath suite. Two cisterns are visible in the area, and buttressed walls along the street leading to the cemetery. In 1995, the Soprintendenza removed the oor of the church, uncovering, among other remains, three rooms: one with a white mosaic oor and a black frame, another with a black mosaic with a white frame and wall paintings (against a yellow background, a red square panel with a panther), and one with a complex geometric mosaic oor in black and white tesserae, framed by a design representing city walls, similar to the mosaics in the villa L230 – Prima Porta, AD GALLINAS ALBAS and the villa at L60 – Castel di Guido. Sternini 2004 MONTE CALVO

L143 – Monte Calvo In 1824–26, a large villa was excavated on the west side of Monte Calvo, near the Madonna dei Colori church (54 km from Rome). In antiquity the main route of the Via Salaria and a secondary route, parallel to the main one but running more inland, reconnected at the foot of this mountain. Numerous sculptures, all Hadrianic copies of Hellenistic originals, were recovered. The sculptures include the nine Muses, as shown by the recent research of S. Bussi; Aphrodite—the so-called Hera Borghese type; Asclepius, found with the statues of two poets—a standing Anacreon and a seated one; a chryselephantine Athena; Dafne; Mercurius/Perseus; a satyr; and Neptune. All the pieces are in Copenhagen, except the dancing satyr, now at the Villa Borghese. In the case of the seated poet statue, Coarelli thinks it is a Hellenistic original (oral communication during a meeting at the DAI Rome, October 2000). In the 2nd century the villa belonged to C. Brutius Presens, who was an important gure under Trajan and Hadrian (cos. bis 139 a.d.), as attested by stulae and brick stamps (CIL, IX.4915, 4921, 4923; XV.331, 7912). An inscription found not far away, at Monteleone Sabino, probably indicates that his wife Laberia Ostilia Crispina also had fundi in the area of Trebula Mutuesca (dedication by the mulieres of Trebula to their patrona, see Torelli 1962: . . . aberiae Hostilia . . . /Crispinae M Labr/Maximi biscos liae/Brutti Praesentis/. . . is consulis uxori/mulieres trebulanae/ere (sic) conlato patro/nae ob merita).

404

catalogue: latium In 1998, the Soprintendenza Archeologica of Latium started excavating the area of the villa. Structures in opus mixtum, using large cubilia in local limestone, were uncovered. The structures on the northwest side of the hill were probably the entrance area to the complex, connected to the Salaria with a diverticulum. The residential part was in a atter area, where a large atrium with impluvium was excavated. The atrium presents a large entrance on the north side and a oor in signinum decorated with tesserae. Around the atrium are several rooms. To the east are maybe the fauces and the vestibulum; to the west a corridor giving access to some rooms. A common latrina should indicate the presence of service rooms not opening into the atrium. The rst phase of the complex dates to the late Republic/early Empire. Material nds give a date for abandonment in the 4th/5th century. A second trench opened in another part of the villa uncovered a room with a white mosaic oor, and a small vat, built in bricks with hydraulic plaster. The vat had at least two phases, since at a certain point the drainage was obstructed. Other rooms with impermeable plaster might indicate a system of vats. Field survey in the area around the villa identied two medium-sized villas. One is on the southwest slope of the Colle Rotondo. Different terraces are visible, as well as a vaulted structure, either a cistern or a cryptoportico, built in limestone. A concentration of building material and pottery indicates the presence of a second villa in the locality. The pottery recovered includes black glaze, Italic and African sigillata, and some Late Antique and Medieval material. The site of Presens’ villa was occupied by ecclesiastical buildings and the church of S. Maria Vicus Novus, also called Madonna dei Colori for the different kinds of marble from the villa that were visible on the surface. In late antiquity the statio ad Novas was still functioning here. In the Middle Age the castrum Montis Calvis or Vici Novi was built, as attested by the Regesto Farfense.

Posters from the exhibit “Sabina” at the DAI-Rome, Fall 2000

latium: montopoli

405

MONTOPOLI

L144 – Bocchignano, Caravilla The villa had a platform measuring ca. 100 u 90 m; Lugli saw on the northeast side an opus incertum wall, part of the substructures, 40 m long with buttressing walls, which had traces of the barrel vaults connecting them. He also recorded a barrel vaulted cistern and a pool or large vat measuring 10 u 6 m, built in opus caementicium. Lugli observed in the elds fragments of large dolia, amphorae, opus spicatum, bricks for columns, mosaic tesserae, fragments of cocciopesto, painted plaster, and marble relating to veneer or oor tiles. Sternini 2004

406

catalogue: latium

Figure L145. Montopoli, Bocchignano: I Casoni (after Sternini 2004).

latium: montopoli

407

Montopoli L145 – Bocchignano, I Casoni The villa was built on at least two terraces. The lower terrace presented a retaining wall in opus reticulatum [C] with a series of alternating semicircular and square niches, forming the platform for the upper terrace on which the residential part stood [A]. In the middle of the lower terrace was a circular pond [D] (ø 15 m), with a facing reported to have been a coarse hydraulic mortar with large pieces of crushed terracotta. This was evidently an open air cistern, and the remaining area of the terrace was occupied by a garden. The terrace-garden had a curved end on the side opposite the wall with niches. The walls of the garden were in opus incertum. Behind the retaining wall was a cryptoportico[B] with a staircase leading to the upper terrace. Recent investigations detected remains of the residential part consisting of four cubicula and the tablinum. Sternini 2004

Montopoli L146 – Bocchignano, Sala The presence of a considerable villa in this area was already known in the 19th century, when remains of cisterns, of a retaining wall in opus reticulatum, and surface scatters of painted plaster were noted. Excavations carried out in 1876 discovered two rooms with walls in opus latericium, black and white tesserae mosaic oors, and fragments of painted plaster with Bacchic scenes. If we are to believe the accuracy of this report, among the nds mentioned are oil lamps with Christian monograms, and this would indicate an occupation of the villa continuing into the later Imperial period; however, Nardi relates these nds to tombs, which would have indicated that the structure was re-occupied in the Middle Ages, and also mentions “una vasca per pestar uve della maniera di quei tempi (i.e. Middle Ages, quoted by Sternini 2004, 120)”. The excavations also discovered a hall with an apse, with a staircase running behind the apse, built in brick but faced with marble. Brick stamps recovered date to the time of Hadrian and to the last years of the reign of Septimius Severus/early years of Caracalla. It is believed that from this villa came an inscription to Elagabalus with the emperor’s name removed by the damnatio memoriae, now lost. Nardi described the remains of a cistern in opus latericium with vaults also in bricks, with buttressing walls in the same technique, forming square and semicircular niches, probably the frons of a nymphaeum or garden wall. From the combined descriptions and information given by various authors, it emerges that the villa was built in the 2nd century b.c., and had building phases in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries a.d. Sternini 2004

408

catalogue: latium

Figure L147. Nemi: S. Maria (after Guldager Bilde 2003).

latium: nemi

409

NEMI (See Map 3, p. 252)

L147 – S. Maria The villa is located on the southwest shore of Lake Nemi and its existence has been known since the 19th century; in 1998, the Nordic Institutes in Rome started an excavation project. The villa extended over a large area measuring ca. 45,000 m²; trenches have been opened in key areas, clarifying that the complex had four main phases: 1) late Republican; 2) early Imperial, ca. 20–40 a.d.; 3) ca. 60–80 a.d.; 4) 120s–130s a.d. The villa was built on an articial terrace measuring 100 u 450 m; a diverticulum led to it on the north side, connected to the road leading to the Sanctuary of Diana. The villa must also have had a dock. The parts of the villa identied comprise a two-story building which, at least in Phase 4, was the bath complex [A]; a portico [B] and, behind it, cubicula with black and white mosaic oors (3 u 3 m), built in opus reticulatum with corners in tufa blocks; a garden-peristyle [C] in Phases 2–4, probably substituting the original atrium of Phase 1; a rectangular cistern [D], placed on the highest point of the terrace; and a monumental two-story, U-shaped exedra [E] with two wings, probably added in Phase 3. The area of the peristyle was paved in opus sectile; some of the rooms opening into it, including the triclinium, were also identied as having been paved in opus sectile. Gardens were located next to the portico, in the peristyle and probably also on a lower terrace between the main platform and the shore of the lake, where in Phase 2 a vaulted passage leading directly up to the living quarters of the villa was built. The central area of the peristyle was delimited by a ca. 1 m wide channel, isolating the garden as if an island, probably accessible by means of “bridges/walkways”. It appears that the rst phase villa was intentionally torn down; various building elements from the rst phase were re-used in the construction of the second phase building. In Phase 3 the retaining wall of the platform was buttressed in opus mixtum technique. In Phase 4, redecoration of the rooms took place, including new mosaic oors in the rooms next to the portico. One of these rooms, interpreted by the excavators as a lararium, received a oor with a central medallion, depicting vegetal scrolls and birds; on the mosaic, facing the door, was the inscription M. pa(v)imentum fecit. The latest brick stamp recovered dates to 134 a.d., while the latest pottery dates to 150 a.d. An abandonment of the complex in the late 2nd century is suggested by the excavators, noting that the Sanctuary of Diana was also abandoned in the same period, perhaps due to a natural catastrophe. Guldager Bilde 2003

410

catalogue: latium

Figure L148. Nettuno, Castle: shpond (after Jacono 1924).

latium: nettuno

411

NETTUNO

L148 – Castle In 1924, Jacono published three shponds in Nettuno, which have been related to maritime villas. One was in the sea in front of the Castle of Nettuno. The shpond was built by cutting the sandstone rock-shelf and building walls in opus caementicium. Jacono observed that the rock-shelf on the beach side, which was out of the sea, showed traces of cutting and a small circular vat, probably originally communicating with the main shpond. The plan of the shpond consisted of a main rectangular part, subdivided into smaller rectangular compartments with crepidines. On the south side of the rectangular body was a semicircle, divided into two rows, which had in the middle a main channel opening towards the open sea and other openings to allow sea-water in. The central channel was probably covered by a vault. Openings between the various compartments allowed water circulation. No dating element is available Jacono 1924; Gianfrotta 1997

412

catalogue: latium

Figure L149. Nettuno: River del Mulino: shpond (after Jacono 1924).

latium: nettuno

413

Nettuno L149 – River “del mulino” Another shpond documented by Jacono was at the east end of the city walls of Nettuno, in correspondence with the small body of water named “del Mulino”. The preserved part consisted of a square divided into at least nine compartments; perhaps there were more compartments to the west. Remains of a large protective mole were located to the south of the shpond. Between the shpond and the coastline, Jacono documented parts of two walls, which should indicate that the shpond had more compartments on the beach side. The preserved walls were in opus caementicium with no facing, and no dating elements are available. Jacono 1924; Gianfrotta 1997

414

catalogue: latium

Figure L150. Nettuno, Villa Nesi: shpond (after Jacono 1924).

latium: nettuno

415

Nettuno L150 – “Villa Nesi” The shpond was in correspondence with the “Villino Nesi”, a modern villa presumably built on top of a Roman one, along the road leading from Antium to Nettuno. The shpond, with walls in opus caementicium, was clearly visible in the sea and was built by cutting the sandstone shelf. The plan of the shpond consisted of a square of ca. 20 m per side, divided into four smaller squares, which had in the center square bases/pillars. On the south side of the square was a triangular compartment, with signs of some kind of internal, smaller subdivisions; next to the south vertex of the triangle was a circular compartment (ø ca. 13 m), and next to it remains of walls forming an arch, probably originally part of another circular pond. Most of the compartments had crepidines. Openings between each of the compartments and between them and the sea allowed for water circulation. Jacono’s plan reports, on the north side of the pond, what seems to be a water channel coming from the beach side, perhaps for fresh water, but in the text he does not describe this feature. No dating element is available, since the conglomerate walls had no facing. Jacono 1924; Gianfrotta 1997

416

catalogue: latium

Figure L151. Ostia, Dragoncello (L151) (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: ostia

417

OSTIA (Ostia) (See Map 7, p. 312)

L151 – Dragoncello, Villa The villa was built on a low hill near the Via Ostiense in ca. the 2nd/1st century b.c., as indicated by wall in opus incertum and quasi-reticulatum. The excavations carried out by the Soprintendenza of Ostia in 1983 determined that the villa extended for at least 2,500 m². A Corinthian atrium was excavated, as well as rooms [B] belonging to the residential part, with 1st century oors in opus scutulatum. Other rooms [D] belonged to the pars rustica and were paved in cocciopesto, while [C], divided into three naves by pillars made using opus spicatum bricks, was a storage area with a simple beaten earth oor. Traces of pillars and frescoes found on the south and east sides may indicate that originally there was an L-shape portico. To the east of the atrium was identied a group of rooms, which had been destroyed below the original oor level and should belong to the rst phase of the villa. The presence of channels may suggest that it was a torcularium, a hypothesis strengthened by the recovery, in the vicinity, of dolia (1,000 l capacity each: the number of the dolia is not reported, nor have they been located on the plan). To a second phase dated to the Trajanic period belongs a free standing cistern in opus latericium. Some of the doorways were also blocked in this period. Unlike other sites, the rooms explored did not present new ooring laid in the Imperial phase and De Franceschini suggests that the villa may have had only a utilitarian function in this period. However, the construction of free standing cisterns is associated with the building of baths in the 2nd century at the other sites of the suburbium; the limited investigation may have not recovered the Imperial period residential part. The nds are being studied, but it is reported that the villa was in use at least until the 4th century. Several burials dated to the 5th century were recovered in the area of the villa. De Franceschini 2005: #90

418

catalogue: latium

Figure L152. Ostia, Dragoncello (L152) (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: ostia – palo

419

Ostia L152 – Dragoncello, Villa The villa was built in the mid-1st century b.c., and initially consisted of a rectangular courtyard [A] paved in opus spicatum with various rooms on each side of it. In the 2nd century it was enlarged/remodeled. To this phase belongs a bath suite [B], dated to the years 150–160 a.d., as indicated by brick stamps on the suspensurae; a six-pillar portico [D], which constituted the main access to the villa, leading to a small peristyle garden [C], with a fountain in the middle, and various rooms with mosaic oors looking onto it. It is possible, however, considering the type of baths which conforms to those added in villas in the 1st century, that in the 2nd century only a restoration occurred, which involved new suspensurae. To the 2nd century phase also dates a free standing cistern [E], which in part obliterated previous channels. The abandonment of the villa is placed sometime in the 4th century; some burials date to the 5th century. De Franceschini 2005: #91 PALO (Alsium) (See Map 11, p. 388)

L153 – Palo (See also listings under Ladispoli) The coast of Alsium, a colony founded in 247 b.c., from the late Republic was chosen by the Roman elite for the construction of many maritime villas, as attested by literary sources. The 15th century Orsini castle (now called Odescalchi castle) and the nearby 17th century Villa La Posta were built over a Roman villa, by some scholars identied with Pompey’s villas, which passed to Caesar and then became Imperial property; other scholars preferred to identify Pompey’s villa with L139 – Marina di S. Nicola. Excavations carried out by the Soprintendenza in 1966 revealed a villa with a U-shaped plan. The visible part of the ancient remains consists of several units. In the water in front of the castle, breakwaters and two enclosures are visible, most probably shponds—one rectangular (110 u 50 m), the other curvilinear. These remains are extremely scanty, but were sketched by R. Lanciani in 1890. Under the castle are the remains of rooms in opus reticulatum and opus latericium with polychrome geometric mosaics dated to the 3rd–4th centuries a.d. The earlier phase has been ascribed to the second half of the 1st century b.c.; the curvilinear shpond, reported by Lanciani to have had masonry in opus reticulatum, would t with this dating of the rst phase of the villa. The funerary inscription CIL, XI.3720 (D. M./T. Aelio Eutycho/Proc. Aug. N/villae alsi/ensi/Heredes) suggests that by the 2nd century a.d. the property had passed into Imperial hands.

420

catalogue: latium

Figure L154. Palombara Sabina, Villa S. Lucia (after Alvino 1990).

latium: palombara sabina – poggio catino

421

Along the beach to the north, going towards Ladispoli, one can see remains of a small quay. Other ancient remains, among which is a circular piscina, are visible along the coastline north of Ladispoli, towards Furbara airport. De Rossi et al. 1968; Higginbotham 1997 PALOMBARA SABINA

L154 – Villa S. Lucia At km 16.500 of the Via Maremmana Inferiore, at Villa S. Lucia, after the accidental nd of two marble statues in 1986 (a Roman copy, in Carrara marble, of the Eirene and Ploutos by Kephisodotos, and a male divinity, probably Zeus, in marble from Aphrodisias), a villa was discovered and partially excavated by the Soprintendenza Archeologica del Lazio. The villa was built on a large plateau buttressed by a wall in IV Style opus polygonale. Four rooms of the pars urbana were partly investigated. The largest (6 u 5 m) presents a mosaic oor depicting hexagons and rosettes. The other rooms also have traces of mosaic oors, in plain white tesserae or with some black tesserae inserted. Fragments of the wall decoration show vegetal elements and animals. To the north of this group of rooms, part of a wall, semi-circular in shape, was identied (for a length of 8.70 m), a probable exedra and garden area. From these partial data two chronological phases emerge. The rst, to be dated to the Augustan period, concerned the construction of three rooms. The pavement of one of the room was raised, and a fourth one was added, perhaps another triclinium, probably under Hadrian. Alvino 1990 POGGIO CATINO

L155 – Casa-bella Nardi described remains of the retaining walls forming the basis villae, and a series of rooms of the substructures, in opus incertum; he mentioned also seeing amphora fragments and travertine ashlars re-used in modern farms. A note by Pasqui reported the existence of fragments of mosaic oors, but not much more can be said about this site. Sternini 2004

422

catalogue: latium

Poggio Catino L156 – Colle Stazi-Caioli Very little of this villa is currently visible, but Nardi’s and Lugli’s descriptions refer to a basis villae with retaining wall in opus reticulatum and three barrel vaulted rooms, belonging to the substructures, in opus caementicium. Lugli also mentions various retaining walls along the hillside, so it is reasonable to presume that the villa complex consisted of more than one terrace. Ancient material was re-used in modern construction, including large fragments of black and white tesserae mosaic oors, Corinthian capitals, and marble entablature. Surface material seen by Lugli included bricks, tiles, and part of a our mill-stone. Sternini 2004

Poggio Catino L157 – S. Maria di Constantinopoli Popular tradition labeled the remains of this villa as the “Terme di Silla”. Very little can be understood of the plan and dating of the complex, since most of it was destroyed in the construction of the cemetery of Poggio Catino before Nardi surveyed the area. Only generic descriptions of the remains indicate the notable size of the complex. A document of the Ofce of Antiquities, commenting on the works for the cemetery of 1881, reports that “si vanno distruggendo alcuni grandi avanzi di ruderi romani quivi estistenti, i quali per la loro solidità ed eleganza meritano di essere conservati” (quoted in Sternini 2004, 133). Lugli described the platform of the villa with a retaining wall with a facing made of small limestone blocks. An aqueduct, connected to a cistern, supplied the villa with water. Sternini 2004

Poggio Catino L158 – Vigna Paleani When Nardi surveyed this area not much of this villa was standing, except the retaining wall of the basis in opus reticulatum and traces of rooms in the substructures. A curious information is reported by Nardi, who was informed by local farmers of the recovery of dolia containing bird skeletons, which in his opinion may have been preserved in fat/oil as was still customary at his time. Sternini 2004

latium: poggio mirteto

423

POGGIO MIRTETO

L159 – Murelle The remains seen by Nardi covered an area of ca. 150 u 50 m. From his description, it seems that the villa had two terraces. The lower one, probably a garden, presented in the middle a circular open air cistern and a well. A retaining wall in opus reticulatum formed the upper terrace. In two rooms of the substructures were mosaic oors. To the north of this terrace was a rectangular cistern, also built in opus reticulatum, with a water conduit in terracotta. Nardi also reported seeing owerbeds and two vats paved in opus spicatum, connected by a lead pipe, but does not give the location of these nds. Lugli gave a more complex description of the water structures seen by Nardi. He reported that there was a circular pond (ø 4.10 m) and at a lower level, in an articial grotto, a well (ø 2 m). Between the pond and the well was a 31 m long tunnel ending in an underground circular cistern, which he termed cloaca (ø 2.5 m), from which three channels departed. A cistern (9 u 20.5 m) on a higher elevation about 100 m away from the rst circular pond, built in opus reticulatum, was very likely the same one that Nardi described. Lugli adds that it was fed by springs. Sternini 2004

424

catalogue: latium

Figure L160. Poggio Mirteto, S. Maria in Turano (after Sternini 2004).

latium: poggio mirteto

425

Poggio Mirteto L160 – S. Maria in Turano Nardi described the substructures of this villa and the remains of an aqueduct, cistern, and inspection shafts. Two terraces belonged to the villa complex, formed by retaining walls [A] in opus incertum buttressed with a continuous series of orthogonal walls. Numerous architectural pieces in marble, including cipollino, re-used in the church or in other buildings, and Nardi’s mention of many fragments of amphorae and dolia, which he saw in the elds during agricultural work, indicate that the villa had a pars rustica and a pars urbana. This observation is supported also by the description given by Lugli, who saw in the elds after ploughing fragments of polychrome marble, green and red porphyry, mosaic tesserae, glass paste tesserae, Arretine pottery and opus spicatum bricks. Sternini 2004

Figure L161. Poggio Mirteto, S. Savino (after Sternini 2004).

426 catalogue: latium

latium: poggio mirteto

427

Poggio Mirteto L161 – S. Savino Nardi described considerable remains in this area, but it is not possible to deduce an idea of the layout of the complex. It is clear, however, that the villa had an elegant residential part, as indicated by the recovery of marble fragments, terracotta decorated plaques, and a basalt statue depicting an Egyptian priest. It also had a pars rustica, as demonstrated by Nardi’s documentation of a torcular with a press bed made of bricks [A], and many fragments of amphorae and dolia. If Nardi was correct in also recognizing fragments of Etrusco-Campanian pottery, the villa would have had an early phase in the 2nd century b.c.; a phase in the 1st century, as shown by cubilia that Nardi saw in the elds; and possibly an Imperial phase (the Egyptianizing statue). Nardi also documented a columbarium [B], which belonged to this villa. Sternini 2004

Poggio Mirteto L162 – S. Valentino, Fornaci Remains of a large villa, the so-called “Bagni di Lucilla,” occupy an area of ca. 8,100 m². The ruins included an enclosing wall in opus reticulatum, a cryptoportico, and a large pool, no longer existing. Supposedly, from this site comes the mosaic of Diana Ephesia, dated to the 3rd century a.d., now in the Musei Vaticani, Braccio Nuovo. Lolli Ghetti and Reggiani 1984; Sternini 2004

Map 13. Pontine Islands (A. Marzano).

428 catalogue: latium

latium: pontine islands

429

PONTINE ISLANDS The group of the Pontine Islands includes two larger islands, Ponza and Ventotene, and two smaller ones, S. Stefano, and Zannone. As for other small and medium islands, it is assumed that at least in the case of Ponza the island became part of the Imperial property under Augustus. This hypothesis has been supported by the evidence of large investments in public engineering work that should indicate Imperial funding, and are dated to the early 1st century a.d.: a tunnel 128 m long was dug to connect the east harbor with the west one.

430

catalogue: latium

Figure L163. Ponza, Promontorio della Madonna: shponds (after Mielsch 1987).

latium: pontine islands

431

Pontine Islands L163 – Ponza (Pontiae), Promontorio della Madonna Several villas were constructed on this island. The most important ones were at S. Maria, S. Antonio Padula, and on the Promontory della Madonna. Of this last villa, the shponds, commonly known as “Grotte di Pilato”, are well preserved. Lafon (2001, 388) calculates that the villa occupied an area of 80,000 m². Cisterns provided for the villa’s water needs, but it is not clear what the water source for the cisterns was; Lafon disputes the hypothesis that the aqueduct which ran along the east side of the island reached these cisterns. Schmiedt 1972; De Rossi 1980; Lafon 2001

Pontine Islands L164 – Ponza (Pontiae), S. Antonio Padula The villa of S. Antonio is located near the harbor on the east side of the island. It presents an opus reticulatum building technique and covered an area of ca. 150 u 125 m. De Rossi thought that there were two villas at this site. Schmiedt 1972; De Rossi 1980; Lafon 2001

Pontine Islands L165 – Ponza (Pontiae), S. Maria Not much is known of the remains of the villa at S. Maria, identied in 1926. The remains covered an area of at least 7500 m² and presented walls built in opus reticulatum, dated to post-14 a.d. At the time of the discovery of the villa, the presence of rooms with mosaics and wall paintings, located on various terraces, was reported. Jacono 1926; De Rossi 1980

Pontine Islands L166 – Santo Stefano On the small island of Santo Stefano scanty remains of structures in opus reticulatum have been related to a maritime villa built under Augustus. Very little is known about the structure, which was identied under the prison built in the Bourbon period. Lafon 2001

432

catalogue: latium

Figure L167. Ventotene, P. Eolo (after Lafon 2001).

latium: pontine islands

433

Pontine Islands L167 – Ventotene (Pandataria), Punta Eolo The villa is located on Punta Eolo and dates to the Augustan age. The plan exhibits many similarities with the Villa Iovis on Capri. The villa had a large xystus, bath quarters, and a large, round cistern, on top of which there may have been a panoramic terrace. It was built in the late 1st century b.c./early 1st century a.d., as indicated by the walls in opus reticulatum, and it is believed to be the villa where Julia was conned. Constructions/restorations in opus latericium indicate a second phase dated to the late 1st–early 2nd centuries a.d., probably in conjunction with the exile of Flavia Domitilla. De Rossi 1980; Lafon 2001

434

catalogue: latium

Figure L168. Ventotene, Polveriera (after Lafon 2001).

latium: pontine islands – priverno

435

Pontine Islands L168 – Ventotene (Pandataria), Polveriera Near the harbor, in the area called Polveriera, there are scanty remains of a complex that may have been another maritime villa. The area [A] covered by these ruins measures 100 u 80 m. The suggestion that it was a villa rests heavily upon the presence of a shpond complex nearby [B]. The shpond, in part dug in the tufa, had two rock-cut channels to allow sea water in and was also connected to a cistern which provided water to the harbor installations as well. The harbor also had storerooms [C]. De Rossi 1980; Lafon 2001

Pontine Islands L169 – Zannone The presence of a villa on the small island of Zannone has been inferred mainly from scanty traces of walls in opus reticulatum, incorporated in the later Benedictine convent. The remains of a small, rock-cut shpond, measuring 10 u 10 m, are also known. De Rossi 1980; Lafon 2001 PRIVERNO (Privernum)

L170 – Priverno Close to the remains of a Roman arch on the road (km 28.450 of the road leading to Priverno), are the ruins of a villa excavated in 1957. The villa was built in the late 2nd century b.c., as indicated by walls in opus incertum. It had high quality mosaics (a central emblema is now in the Museo delle Terme in Rome), dated to the end of the 2nd century b.c. It has been speculated that the villa may have belonged to M. Iunius Brutus, praetor around 140 b.c. (see Cic., Pro Cluen. 141). We know that reclamation works took place in 160 b.c. to exploit the area agriculturally. During the late Empire a bath complex in opus listatum was built on the site of the villa. The construction of the baths could be related to reclamation works in the area by the patrician Decius, under Theodoric. A cippus was visible in the area of the villa, inscribed on the front and left side (AE 1974, 228); the inscription on the front reads: T(ito) Flavio Acindyni l(io)/Quir(ina tribu) Scopelliano duo[r]/um equit(um) Romanor(um) patri adlec/to in decuri(i)s pr(aetori) IIviro iterum/pr(aetori) IIviro quinquennali patrono colon(iae)/Huic Privernates cenam idib(us) Mar(tiis) d[ari]/et statuam ponendam [. . .] IMIRE c[e]n[su]erunt ob merita eius quod ob/honor(em) quinquennalitatis ludos scaenicos diebus quinque ediderit/l(ocus) d(atus) d(ecreto) d(ecurionum); the inscription on the left side reads: XIII K(alendas) Sept(embres)/L(ucio) Aelio Caesare II/P(ublio) Coelio Balbino co(n)s(ulibus) (= 137 a.d.)/ob dedicationem crustu[lum]/et mulsum [. . .]/populo dedit. See also the entry under Sezze for another villa in the same geographic area. De Rossi 1980; Coarelli 1982

436

catalogue: latium

Figure L171. Procoio di Pianabella, the bath quarters (after Lauro 1984).

latium: procoio di pianabella

437

PROCOIO DI PIANABELLA (See Map 7, p. 312)

L171 – Procoio di Pianabella The villa was located in the territory of Ostia, and can be considered a suburban villa. It was part of the various villas that, starting in the 1st century a.d., were built on the coast from Ostia to the Ager Laurentinus. The remains consist of a buttressed retaining wall, 160 m long and built in opus reticulatum, and bath quarters. Probe trenches opened along the retaining wall by the Soprintendenza di Ostia revealed that this structure underwent various restorations and re-modeling in a period going from the 1st to the 4th centuries a.d., such as the opening of two passageways in the direction of the sea. The abundant fragments of painted plaster depicting oral motifs and the fragments of tiles indicated that, on the side of the villa, the wall constituted the back wall of rooms. The baths were built in the 2nd century re-using a pre-existing nucleus. The building technique is opus latericium, but other kinds of wall-facings are also present, later in date, thus showing a long series of restorations and changes. A two-story cistern, nowadays almost completely covered by soil, is also known. The cistern, as in other known examples, had external walls articulated in niches, thus creating a decorative background for perhaps a nymphaeum or garden. 500 m away from the baths are the remains of a large, barrel-vaulted room with brick walls, which indicates that the villa reached almost to the periphery of Ostia. Lauro 1984

438

catalogue: latium

Figure L172. Procoio Nuovo (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: procoio nuovo

439

PROCOIO NUOVO

L172 – Procoio Nuovo The villa is located on a hill along the Via Tiberina (km 7). Excavations by the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma uncovered an atrium [B] of a villa that showed at least three building phases: 1) construction in the late 2nd/early 1st century b.c. (walls in tufa opus quadratum); 2) enlargement in the 2nd century a.d. (opus latericium and listatum, with brick stamps of Antoninus Pius and Commodus) with the addition of bath quarters [A] on the north side, and of a probable porticoed courtyard (or garden), with rooms on the west side. These rooms had mosaic oors and belonged to the residential part. Evidence for utilitarian activities was uncovered to the north of the atrium, next to the baths, where a vat dug in tufa and two sunken dolia [D] attest wine making; 3) During the Severan age, a new mosaic oor was laid in the atrium. Coins and other nds attest an occupation of the villa down to the 4th century a.d. The villa had an underground cistern dug in tufa and lined with cocciopesto. De Franceschini 2005, #1

Figure L173. Quarto Cappello del Prete (after De Franceschini 2005).

440 catalogue: latium

latium: quarto cappello del prete – rieti

441

QUARTO CAPPELLO DEL PRETE (See Map 14, p. 464)

L173 – Quarto Cappello del Prete The villa was located on a hill next to an ancient road leading towards Gabii and Tibur. The construction has been dated to the 2nd/1st centuries b.c. based on the presence of walls in opus quadratum and opus quasireticulatum; this last building technique is used for the facing of the tunnels of the underground cistern. The portion that was excavated relates to the pars rustica and consists of two courtyards: [A], with beaten earth oor, from which one accessed various rooms, including [B], interpreted as either a stable or a storage area. The second courtyard [C] was paved with paving stones. To the east of B was a kiln for tiles/bricks. Two wells were connected to underground tunnels. To the northwest of C was a rectangular vat, faced with hydraulic mortar, and oored with cocciopesto with marble fragments of various types; it was connected to a channel built in opus caementicium. Next to these features was a rectangular pool [D] (50 u 18 m), in a later phase lled with debris in order to build on top of it a hortus with fountains and ponds. To the south of the complex was a free standing cistern in opus caementicium divided into 5 naves by rows of pillars (25.41 u 19.5 m), which has been tentatively assigned to the early 1st century b.c.; the lack of facing on the walls does not allow a more precise dating for it. The presence of reticulate walls in the villa indicates a second phase in the 1st century b.c.; restorations in the 2nd century a.d. are mentioned in passing in the reports, but the excavation is not completed and the nds have not yet been studied. De Franceschini 2005, #55 RIETI (Reate)

L174 – Grotte di S. Nicolò Along a secondary road departing from km 12 of the provincial road Rieti-Terni are the remains of a Roman villa, already known in the 19th century. In the early 20th century, the discovery of three stamped stulae in the area of the villa was reported. The stulae (now lost) read: 1) Geminus Q. Petili Agricol serv fec; 2) Ti Claudi Saturnini; 3) Sex Vetulens Crescens. Spadoni Cerroni 1978

Rieti L175 – Ponte Capo D’Acqua Initial eld surveys carried out in this area to the north of Rieti in 1988 determined that the Roman villa already known to be located at this site was rather large and complex. Several seasons of work, including resistivity survey revealed that it was a luxurious villa, with the main group of buildings concentrated in an east-west strip (ca. 170 u 60 m), and at least partly enclosed by a wall.

442

catalogue: latium The minimum area occupied by the structures of the villa within this wall covered ca. 1.62 ha. To the east of what was identied as the main residential building were a group of small structures with cover tiles, clustered around a cistern. A still-extant spring, close to the westernmost building was also probably used for water supply. The main phase seems to have occurred in the second half of the 1st century b.c./early 1st century a.d., with a continuous occupation of the site down to Imperial times, and some activity in late antiquity. Bath facilities were located in the southern-facing wing. The possible plan of the main building was either L-shaped or U-shaped around a courtyard. Numerous tesserae and opus sectile fragments (different kinds of precious marble) indicate the richness of the ooring. Painted plaster fragments, larger marble slabs, and moldings have also been recovered. Although the site was not excavated, the wealth of the villa, as shown by the survey results, places it among the few so well appointed villas known in the Rieti basin. It probably belonged to one of the region’s leading families in the 1st century b.c.

Mattingly and Coccia 1995 ROCCA DI PAPA (See Map 3, p. 252)

L176 – Prato Fabio The site is located on the south side of Monte Cavo, to the east of Lake Albano. Remains of walls in opus reticulatum (1st century a.d.) were discovered in the 1920s. The ruins consisted of a barrel vaulted cistern (ca. 20 u 3.60 m; distance of the vertex of the vault from the oor = 2.40 m), with cocciopesto facing. Above the vault of the cistern were the remains of a room. The walls were preserved for a height of 0.75 m. To the west of the cistern, remains of other walls in opus reticulatum were detected; two of them formed a corridor. A paved diverticulum of the Via Triumphalis was discovered 50 m away from these remains. Among the tile fragments recovered were a tile stamped M. Arri Ruoni (CIL, XV.836), a tile fragment with the letters M. AN F (CIL, XV.816), and a stamped brick (CIL, XV.894). Of the decoration of the villa, only three fresco fragments were found representing a woman-headed sphinx and Horus. Gatti 1926

latium: sabina – s. marinella

443

SABINA Several villa sites were located in the region on the basis of surface nds and/or remains of the substructures of the basis villae, cisterns, and tunnels dug in the tufa plateau for drainage. Two regional studies were devoted to this area: Di Manzano and Leggio 1981 and Muzzioli 1980. They identied many villa-sites, but since the description of the remains is very brief (i.e., “cistern” or “basis villae”) I have not listed these sites under individual entries. The locations where the archaeological remains indicate the presence of villas of considerable size are: Cagnani, Caprola, Casarino, Campo del Pozzo, Castellaccio Montorso, Colle S. Lorenzo, Fonteluna, Grottaglie, Grotte di Torri, Grotte Pantano, Grotte S. Andrea, Grottoni Torrette, and Zoccolanti. For other sites located in the ancient Sabina see listings under Cantalupo, Casperia, Cottanello, Fara in Sabina, Fianello, Forano, Magliano Sabina, Montebuono, Montopoli, Poggio Catino, Poggio Mirteto and Vocone. S. MARINELLA (near Castrum Novum) (See Map 9, p. 352)

L177 – Castello Odescalchi In the 19th century in the gardens of the museum, remains of a villa with a large piscina and harbor were excavated. Almost nothing remains of what was excavated then. The residential part was articulated on different levels descending towards the sea. In 1838, rooms in opus reticulatum on at least two levels were excavated on the western part of the enclosure of the castle. They included a hall with an opus sectile oor and wall slabs of black marble. The Meleager statue now in the museum in Berlin was found in this room. Fistulae with the name of Cn. Domitius Ulpianus were recovered in 1839. In 1895, during excavations to the east of the Castle, a pool was found in the middle of a rectangular room with walls in opus reticulatum, containing many fragments of marble statues, probably gathered there to make lime. They include: a second Meleager by Scopas, Athena Parthenos by Phidias (the head is at the Louvre; the body was discovered in 1959, and is at the Museo di Villa Giulia in Rome), Apollo, Dionysus and Pan. Fragments of large dolia, amphorae, lamps, and a mill-stone, probably from the pars rustica, were also recovered. The earliest structures discovered are datable to the 1st century a.d. Gianfrotta reports that in the section of the hillside on the sea side oors in mosaic, opus spicatum, and opus sectile were visible, in some spots superimposed, thus showing different chronological phases. In the south corner of the castle gardens, a portion of a wall in polychrome opus reticulatum is visible. Remains of a paved street were discovered in 1910 not far from this area. The villa also had a shpond, of which Gianfrotta saw part of the enclosing walls in conglomerate, with an internal facing made of broken tiles. The phases of the villa covered the period 1st century a.d.–3rd century a.d. Gianfrotta 1972: #65; Coarelli 1982

Figure L178a. S. Marinella, Fosso delle Guardiole: overview of villa and shponds (after Gianfrotta 1972).

444 catalogue: latium

latium: s. marinella

445

S. Marinella L178 – Fosso delle Guardiole At km 64.4 of the Aurelia in the water just a few meters from the coastline, remains of two large shponds [D] (one apsidal, the other rectilinear) belonging to a villa are visible. The piscinae extend for almost 400 m along the coast and sit in the sandy shallows. The apsidal pond is close to the mouth of the Fosso delle Guardiole, whose erosive forces have destroyed the east side of the pond. The rectangular pond is protected by an L-shaped mole. It seems that this barrier stands on the remains of an earlier harbor (Etruscan or related to the foundation of Castrum Novum?). In a second phase the mole was connected to the shore and the protected area provided with a complex assemblage of tanks, channels, and anchorages associated with a shery. The ponds were supplied with seawater and fresh water. The apsidal pond has a facing in opus reticulatum, which could be connected to either phases of the villa. On the coast, walls in opus incertum, as well as mosaic and opus signinum oors, were visible before the excavation of the Soprintendenza, which partly uncovered the structures of the villa [C]; the presence of suspensurae and uted tiles indicate that it was a bath-suite. The inland side of the villa was aligned with the Via Aurelia [B]. Two phases have been detected; one dates to the 1st century b.c./beginning of the 1st century a.d., and the other to the second half of the 1st century (dating by Gianfrotta on the basis of building technique). The nds recovered date mostly to the early 2nd century a.d.; nothing that post-dates this period was found. There is another building [A], which is situated to the northwest and on the opposite side of the Via Aurelia, and which should perhaps be related to this villa. The building had two doorways on the front, possibly a portico with posts on the north side, and a room with a mosaic oor on suspensurae, dated to the Augustan period. Abundant material dated to the 2nd century a.d. was recovered; to the 3rd or 4th century dates a burial in an Africana Grande amphora discovered in the room with the mosaic. Gianfrotta 1972: # 88 and 90; Coarelli 1982; Higginbotham 1997

446

catalogue: latium

Figure L178b. S. Marinella, Fosso delle Guardiole, detail of villa remains (after Gianfrotta 1972).

latium: s. marinella

447

S. Marinella L179 – Grottacce A large villa was built just by the sea, right below the modern Aurelia (km 58.2), on a small promontory, with a semi-circular sh-pond in opus signinum, ca. 50 m in diameter, and a small harbor in opus reticulatum. The harbor is not mentioned by Gianfrotta; Higginbotham mentions the remains of a concrete wall 2.15 m wide, to the east of the pond, which may have been used as a landing quay. The total area of the villa measured roughly 200 u 80 m; during the excavation led by the Soprintendenza dell’Etruria Meridionale in 1952, ca. 120 u 40 m of the residential part was excavated. On the other side of the modern road are four cisterns (not shown in plan) that were originally connected to the corpus of the villa, as indicated by the discovery of ancient structures in the construction of modern buildings. It seems that one can attribute to this site the excavations carried out at S. Marinella in 1895, which recovered sculptures of Bacchus, Meleager, Athena Parthenos, Apollo, a double headed herm of Bacchus and a relief depicting the birth of Bacchus. The villa was articulated on at least two different levels, with a probable viridarium in the center, where wells are connected to the underground cisterns in the basis villae. The structures visible today are the 14 underground, rectangular cisterns with barrel vaults. Many stulae found in the excavations indicate that the cisterns were fed maybe by means of an aqueduct. At a later point, the cisterns underwent remodeling, and probably changed their function: they were divided into smaller rooms by walls in opus incertum using local stones and tufa. A possibility is that the space was used as storerooms. In one of the cisterns facing the sea, a counter with a rectangular hollow on one side was built in the same technique as the partition walls. Remains of some of the rooms of the residential part are on the west side, facing the sea and abutting the cisterns; these rooms had mosaic oors in glass tesserae (yellow, red, green, black). A quadrangular cryptoportico was in the south part of the villa. The central area had marble oors. On the south side is a panoramic terrace/gallery with arches and semi-columns in small tufa blocks plastered in blue. Later, these arched openings were closed by masonry. On the north side are traces of a hall with an apse and a black and white mosaic oor with geometric patterns. This part had different phases, but the status of the evidence does not allow any date. Gianfrotta explains the numerous cisterns by the function of the piscina, supposing a type of sh-breeding that needed the combination of fresh water and sea water (also sh-shells like oysters). The shpond was constructed on a platform of volcanic stone, and it comprises a system of concrete piers, moles, and walls. The position of the pond allowed a dependence upon winds and waves to circulate the seawater.

Figure L179. S. Marinella, Grottacce (after De Rossi 1968).

448 catalogue: latium

latium: s. marinella

449

As for the chronological phases of the villa, the earliest datable nds are a brick stamp (Cn Domiti [Gemini], see also the villa L182 – Punta della Vipera) and some revetment marble slabs, dated to the 1st century a.d. Therefore Gianfrotta places the construction of the villa in this period and the changes in the structure, hypothetically, in the 2nd–3rd centuries. A coin by Probus and ten lamps, dated between the late 2nd and the 4th century, attest phases of the villa in the late Empire. De Rossi 1968; Gianfrotta 1972 #44; Schmiedt 1972; Coarelli 1982; Higginbotham 1997

S. Marinella L180 – Grottini The remains of the maritime villa were located to the north of the urban centre of Santa Severa at km 55.1 of the Via Aurelia. A large surface scatter of pottery was recorded by Gianfrotta, in addition to poorly preserved structures along the coast, where sea erosion exposed foundations of walls in opus incertum. A wall in opus incertum was also noted next to a modern building. Besides pottery, surface nds also included black and white mosaic tesserae, small tiles in serpentino and Carrara marble, painted plaster fragments, amphorae, and worked bone objects. Gianfrotta suggests that the villa was in use until the 4th century, based on the recovery of fragments of sigillata chiara D. Gianfrotta 1972: #6

S. Marinella L181 – Prato Rotatore The only indication of the villa that stood in this area is the recovery, in 1843, of two black and white mosaics, dated to the late 2nd/early 3rd century a.d. One mosaic, now lost, depicted the triumph of Bacchus; the other featured a frame with a Nilotic scene and, in the center, a boxing match. Perhaps the sandstone press bed noted by Gianfrotta in the area of Prato Rotatore belonged to the same villa. Gianfrotta 1972: #52

S. Marinella L182 – Punta della Vipera The villa site is located between Civitavecchia and S. Marinella, 1.5 km north of Torre Chiaruccia. Around the middle of the 1st century b.c., the (already abandoned?) sanctuary of Menerva (dating from the 6th century b.c. to the beginning of the 1st century b.c.) was deprived of building material, which was used to build a villa. The pars rustica of the villa, in opus reticulatum with torcular and vats, was built over the probable portico of the sanctuary. The pars urbana was located just by the sea with a large, rectangular piscina cut into the rock shelf. Remains of the pars urbana were

450

catalogue: latium visible incorporated in modern structures. Considerable remains were recorded by Gianfrotta in the cellar of the modern villa Galliano and consist of a room with suspensurae and part of the hypocaust, evidently belonging to the baths. Other vestiges were seen in the garden of another house and also consisted of rooms with suspensurae; the walls displayed different techniques: opus incertum, mixtum, and latericium. Gianfrotta dated these structures to the 2nd and 3rd centuries a.d. The shpond measures ca. 55 u 34 m; three sides of the enclosure are formed by a thick mole in opus caementicium. Inside the shpond the concrete walls are faced in opus reticulatum, standing at a lower level than the moles and providing walkways around the inside of the enclosure. Additional concrete walls divided the piscina into several tanks: the central rectangular section (20.2 u 30.2 m) has a circular tank inscribed in it. The two sections to the north and south of the central one are divided into ve tanks each. Openings connected the various tanks of the pond allowing water circulation, while three covered channels protruded towards the open sea. Eleven small compartments in the perimeter of the enclosure may have been used for juvenile sh. The villa was in use from the late 1st century b.c. to the late 3rd century a.d.

Torelli 1967; Schmiedt 1972; Gianfrotta 1972: #96; Coarelli 1982; Higginbotham 1997

S. Marinella L183 – Punton di Mare The villa, located along the route of an ancient road, was poorly preserved when Gianfrotta surveyed the area. He was informed that mosaic oors and standing walls were visible, but he could see only fragments of building material, including stones for opus incertum or reticulatum, mosaic tesserae, and Arretine pottery. Gianfrotta 1972: #51

latium: s. marinella

451

S. Marinella L184 – Villa Lessona Remains of a large maritime villa were located on a small promontory at km 57.6 of the Via Aurelia. The ancient structures were on the cliff side of the promontory; no trace of constructions in the sea, such as shponds, was seen. The villa was built on different levels, following the morphology of the terrain. The fragments of mosaic oors identied were in white tesserae with geometric patterns in black. Remains of a wall in opus latericium and fragments of revetment slabs in porphyry, giallo antico, and serpentino indicate a building phase in the Imperial period. Many fragments of frescoes were also recovered. The pottery is scanty and not ascribable to any datable form, so it is impossible to determine the lifespan of the villa. Close to this site an ancient secondary branch of the Aurelia went inland towards the territory of Tolfa, leading to some settlements on the hills of Selciata, such as # 31 in the Forma Italiae volume, known only from surface nds. It is not clear whether these sites were farms, possibly part of the fundus of this maritime villa or not. Gianfrotta 1972: #29

452

catalogue: latium

Figure L185. S. Palomba (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: s. palomba

453

S. PALOMBA

L185 – S. Palomba The villa, located next to the ancient Via Ardeatina (mile XIV), was connected to it by a diverticulum. The plan has been reconstructed from aerial photographs, and the villa was not excavated. A survey of the area recovered fragments of marble and cubilia for opus reticulatum, on the basis of which a construction date in the late Republic/early Empire has been proposed. De Franceschini 2005, #94

Figure L186. S. Palomba, Palazzo (after De Franceschini 2005).

454 catalogue: latium

latium: s. palomba – sezze

455

S. Palomba L186 – Palazzo Built on a low hill, the villa was located next to the ancient Via Ardeatina (mile XV). The rst phase of the villa, built in opus quadratum and employing local gray tufa, has been dated to the 3rd century b.c. In the 1st century b.c. the villa was enlarged. The courtyard [A] paved in cocciopesto was modied, probably in the 1st century a.d. The rooms to the northwest of it [B] were storage areas with dolia. Three vats [C] were used for utilitarian activities. It has been suggested that the residential part was in the rooms anking the courtyard on the southwest and east sides, which were completely destroyed. A network of underground channels, forming a so-called tunnel-cistern, was under the villa and has been dated to an earlier period, the 4th century b.c. To the north of the villa, a series of circular pits in two rows were probably related to agricultural activity. The villa had a well and a free standing, rectangular cistern [D] (21 u 13 m), which may also have been used for irrigation. The complex was occupied until the 4th century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #97 SCAURI (Pyrae)

L187 – Scauri This location was occupied by an oppidum, the oppidum Pyrae mentioned in Plin., NH, 3.59, and later incorporated in a villa attributed to M. Aemilius Scaurus on the basis of the place name. Medieval documents (the earliest dated to 830) refer to the place name Scaulum. This site is not far from the villa L111 – Torre Gianola. Ciccone 1990 SEZZE (Setia)

L188 – Sezze The site is located at the foot of Monte Trevi, on the road to Priverno (see also listing under Priverno). Two terraces made by retaining walls in opus reticulatum are visible. Coarelli dates the rst phase for this villa to the end of the 2nd century b.c. The lower terrace is formed by twelve rectangular vaulted rooms, which constitutes the substructures for the upper terrace. These rooms were possibly transformed into cisterns in the 2nd century a.d., as attested by walls in opus mixtum. On the upper level are two cryptoporticoes. The back one has a nymphaeum at the center, with niches and a cistern. Coarelli 1982; De Rossi 1980; De Rossi 1982

456

catalogue: latium

Figure L189. Sperlonga, Tiberius’ villa (after Saguì 1980).

latium: sperlonga

457

SPERLONGA (Speluncae) Several maritime villas are known in the stretch of coast near Sperlonga. These villas and their proprietors were probably involved in the production of wine in the Fondi plain (the caecubum and fundanum, see Plin. NH, 3.60; Strab. 5.3.6). The Via Flacca built in 184 b.c. by the censor L. Valerius Flaccus offered a necessary communication route in the area, serving the coastal villas and allowing the distribution of agricultural produce (wine) via the harbor of Terracina. Plin., NH, 14.8.61 reports that the works for the construction of the Fossa Neronis at Fundi destroyed the caecubum vineyards. Besides the maritime villas, remains of two villas were known also along the north shore of Lake S. Puoto. One of these villas, located in the area Vallaneto, has been under investigation recently. Very preliminary results mentioned by Di Fazio (2006: 74) indicate for the recovered material a date from the 1st century b.c. to the 1st century a.d. De Rossi 1980; Di Fazio 2006

Sperlonga L189 – Tiberius’ villa The villa may have originally belonged to M. Audius Lurco, Livia’s grandfather. The oldest attested phase is in opus incertum and is dated to the beginning of the 1st century b.c. Three major units forming this complex have been identied: 1) a group of cisterns, located to the northwest of the villa proper and at a higher elevation, built in opus incertum with modications/restorations in opus reticulatum; 2) remains visible along the beach for a length of 500 m; two rooms with polychrome mosaic oors were recently investigated and may relate to a bath suite 3) The main nucleus of the villa, including the famous grotto where various sculptural groups relating to Ulysses and his deeds were discovered (Scylla group, Ulysses and Diomedes stealing the Palladium; Ulysses holding the body of Achilles, the so-called Pasquino type; the blinding of Polyphemus). In Augustan times the complex was enlarged. The villa is organized around a peristyle court [A], enclosing the viridarium. The various rooms that opened onto it underwent numerous modications in the period between the 2nd century and late antiquity; the row of modular rooms located to the southeast of the court was added in the late Imperial period [B]. To the southeast of the court are two lower terraces, part of the original arrangement of the villa: a probable two-nave portico [C] and a walkway/garden leading to a natural small grotto [D], adapted as nymphaeum, as shown by the traces of polychrome mosaics on the walls and vault, framed by sea-shells. To the southeast is a large rectangular

458

catalogue: latium area (in origin a garden for some scholars or a marine pool for others) with the so-called pavilion/cenatio in the east corner (not shown in plan). The cenatio was a two story building, built in opus incertum; the central room was a cubiculum with an opus signinum oor decorated with white marble tesserae. The grotto where the above-mentioned sculptures were placed had a monumental architectural façade; remains of the walls and part of a corridor in opus reticulatum and vittatum, paved with marble crustae, are visible, whereas a fragment belonging to the architrave was found in the pool below. The shpond in front of the cave consisted of a circular pool and a rectangular one. In the middle of the circular pool was the statuary group of Scylla; the rectangular pool had in the middle a rectangular structure in opus reticulatum. On the west side it had four tanks with amphora necks walled on the sides, connected to the main pool by sluices, probably for the breeding of a special kind of sh; on the east side, facing the grotto, was a probable summer pavilion, decorated by a fountain with marble putti. The scarce fresco fragments recovered in the villa mostly belong to the Third Style, but remains of wall paintings in the Fourth Style, dated to the Flavian period were also found. The construction of a storehouse in the late Imperial period and the amount of African pottery recovered (sigillata A, A/D, C, etc.), may suggest that in the late Empire the villa became the administrative center of latifundia incorporating some of the other villas of Sperlonga.

Saguì 1980; Cassieri 2000

latium: sperlonga

459

Sperlonga L190 – “Villa della Rampa” Going south on the coastal road, right after the tunnel near Tiberius’ villa, one nds the remains of a Republican villa on the beach of Bazzano. Due to the proximity to Tiberius’ villa, this site is also sometimes referred to as the “Villa of Tiberius”. The modern road bisects the main part of the building. In Roman times the Via Flacca divided the villa complex into two parts. The two complexes were connected by a ramp in opus incertum which bypassed the road with an arch. Three building phases have been detected, attested by the following structures: 1) a terracing wall in opus polygonale, dated to the mid-2nd century b.c.; 2) the connecting ramp, dated to the early 1st century b.c.; 3) the terracing wall with niches, built in opus reticulatum, dated to the late 1st century b.c. Lafon 1981

460

catalogue: latium

Figure L191. Sperlonga, Villa Delle Acque Salse: substructures (after De Rossi 1980).

latium: sperlonga

461

Sperlonga L191 – Villa delle Acque Salse Structures in opus polygonale, opus incertum, and opus reticulatum belonging to a villa were identied at Acque Salse, on the side of a hill next to the Via Flacca. The frontage of the villa measured ca. 60 m; the substructures forming the basis villae were made by barrel vaulted cisterns. De Rossi 1980

462

catalogue: latium

Figure L192a. Sperlonga, Villa Prato (after Broise and Lafon 2001).

Figure L192b. Sperlonga, Villa Prato: detail of pars urbana and bath suite (after Broise and Lafon 2001).

latium: sperlonga

463

Sperlonga L192 – Villa Prato The villa lies on a hill, about 800 m from the coastline, next to the Via Flacca. At times it is referred to with the name “villa Lago San Puoto”. The construction is dated to the second half of the 2nd century b.c. On the seashore, remains of the piscina are visible at “Le Salette”. The shpond was built in the same type of opus incertum used for the structure of the villa; the two constructions are probably contemporary. This is an interesting element from a chronological and geographical point of view because it offers, outside the traditional sh-breeding area of the Bay of Naples, an early date for an activity otherwise well-attested for the 1st century b.c. The villa was built on two terraces (ca. 60 u 35 m). The lower one has a terracing wall in Fourth Style opus polygonale; the second has a retaining wall in opus incertum. Possibly, in the middle of the lower terrace [A] was a garden. Inside the substructures (the podium of the upper terrace) are two long cisterns fed by rain water gathered on the top of the hill. At each end of the podium is a protruding element with a vaulted room opening at the level of the lower terrace [B]. The residential quarters (389 m²; plus the front gallery measuring 335 m²) and the pars rustica (402 m²) were on the upper terrace, measuring 17 u 60 m. An excavation by the French School in Rome has uncovered sixteen rooms and two courtyards with porticoes. Some of the rooms featured oors in opus signinum with geometric decoration made with pebbles and tesserae and First Style wall decoration. A bath suite [C], considered to be, for its early date, still experimental for its type, was also discovered. The pars rustica had double presses [D], in a rst phase for the production of oil, later for wine. Material nds date the structure to the second half of the 2nd century b.c. There are no traces of later restorations. Pottery nds do not continue after the age of Augustus. According to the excavators, the villa was abandoned in the years 60–40 b.c. Lafon 1991; Higginbotham 1997; Broise and Lafon 2001

Map 14. Suburbium (A. Marzano).

464 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM of rome

465

SUBURBIUM OF ROME

SUBURBIUM L193 – Acqua Traversa, also “Villa of Lucius Verus” The villa, built on a hill overlooking the Via Cassia (V mile), has a long history of excavations, starting as early as 1585. In the early 20th century, the structures were almost completely destroyed by the construction of Villa Manzoni. Probe trenches opened by the Sorpintendenza in the late 1980s found only a few structures related to the 2nd century phase of the villa. Although we have narrative descriptions of the structures discovered in the past and some sketches of the mosaic patterns, no plan exists of the rooms seen by Lugli. The layout of the villa cannot be reconstructed; it must have been, however, a very luxurious complex, judging from the number and quality of statues discovered and the numerous fragments of various kinds of precious marble. The earliest nucleus of the complex consisted of a tunnel-cistern and a terracing wall in opus incertum, dated to 2nd/1st century b.c. In the 1st century a.d. a free standing cistern was built and a probable open air cistern, used for irrigation since it is at a lower level than the villa. In the 2nd century a.d. a double retaining wall in opus latericium with niches was added, as well as various rooms with mosaic oors (some were documented by Lugli, others discovered in the construction of Villa Manzoni and in the recent investigations). The investigations in the 1980s uncovered a room with brick-faced walls and a oor in opus sectile. Only the tile imprints in the oor preparation layer were found, and no other data on the occupation phases of the villa exist. During the long period in which the villa was explored for the recovery of works of art, numerous statues came to light, including various portraits of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, hence the probable origin of the villa’s name. Many sculptures are currently in foreign museums, others cannot be located. De Franceschini summarizes the status of knowledge concerning the statuary discovered (see also Neudecker 1988). Other noteworthy nds from the villa include the glass opus sectile panels from the Gorga collection, currently in the museum of the Palazzo Massimo in Rome. Neudecker 1988; De Franceschini 2005: #19; G. Messineo, “Ville a Tor di Quinto e nelle tenute di Grottarossa e Acquatraversa”, in Santillo Frizell and Klynne 2005: 49–53

466

catalogue: latium

Figure L194. Suburbium, Acquatraversa Springs (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

467

SUBURBIUM L194 – Acquatraversa Springs, also Villa of the Via Cassia In antiquity the villa stood along the Via Cassia (mile VII). Only part of the bath quarters was discovered; it dates, on the basis of mosaic styles and brick stamps, to the 2nd century a.d. A brick stamp of Diocletian indicates a later restoration. Two portrait heads, dated to the 3rd century a.d., were also recovered. Nothing is known about the date of abandonment of the complex. De Franceschini 2005, #15

468

catalogue: latium

Figure L195. Suburbium, Auditorium villa (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

469

SUBURBIUM L195 – Auditorium The villa had a long history of occupation and is one of the earliest villas identied around Rome. It was built in the 6th century b.c. and, through various building phases in the 5th and 4th centuries b.c., in the mid-3rd century b.c started to acquire the typical layout comprising a central atrium. The excavators detected minor restorations dated to the 2nd century b.c. and then a last building phase dated between the 1st century b.c. and the 1st century a.d., in which some rooms and an enclosing wall in opus reticulatum were added. The villa had an oil press [A] as early as the 5th century b.c., in addition to storerooms provided with dolia. The press was obliterated in the 3rd century b.c. phase. The most conspicuous remains identied date to the 3rd century b.c., when the residential part of the villa was enlarged to the disadvantage of the pars rustica. The villa was destroyed sometime in the 2nd century a.d., and the area was used for burials. It is striking that, unlike other examples of villas known in the suburbium, the 1st century a.d. phase was limited to minimal intervention and the raising of oor levels, without adding elements of décor, such as mosaic oors or a bath suite. The villa is the only one known in the suburbium that was not built on a hill, but on low ground, and it is possible that exposure to oods prevented further development of the pars urbana, attested at the other sites. Terrenato argued that in the Archaic period this was an Etruscan palatial unit, from which the villa known to us from the mid-Republican period evolved. Terrenato 2001a; De Franceschini 2005, #39

470

catalogue: latium

SUBURBIUM L196 – Barbarano Romano In antiquity the villa was located on the Via Cassia (mile VIII), on the side of a hill. The investigation was very limited, revealing part of a room or courtyard paved with stones. The technique used for the walls consists of opus caementicium with pozzolana. Fragments of a mill-stone and a masonry circular base were discovered. During the excavation, fragments of mosaics and painted plaster were discovered, indicating the existence of a residential part. The only dating element for the structure comes from the discovery of cubilia dated to the early 1st century a.d. Among the nds are Italian and African sigillata, iron agricultural tools, glass, amphorae, and bone needles. De Franceschini 2005, #14

latium: SUBURBIUM

471

SUBURBIUM L197 – Borgata Ottavia The villa was built on a hill next to the ancient Via Triumphalis. It was badly destroyed by modern construction works, and the layout is difcult to comprehend. Remains of structures in opus quadratum and a cistern with tunnels (“a cunicoli”) seem to indicate a late 2nd century b.c. phase. In the early Imperial age the villa was enlarged (reticulate walls), featuring an elegant residential part, as indicated by the recovery of architectural terracottas and fragments of mosaics, and a pars rustica. This complex included a probable cella vinaria with pits for dolia dug into the tufa bank, and at least two vats faced in cocciopesto. A bath suite in opus latericium was added during the 1st century a.d., dated by brick stamps. No other information is available on the occupation of the villa. De Franceschini 2005, #18

472

catalogue: latium

Figure L198. Suburbium, Casal Bianco (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

473

SUBURBIUM L198 – Casal Bianco The villa stood on a low tufaceous hill in the proximity of the Via Tiburtina. Explored only in part, it featured an atrium with impluvium and six tufa columns covered with plaster, around which unfolded the rooms of the residential part. The rst phase dates to the 2nd century b.c., attested by tufa opus quadratum and a tunnel-cistern; in the early 1st century b.c the villa was enlarged with the addition of a bath suite [A], and the atrium area was remodeled, employing the opus reticulatum technique. In the 2nd century a.d. new mosaic oors were laid in the rooms on the north and east side of the atrium. Room B, possibly a triclinium, had a oor in cocciopesto with a central emblema of marble tiles, of which only the imprints in the mortar were left. De Franceschini found a photograph taken during the excavation showing a square pit with catillus, but in the report there is no mention of this feature. The excavation nds have not been catalogued or studied, and the last phase of the villa cannot be determined. De Franceschini 2005, #37

SUBURBIUM L199 – Casal Bianco, Settecamini The villa was in part investigated after the discovery of a diverticulum leading to it, but has since been destroyed by a quarry; the only standing remain is a free standing cistern, dated to the 1st century b.c. The description of the part of the villa investigated mentions a rather large complex with building phases spanning from the 1st century b.c. to the 5th a.d. The villa must have had a residential part and a production part, since the brief report notes a room with a geometric mosaic, but also describes a courtyard with two connected vats and “various small vats and counters added in subsequent phases”. It is not possible to understand better the chronological evolution of this complex, and there is no information on the nds recovered during the excavation. De Franceschini 2005, #36

474

catalogue: latium

Figure L200. Suburbium, Casal Bruciato (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

475

SUBURBIUM L200 – Casal Bruciato The villa was located in antiquity between the III and IV mile of the Via Tiburtina. The portion of the villa that was explored includes a portico [E], a few rooms of the residential part, and a mausoleum [F]. The villa proper presents reticulate walls, and is therefore dated to the late 1st century b.c. The mausoleum was added in the 2nd century a.d. and displays opus mixtum and opus latericium. The portico and three rooms [B–D] had mosaic oors. In room C was a masonry base, supposed to be the base of the statue of Artemis found in fragments in the same room. Abundant marble tiles for opus sectile and veneer were found, an indication of the elegance of the residential part. The two rooms on the north [A] had cocciopesto oors and have been interpreted as service quarters, where a a cocciopesto-faced vat was found. In the portico part of a mill-stone was found and, under the oor, traces of previous structures, including a tufa column. The various phases of the structure are not completely clear; room B, for instance, presented part of a mosaic oor, but also had evidence of later ooring or repair in cocciopesto. De Franceschini 2005, #51

SUBURBIUM L201 – Casale di Aguzzano The partially investigated villa was built in the mid-1st century b.c.; in the 1st century a.d. a bath suite was added, featuring opus sectile ooring. The existence of a pars rustica is inferred from the recovery of dolia fragments and part of a our mill. Nearby was located a tunnel-cistern, dug in the tufa bank and presumably belonging to the villa. No other evidence is available for subsequent phases. De Franceschini 2005, #41

476

catalogue: latium

Figure L202. Suburbium, Casale Ghella (after De Franceschni 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

477

SUBURBIUM L202 – Casale Ghella The remains pertaining to this villa include parts of the residential and rustic quarters. A paved diverticulum connected the villa to the Via Cassia (mile VIII), in the proximity of which was a mausoleum. The villa was in use for a long time, from the 1st century b.c. to the late Imperial period, with various building phases. The rst phase is dated on the basis of walls in opus quasi-reticulatum with corners in brick. A second phase occurred in the 1st/2nd centuries a.d. (opus mixtum and latericium). The structures uncovered are distributed around an atrium with impluvium [D], provided with a two-nave, underground cistern (7.5 u 13.5 m) and a courtyard [E]. The Republican mosaics of this atrium were later covered by a paving made of irregularly cut marble slabs. The cistern was also connected to another tunnel-cistern, which was provided with several wells. The atrium [H] probably also featured an impluvium, but this was later obliterated by a new oor with paving stones. The southwest portion of the villa housed the service quarters: the kitchen with oven [I], a kiln for terracotta building material [K], a press room [G] for oil production with a xed press bed (ø 1.70 m); fragments of dolia and of an olive mill were also found in the rooms. In the narrow room to the northeast of room I was a staircase leading to the upper story. In the second phase two small bath suites were added; the distinction may reect different users, as rooms [F] were next to the pars rustica, whereas [C] related to the residential part. However, production activities took place also in the northeast part of the villa, where a second press [A], three vats faced in cocciopesto, and room [B] with dolia defossa were found. Therefore, the distribution of spaces between residential and working areas, especially in relation to each chronological phase, is not very clear. In fact, the torcular complex found in the northern portion of the villa has not been dated by the excavators, whereas the press in room [G] is attributed to the second phase. De Franceschini mentions that under the oor of the northern press room large quantities of fresco fragments were recovered, which may indicate that these rooms were later converted to utilitarian use. In the 3rd century a.d. the villa underwent restorations, and new mosaic oors were laid. It is assumed that the mausoleum dates to this period, but its building technique was not recorded. De Franceschini 2005, #16

478

catalogue: latium

Figure L203. Suburbium, Casale Monfalcone (after De Franceschni 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

479

SUBURBIUM L203 – Casale Monfalcone Remains of this partially excavated villa include the bath quarters, part of the residential quarters, and the pars rustica. It was built in the 2nd/1st century b.c. (opus quadratum). In the early Imperial period, the bath suite [B] was added (opus reticulatum and opus latericium). In room [C] was a pond with blue painted plaster, probably a nymphaeum. Fragments of mosaic oors uncovered by agricultural activities were seen in the surrounding elds, together with “Campana” terracotta plaques, painted plaster, and various kinds of marble. On the north side was a vat [A] with internal molding at the base and steps in a corner, probably related to wine production. De Franceschini 2005, #29

SUBURBIUM L204 – Casalone dell’Osa On the edge of the plateau dominating the Fosso dell’Osa, a large villa was identied from surface nds. The rst phase seems to date to the 2nd century b.c., the last to the 2nd century a.d. The remains of the villa were detected on a front line measuring 185 m. The most ancient structural remain identied is a terracing wall in opus polygonale, reinforced by a wall in opus reticulatum in the 1st century b.c. Many restorations and changes in the plan occurred in the early Empire. Quilici 1974; Carandini 1985b

480

catalogue: latium

Figure L205. Suburbium, Castel Giubileo (L205) (after De Franceschni 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

481

SUBURBIUM L205 – Castel Giubileo The villa was built on a hill not far from the Via Salaria. The partially excavated structure consists mostly of the pars rustica, comprising a torcular with sockets for the arbores in room [C] and paved in opus spicatum, and a vat in an adjacent room. room [B] was the cella vinaria, where pits for dolia were dug into the oor, while room [A] was paved in white battuto with black tesserae. The rooms immediately to the north of these also had some kind of utilitarian use: they featured cocciopesto oors with molding along the walls. Reticulate walls indicate for the structures a date to the late 1st century b.c. In room [E] part of a our mill was found, while [D], where planting pots were discovered, appears to have been a small garden. Three rooms partially investigated to the east of space D belonged to the residential part, as shown by mosaic oors and traces of frescoes. A free-standing cistern in opus latericium was built in the 2nd century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #12

Figure L206. Suburbium, Castel Giubileo (L206) (after De Franceschni 2005).

482 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

483

SUBURBIUM L206 – Castel Giubileo The villa was built on the Colle Salario in the late Republican period. Re-used blocks belonging to opus quadratum should belong to a pre-existing building, but no traces of it have been identied. The nucleus of the investigated part consists of three rectangular storage areas [A], where numerous fragments of dolia were recovered; to the east of these rooms was the press room and related vats and lacus; a channel connected this area with the closest of the storeroom. The two blocks show a different alignment. Rooms [B] were in part underground and appear to have been cellars. To the north of the storage area were three rooms of the residential part [C]. The one in the east corner had a oor in cocciopesto with tesserae and an entrance framed by plastered semi-columns; in the other two rooms were found architectural terracottas and possible traces of a staircase leading to the upper story. The rooms to the west of C were hypothetically labeled “stable”, because horse teeth were recovered in them. To the south of rooms A were other rooms, of which one was probably the kitchen with an oven. To the northwest was a rectangular cistern (not shown in plan), connected to the villa by a channel [D]. Some walls in opus listatum attest a phase dated to the 2nd/3rd centuries a.d. 13 late Imperial tombs were recovered, both inside the villa and along the enclosing walls; some of the burials are dated by coins and grave goods to the late 3rd century a.d. Pottery and coins recovered indicate some kind of occupation of the site down to the 4th/5th centuries a.d. Final destruction of the villa seems to have occurred in the late 5th century as a result of re; the remains of a man were found under a collapsed roof with a purse with 40 nummi. Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003; De Franceschini 2005, #13

484

catalogue: latium

Figure L207. Suburbium, Cecchignola (after De Franceschni 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

485

SUBURBIUM L207 – Cecchignola The villa was already explored in the 19th century, and then later in 1939, but the exact location of the remains, which were backlled, is unknown. The data and plan published after the investigation of 1939 show a villa with central atrium [C]. The construction can be dated to the 2nd/1st centuries b.c., based on the presence of foundations in opus quadratum using peperino and tufa, walls in opus incertum, and a tunnel-cistern. In the late Republican-early Imperial period the villa was enlarged: much of the walls documented in the excavations were in opus reticulatum, including the double buttressed walls forming the basis villae. It seems that there were at least two terraces: on the upper one was the villa, on the lower one a garden. In the 2nd century a.d., a cistern [B] was built in opus latericium. In the north portion of the complex a room [A] had part of a oor in opus spicatum preserved, and Nibby mentioned the presence of numerous fragments of dolia, perhaps an indication of the pars rustica. The rooms of the residential part had mosaics with black and white tesserae, dated to the second phase, or polychrome mosaics, including an emblema in opus vermiculatum in room [D], dated to the rst phase (a scene with a cat and two ducks, currently in the museum of the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome). De Franceschini 2005, #84

Figure L208. Suburbium, Centocelle Ad duas Lauros (after De Franceschni 2005).

486 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM SUBURBIUM L208 – Centocelle,

487

AD DUAS LAUROS

The complex, originally located on the Via Labicana (mile IV), was repeatedly excavated since 1780; in the 1920s, when Ashby and Lugli surveyed it, the ruins and a mausoleum were still visible. The site was affected by the construction of the nearby airport; it was excavated on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2000. The villa was built in the 2nd/1st century b.c., over a previous building that showed a different alignment. The recent excavation calculated that in this phase the area of the villa measured ca. 1,000 m², with opus incertum walls and lythostroton oors. It was enlarged in the late 1st century b.c., with structures in opus reticulatum that added rooms around the peristyle and enlarged the pars rustica. These rooms were paved with mosaics. The whole eastern part seems to have been a garden of which an enclosing wall in opus incertum, 40 m long, was discovered. In the 2nd century, the bath quarters [A] to the southwest of the complex were added in opus latericium. A second bath complex [F] was added in the late 2nd/3rd century a.d. on the southeast side, at the end of the xystus. Finally, a fourth phase that modied some of the spaces of the villa occurred in the 3rd/4th century a.d. The nucleus of the villa was peristyle [B] with columns of the Tuscan order; the north and west sides of the peristyle were later blocked by walls in opus listatum. Onto this court opened hall C. To the north of the peristyle was probably the atrium of the rst phase villa and in the 3rd century was paved with opus sectile. To the north was a quadri-portico [E] in opus listatum, in the middle of which in the Severan age a twostory mausoleum was built in the shape of a temple. To the south of this structure, some rooms were re-paved with polychrome mosaics. A second, circular mausoleum, destroyed during the construction of the airport, stood to the east of the rst one. In the 3rd/4th century a wall enclosed the area of the “temple” mausoleum, with walls decorated with rectangular and semi-circular niches. The last building activity recorded by the recent investigation occurred in the 5th century; to the south of the mausoleum enclosure was built a hall with three niches on the north side and a mosaic oor, and the area to the south of this hall was paved with opus sectile. Presumably, the occupation of the complex continued down to the 6th century. Gioia and Volpe 2004; De Franceschini 2005, #62

SUBURBIUM L209 – Centocelle,

THERMA AD DUAS LAUROS

The villa was built on a hill located between the Via Labicana and Via Prenestina, in the late 1st century b.c./early 1st century a.d. In the 1st/2nd century a.d., bath quarters were built in opus latericium, in part converting existing rooms to this new use; then in the 3rd/4th century a frigidarium was added, provided with pools and paved with cipollino, a kind of marble that is usually employed in frigidaria in the Imperial period.

488

catalogue: latium The building technique used for this phase is opus listatum, which re-uses building material. One of the rooms, which had a cocciopesto oor, was possibly part of the service quarters for the baths, maybe a praefurnium. The baths are the only part of the villa that has been excavated, but as in the case of the villa of the PISCINA (L210) to the east of this complex, traces of irrigation channels and agricultural trenches were found.

De Franceschini 2005, #61

Figure L210. Suburbium, Centocelle, Villa of the Piscina (after Gioia and Volpe 2004).

latium: SUBURBIUM SUBURBIUM L210 – Centocelle, villa of the

489

PISCINA

The villa, located on the northwest side of the Centocelle plain, was excavated in 1930 and again starting in 1996. The villa, in its largest extension, covered an area measuring ca. 25,000 m²; the various parts were built around a large central garden [A] (ca. 12,000 m²), where some planting pots relating to a ower bed have been found in situ. The earliest nucleus of the villa, with rooms placed around a courtyard, dates to the 3rd century b.c., but structures and features dug in the tufa plateau date to the 4th century b.c and attest a stable settlement in the area, probably for agricultural purposes. Various building phases have been detected: to the 2nd/1st century b.c. dates a vat in opus incertum, whose function has not been determined; to the late 1st b.c./early 1st century a.d. date walls in opus reticulatum; in the 1st century a.d. the baths were added; to the 2nd century a.d dates the enlargement of the baths in opus latericium and the construction of the large rectangular piscina which gives the villa its name. On the southeast side of the complex was the atrium [D], and the baths [E]. A corridor led from the atrium to various rooms on the southwest side and to a corridor running along the enclosing wall on the west side of the garden. The villa had a tunnel-cistern, which dates to the rst phase of the complex; at the moment no information is available for other sources of water supply, which would have been necessary for the bath quarters and the piscina [B], which had a capacity of 500,000 l. The large pool (50 u 14 m) that was built in the garden in the 2nd century a.d. seems to have had both a decorative and a practical function; the presence of amphora necks walled along the sides indicates that it was used for sh-breeding, while the central, round structure in the middle of it may have been a pavilion or a fountain. The villa, or at least the pool, was abandoned sometime in the 4th century a.d., when the pool was lled with debris coming from other areas of the villa, including fragments of painted ceiling decoration. The description of the nds uncovered during the excavation in the 1930s is rather vague: there is no information on the oors of the rooms, except for the corridor in front of exedra F, which had a “white tesserae mosaic”, and courtyard C, covered with paving stones. The recent excavations have found many fragments of nely painted plaster related to the wall decoration of the bath quarters; the other nds are being studied for publication, and no other data are available at the moment. Next to the villa, series of trenches cutting the tufa plateau were discovered, related to a vineyard; irrigation channels were also found. This evidence of agricultural activity has been dated to the same period as Phase 1 of the villa, and it is therefore hypothesized that in this period the villa had a torcular for wine making. Gioia and Volpe 2004; De Franceschini 2005, #60

Figure L212. Suburbium, Cinecittà, Subaugusta (after De Franceschini 2005).

490 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

491

SUBURBIUM L211 – Cinecittà, Quaietta The villa is only partially known. It was excavated in 1985, but the results have not been completely published. Part of the bath quarters and residential area were excavated, and traces of marble veneer, frescoes, and mosaics were noted. These structures date to the 2nd century a.d. and use a combination of opus latericium and opus vittatum. To the south of the baths, many fragments of dolia, amphorae, and parts of vats with hydraulic mortar indicate the existence of a pars rustica. The date of abandonment is unknown. De Franceschini 2005, #74

SUBURBIUM L212 – Cinecittà, Subaugusta This villa, although only partly excavated, is of interest because of the conversion of a room with an apse [A] into a calcatorium. Three building phases (in opus reticulatum, testaceum, and vittatum) were detected. The room which was converted into a calcatorium in the second phase had a oor in cocciopesto with travertine tesserae and was barrel vaulted. In the wall opposite the apse, a stula led the liquid to a vat, and from there to the lacus located in the cryptoportico below. This room was next to a large peristyle [B]; the interior of the courtyard was paved with tiles. Carandini 1985b; De Franceschini 2005, #67

492

catalogue: latium

Figure L213. Suburbium, Cinquina (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

493

SUBURBIUM L213 – Cinquina The villa was built in the late 1st century b.c., as indicated by reticulate walls and oors in cocciopesto with tesserae, in an area between the Via Salaria and Via Nomentana and had subsequent building phases, unfortunately not discussed or described in the excavation report. The residential part was on the northeast side of the complex, where two rooms [A, B] had cocciopesto oors decorated with tesserae; in C was the impluvium, connected to underground tunnels (tunnel-cistern). In a subsequent, undated phase, A was transformed into a storage area with sunken dolia, and a torcular was placed in the courtyard [D], with E being the lacus. The unpublished nds span the 1st to the 4th centuries a.d.; in proximity to the villa is a mausoleum in opus latericium, which has been dated to the 2nd–4th centuries. De Franceschini proposes that the villa was transformed into a utilitarian building in the 1st century a.d., observing that there is no evidence for new oors in the residential part. If, however, the mausoleum belongs to this property and not to the funerary monuments along the ancient roads, it seems unlikely that the villa had completely lost its residential function as early as the 1st century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #11

SUBURBIUM L214 – Colle Tasso The villa was built on the top of the hill, overlooking Fosso di Val Freghizia, in a panoramic position enjoying the view of the Tiburtini and Praenestini mountains. It was near the intersection of the road leading from the coast to Tibur and the road coming from Sabina and other secondary roads, at Osteria delle Capannelle. The villa was built in the late Republic/early Empire, on different terraces. A strong wall in opus incertum built along the river shows engineering works directed towards controlling the ow of the river. The substructures were built in opus incertum; other structures, signs of late Imperial restorations, are in opus reticulatum, latericium, and vittatum. The last traces of occupation date to the 4th century a.d. Carandini 1985b

Figure L215. Suburbium, Fortezza Tiburtina (after De Franceschini 2005).

494 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

495

SUBURBIUM L215 – Fortezza Tiburtina The remains of the villa, which was built on a hillside overlooking the Aniene Valley, were explored and then destroyed during construction work for the Fortezza Tiburtina. The construction should be dated to the 2nd century b.c., based on the presence of opus quadratum and of three wells connected to an underground tunnel-cistern, a type of cistern common in 2nd century b.c. structures. The tunnels are lined with hydraulic mortar and have molding in cocciopesto. 19th century accounts report that the villa occupied ca. 5,000 m² and featured reticulate and brick walls with frescoes and stucco decoration and mosaic oors in black and white tesserae with geometric patterns and vegetal motifs of which no graphic documentation exists. The mention of reticulate and brick walls is an indication of a second building phase in the 1st century a.d., but the nature of this building activity cannot be ascertained. Besides the mention of frescoes and mosaics, the discovery of two marble statues (in one of the wells: a statue of Apollo; in the villa: probably Asclepius) indicates an elegent residential part. De Franceschini 2005, #44

496

catalogue: latium

Figure L216. Suburbium, Fosso dell’Osa (after Carandini 1985b).

latium: SUBURBIUM

497

SUBURBIUM L216 – Fosso dell’Osa The villa is located 1 km to the southeast of the villa L217 – Fosso di Montegiardino; the two sites present a similar plan and setting. The plan is elongated, following in orientation the Fosso dell’Osa. The villa was articulated on different levels along the side of the hill. Only the lower part was partially excavated, revealing some rooms of the residential part, built in opus reticulatum and opening onto a long corridor. Both rooms and corridor were decorated in Second Style wall paintings and presented linear black and white tesserae mosaics. A complex system of drains for the collection of rainwater was detected. A large two-nave cistern (not shown in plan) was at the level of the lower substructures, collecting the water coming from the upper levels of the villa. An occupation up to the 2nd century a.d. is proposed. Carandini 1985b; De Franceschini 2005, #49

498

catalogue: latium

Figure L217. Suburbium, Fosso di Montegiardino (after Carandini 1985b).

latium: SUBURBIUM

499

SUBURBIUM L217 – Fosso di Montegiardino The villa was partially excavated in 1934 for an extent of 24 u 31 m. The villa was located at the bottom of the valley along the Fosso di Montegiardino. The rst phase was dated to the 2nd/1st century b.c.; to this phase belong walls in opus quadratum and remains of First Style painted plaster. In the late 1st century b.c./early 1st century a.d., a new phase obliterated the previous building, also slightly changing the orientation. In the 2nd century a.d., another phase occurred, as attested by one of the mosaic oors dated to this period. In this phase, at the center of the portion excavated, was a large room with a mosaic oor [C] and, to the northwest of this room, the atrium with impluvium [B]. To the northwest of the atrium was a vat [A] with with three steps leading into it, next to a room paved in opus spicatum. These features likely relate to installations for production, possibly of wine. Another vat [D], lined with cocciopesto, was found on the opposite side of the villa, and De Franceschini suggests that it may have belonged to the torcular olearium. The date of abandonment cannot be determined. Carandini 1985b; De Franceschini 2005, #48

Figure L218. Suburbium, Fosso Lombardo (after De Franceschini 2005).

500 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

501

SUBURBIUM L218 – Fosso Lombardo The villa was built in the mid-1st century b.c.; however, an enclosing wall in opus quadratum, dated to the late 2nd century b.c., probably belonged to an earlier structure, later obliterated by the villa. Building phases occurred in the 1st/2nd century a.d. and the 2nd century a.d., as indicated by walls in opus vittatum. Walls re-using various building materials have been dated to the 4th century a.d. The known part of the villa consists of a long, rectangular courtyard [B] (45 u 10 m) paved with stones taken from a road, a room with an apse [A] where two dolia were found, and various rooms to the southeast of the courtyard. Of these rooms, the hall with an apse [C], with marble veneer, belonged to the pars urbana, together with the portico [D]. The site is currently under excavation by the University of Rome 2, Tor Vergata. De Franceschini 2005, #76

502

catalogue: latium

Figure L219. Suburbium, Fosso S. Maura (after Carandini 1985b).

latium: SUBURBIUM

503

SUBURBIUM L219 – Fosso Santa Maura, Tor vergata The villa, located on the southwest side of a low hill, was in use from the 2nd century b.c. to at least the 2nd century a.d., but in Carandini 1985b: 103, reference is made in passing to “ristrutturazioni” occurring down to the 5th century, the nature of which is not discussed. The plan of the rst phase presented two atria: an atrium tetrastylum [A] and a Tuscan one [B] with impluvium and underground cistern dug into the pozzolana bank on which the villa rested. Traces of a staircase in the rst atrium indicate an upper story. The rooms around the atrium are built in opus incertum, the walls have simple decoration in painted plaster, and the oors are in cocciopesto with an insertion of limestone tesserae. In the eastern part of the complex the pars rustica was identied, featuring a press [C] bed and some vats faced in cocciopesto. In the northwest corner of the villa, a room with no ooring and a series of large circular holes dug into the pozzolana bank was probably a storeroom with dolia. In the early Empire, some rooms were transformed into a bath suite, and a large open-air cistern [D] was added to the north of the villa. Carandini 1985b; De Franceschini 2005, #73

Figure L220. Suburbium, Grottarossa (after Stefani 1944).

504 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

505

SUBURBIUM L220 – Grottarossa (Saxa Rubra) On the hill Monte delle Grotte, overlooking the so-called Nasonii tomb, a Republican villa was excavated near the ancient Flaminia (km 8 of the modern Via Flaminia) in the 1940s. Grottarossa is the Saxa Rubra statio indicated in the Tabula Peutingeriana; in the Itinerarius Gerosolimitanus, it is labeled mutatio ad Rubras. The hill itself had a settlement prior to the construction of the villa, as shown by some walls with different orientation, upon which the villa’s foundations rest. Finds belonging to this phase are bucchero fragments and Etruscan architectural terracottas considered to belong to a temple (see Terrenato 2001a for a discussion of this evidence as referring to early palaces/villas). The foundations of the villa are built in tufa blocks laid with no mortar. The villa measures 34.20 m (east side, the front) u 43 m (south side) and had two cryptoporticoes [A]. It is an atrium-type villa provided with a second atrium with impluvium [B]. In the pars rustica was a room [C] with a vat, faced in cocciopesto, with a hole (ø 0.45 m) in the middle, gathering the liquid into a vase. To the south of this room, three other rooms related to production activities were located. One presented another vat, possibly indicating of the presence of double presses, for oil and wine. Minor changes took place in early Imperial times: enlargements of some rooms and blocking of doorways. Some rooms had mosaic oors, but most of the oors were in cocciopesto with small tesserae, generally dated to the rst half of the 1st century b.c. Material nds include fragments of Arretine sigillata, fragments of tiles, burnt wood, an iron knife, fragments of stucco decoration and frescoes (First Style), and unspecied material dated to Domitian (Carandini 1985b: 125). An inscribed stele (Pedia Sp. F. Polla) was found re-used as a door jamb. Nearby, west of the ancient Via Flaminia, where a branch of this road moves west towards Grottarossa, are the remains of two piscinae, which might have been operated by this villa or one of the other villas that were in this area. One shpond consists of three long enclosures lying side by side (each tank measures 3.5 u 30 m long; the depth was ca. 1 m), with walls faced in opus reticulatum. Next to this pond is another one, in the shape of the Greek letter phi. The central circular tank measures ca. 20 m in diameter; the north and south rectangular tanks measure 4 u 10 m. The interior of the walls is faced with opus reticulatum, the exterior in tufa ashlars. Inside the main section of the piscina is a circular “island” (ø 9.25 m), subdivided into six tanks. These tanks were fed with fresh water by means of a channel. Higginbotham (1997: 115) supposes that the water came from sources other than the Tiber. The shponds are dated between the late 1st century b.c. and the early 1st century a.d. on the basis of building technique. Stefani 1944; Carandini 1985b; Higginbotham 1997; Terrenato 2001a; De Franceschini 2005, #28

Figure L222. Suburbium, Grotte di Cervara (after De Franceschini 2005).

506 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

507

SUBURBIUM L221 – Grotte Celoni The villa, located on the Via Gabina, was in part excavated in 1980. Its existence had already been recorded by Rosa, who indicated that the structures occupied an area measuring 120 u 180 m. The investigations uncovered the bath quarters, built in the 2nd century a.d., and a preexisting building, dated generically between the 4th and the 2nd centuries b.c., on the basis of a building technique in opus quadratum employing red tufa. Brick stamps dated to the 1st century a.d. indicate an Imperial phase for this structure, but its relationship with the 2nd century bath quarters is not completely clear. However, as noted by De Franceschini, the bath quarters follow the same alignment, a sign that the previous structures were incorporated and not obliterated in the later phase. De Franceschini 2005, #57

SUBURBIUM L222 – Grotte di Cervara The villa was built on top of a tufaceous hill in the 2nd century b.c., as indicated by walls in opus quadratum. In the 1st century b.c. there was a second phase, attested by the type of opus reticulatum that predates the Augustan period. The villa was provided with a torcular of which the press bed [A] and the lacus [B] were found; the rooms were paved in opus spicatum. The press was interpreted as an oil press; therefore the storage space C has been labelled cella olearia. The pars urbana was on the south side; only a portico and some rooms opening onto it are known. The rooms had mosaic oors with black and white tesserae. It appears that the villa was abandoned right after the 1st century b.c. phase. De Franceschini 2005, #46

SUBURBIUM L223 – Infernaccio In the 1980s part of a large villa was identied and excavated. The explorations identied bath quarters consisting of at least 20 rooms of which only two were fully excavated. The bulding technique used in the structure is opus vittatum, which dates the baths to between the 2nd century and 3rd century a.d. The oors used Carrara marble slabs, cipollino slabs, opus sectile, and polychrome mosaics featuring irregularly cut tesserae. To the south of the bath complex, two rooms built in opus mixtum and nine collapsed columns indicate a peristyle and the residential quarters. The opus mixtum shows that the villa was already in existence by the 2nd century a.d., but no other information on the chronology and on the nds is available. De Franceschini 2005, #79

Figure L225. Suburbium, Marcigliana (after De Franceschini 2005).

508 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

509

SUBURBIUM L224 – Macchia Piana di S. Vittorino This large villa, located along the south edge of the tufa plateau overlooking the Valley of Fosso S. Vittorino, was probably built around the 1st century b.c. and was used until the 3rd/4th century a.d., with traces of occupation also in the Middle Ages. The whole hill slope (85 m high) was terraced, and the different parts of the villa were distributed along the various terraces. The remains were detected on an area parallel to the Fosso for a length of 230 m. Very little is still visible of what was a very monumental villa. Only walls in opus reticulatum on the lower level along the Fosso are visible. Opus vittatum was also detected. Carandini 1985b

SUBURBIUM L225 – Marcigliana The villa, in part destroyed by a modern building, stood on a hill overlooking the valley of Fosso di Tor S. Giovanni. Very little remains of the walls; the portion preserved is in opus caementicium without any facing. The rst phase of the villa has been dated to the early 1st century b.c. on the bais of a cocciopesto oor later covered by a mosaic. In the mid1st century a.d. new nicely done polychrome mosaics were laid. To the northwest of the residential part were two rooms with a press [A] (a large pit, ø 3 m, was dug into the tufa bank, and sockets for the press beams were cut) and at least four cocciopesto lined vats in an adjacent room [B]. These features have been dated to the third phase of the villa, between the 1st century b.c. and the 1st century a.d., on the basis of a circular feature (press bed?) in opus reticulatum added in room A. De Franceschini mentions that the villa was occupied at least down to the 2nd century a.d., but the evidence for this is not discussed. De Franceschini 2005, #9

Figure L226. Suburbium, Maxentius’ villa (after De Franceschini 2005).

510 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

511

SUBURBIUM L226 – Maxentius’ villa The villa was located on top of the hill that overlooks the Circus of Maxentius on the III mile of the Via Appia. The site has a long history of excavations, starting as early as the 15th century. It was built in the late Republican period and enlarged in the 1st century a.d., as shown by walls in opus reticulatum. To this phase date the nymphaea [E; F] and the free standing cistern [A] (63.10 u 4.30 m). In the 2nd century a.d., when it is commonly believed the villa belonged to Herodes Atticus, the bath quarters [B] were added, built in opus mixtum. In the 4th century the villa was transformed into the palace of Maxentius (308–312 a.d.). During these phases the villa evolved architecturally into a monumental palace with various nuclei, featuring also a mausoleum [G] (mausoleum of Romulus, Maxentius’ son) and the circus. The cryptoportico, a feature dating to the rst phase of the villa, was, in the 2nd century, provided with two circular towers and subdivided internally into various rooms, which had wall paintings. In the 4th century phase, a new cryptoportico, 190 m long, obliterated the previous one. Noteworthy features of the late Imperial period are the hall with apse [C] and vestibule [D], and to the west of them a room, which had a lavish marble oor and wall decoration; these three rooms were heated. The area of the mausoleum was enclosed by a wall decorated with lesenae and arches. A large number of statues was discovered during the excavations carried out by the Torlonia in 1825 and in later excavations; some are now lost, but others are in the Torlonia museum or in other museums around the world and have been studied and listed by Neudecker. Neudecker 1988; De Franceschini 2005, #69

Figure L227. Suburbium, Muracciola (after Carandini 1985b).

512 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

513

SUBURBIUM L227 – Muracciola The villa, located along the Via Cassia Nuova (km 10), was excavated in the early 20th century and then backlled. The scarce information recorded at that time does not permit the differentiation between chronological phases. The excavated structure presented a central paved, rectangular courtyard [A]. On the north side of the courtyard was the residential part. The excavation report mentions the recovery of opus sectile ooring, but the area was only partly excavated. To the west of it was an area used for wine making: an apsidal room [C] (9 u 14.50 m) with a square masonry base in the middle featuring in the center a circular vat faced in cocciopesto (calcatorium). On each side of the vat and along the walls of the apses were 12 dolia (6 on each side). Apparently no evidence of a wine press was recovered. In front of this room was another room measuring 21 u 11 m [B], possibly used to store grapes. The plan, drawn at the time of excavation, shows smaller rooms behind the apsidal room and on the east side of the courtyard. On the south side, a portico [D] and, at a slight lower level, a cryptoportico [E], both butressed and parallel to each other, formed the basis villae. The portico had apses at both ends decorated with sea shells and pumice, evidently nymphaea. The large apsidal room appears very unusual for a wine making area, and in my opinion, it is possible that a hall/reception area, originally belonging to a pars urbana, was later turned into a production area. The report mentions opus reticulatum and latericium, thus giving a general date of the 1st century a.d., but the information is not sufcient to distinguish the walls belonging to different phases, which probably altered the distribution of space and the function of rooms within the villa. Carandini 1985b; De Franceschini 2005, #21

514

catalogue: latium

Figure L228. Suburbium, Ospedaletto Annunziata (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

515

SUBURBIUM L228 – Ospedaletto Annunziata The villa, of which part of the residential and productive quarters has been investigated, was located on the ancient road leading to Veii. It was built on a hill and had a diverticulum leading to it. Ten rooms belonging to the residential part were excavated; one of these may have been a triclinium featuring an opus scutulatum oor [D]. The walls of the rst phase are preserved only at foundation level and are in tufa opus quadratum, dated to the late 2nd or early 1st century b.c. In the early 1st century a.d. the structure was enlarged, as attested by a reticulate wall which enclosed the villa on the Via Veientana side (with a threshold with sockets for the hinges and locking bars of the gate/door). In the third phase, dated to the 2nd–3rd centuries, were built a kiln [A] (3.80 u 2.28 m, in opus listatum) and a cistern [B] (opus latericium, 7 u 4.70 m). The utilitarian part included the above mentioned kiln, a second smaller kiln [C], and at least one vat next to a cistern for the clay. De Franceschini 2005, #10

516

catalogue: latium

Figure L229. Suburbium, Podere Anna (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

517

SUBURBIUM L229 – Podere Anna, also Podere Rosa The villa was located in antiquity near the Via Nomentana (mile VI). The villa was built in the 1st century b.c. or 1st century a.d., incorporating an earlier structure of the 2nd century b.c. In the 2nd/3rd century a.d. it was restored and modied, and another phase occurred in the 4th century. The site was occupied at least until the 5th century. During the second phase the bath quarters [A] were added, transforming previous rooms with the addition of walls in opus mixtum, latericium, and vittatum. Some of the rooms of the baths and two pools [B; C] have traces of the marble veneer. D was a courtyard paved with bipedales; the room to the east of pool C had a mosaic oor later covered by a mosaic made with large tesserae (3 u 4 cm). To this same period dates the structure of the pars rustica where a torcularium [E] was. On the basis of nds, it seems that the torcularium was in use until the 6th century. Room F, which was under the vault holding the staircase leading to the upper oor, had a masonry counter with a dolium in it. De Franceschini 2005, #34

Figure L230. Suburbium, Prima Porta: ad Gallinas Albas (after De Franceschini 2005).

518 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

519

SUBURBIUM L230 – Prima Porta, “AD GALLINAS ALBAS ” The famous Villa of Livia at Prima Porta was located in antiquity on the Via Flaminia (mile IX). It was rst excavated in 1863, when the underground room with the frescoes depicting a garden, now in the museum of the Palazzo Massimo in Rome, and the Prima Porta statue of Augustus were discovered, and it was damaged by bombs during War World II. The villa was built in the mid 1st century b.c. on the remains of a previous structure in opus quadratum and featured an atrium [B] with rooms around it, the underground room [A], and a U-shaped portico [C] onto which the tablinum opened. The main access to the villa was on the south side where two ramps running along the substructures led to the residential part. Under Claudius or Nero, a bath suite [E] and oors in opus sectile were added. In the 2nd century a.d. the bath quarters were enlarged with walls in opus mixtum and opus latericium, and a free standing cistern [F] was built (17 u 25.5 m). On the southeast side, the outer wall of the cistern presented semi-columns and, on a cocciopesto layer, a decoration with vegetal motifs, probable indication that a nymphaeum was located on this side. In this same phase a hall was built on top of the underground room in addition to new service areas. Restorations and modications to the layout of the villa occurred in the Severan age; these involved the baths, one of the porticoes, and oors. The brick stamps recovered cover a chronological span from the 1st b.c. to Maxentius. Various parts of the villa had gardens, including a hanging garden (see Klynne and Liljenstolpe 2000). Evidence for utilitarian activities is offered by a rectangular vat faced in cocciopesto and paved in opus spicatum with a circular depression and steps in one corner, which relates to wine or oil production. This vat was covered in a later phase by room D. The abandonment of the villa after a re occurred sometime in the late Empire. Calci and Messineo 1984; Klynne and Liljenstolpe 2000; Messineo 2001; De Franceschini 2005, #7

Figure L231. Suburbium, Prima Porta: Cimitero Flaminio (after De Franceschini 2005).

520 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

521

SUBURBIUM L231 – Prima Porta, Cimitero Flaminio In antiquity the villa was located on the Via Tiberina (mile I) and currently is located within the Flaminio Cemetery. The complex was built during the late Republic/early Empire (structure in opus quadratum and opus reticulatum) on a hillside and featured an atrium with impluvium and columns at the center of the residential part [A]. The rooms around the atrium had mosaics dated to the 3rd century a.d., which belong to the third phase of the villa. In the 2nd century a.d. were added the bath quarters [C] to the south of the atrium (opus mixtum with corners in latericium) on a pre-existing terrace at a lower level and a nymphaeum with semicircular basin and marble revetment (structure in opus latericium). The area in front of the nymphaeum was a garden [B] where 12 amphora necks, used to house plants, were found in situ. In a third phase dated to the 3rd century a.d (based on the style of the aforementioned mosaics and the poor quality opus listatum) more rooms were added to the bath quarters, including a second frigidarium. To the southeast of the bath complex was a mausoleum [D], whose original nucleus in opus listatum belonged to the second phase. In the 3rd century a new mausoleum was added with six cross-vaults: remains of ten tombs were located along the walls (Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003: 145 report 23 tombs). This part of the villa shows signs of restorations and additions even in the 5th–6th centuries, as indicated by brick stamps. The fourth phase, to which the walls built with re-used building material belong, has been generically related to the late Imperial period, but probably followed shortly after the 3rd century third phase. During this phase, to the northwest of the residential part, a production area for wine and/or oil was installed [E], in part covering a pre-existing room with a mosaic oor. The production area included a calcatorium, a cocciopesto vat (ca. 2.5 u 2.5 m) with steps in a corner, and a deposit with various sunken dolia. However, one of the dolia had a stamp in planta pedis dated to the Augustan age (De Franceschini: 18), which perhaps indicates that the cella vinaria already existed in a previous phase of the villa. Part of a our mill was also recovered. Besides the above mentioned restorations to the mausoleum, more 5th–6th century tombs were found along the external wall of the cella vinaria; one of the rooms of the residential part was also transformed into a “tomb”, featuring a sarcophagus dated to this period. Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003; De Franceschini 2005, #5

Figure L232. Suburbium, Prima Porta: Quarto di Montebello (after De Franceschini 2005).

522 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

523

SUBURBIUM L232 – Prima Porta, Quarto di Montebello The villa, located on a hill 200 m from the ancient Via Flaminia (mile IX), was built in the early Imperial period. The hillside was terraced, and the villa stood on the highest terrace. The earliest structures identied are reticulate walls, but the structure was investigated in 1892, and only a schematic plan and generic description exist. The excavated part measured 70 u 35 m and comprised a paved courtyard [A] with a well, a possible cryptoportico, and six rooms: four featuring polychrome mosaics, two black and white tesserae mosaics. The mosaics were removed at the time of their discovery and sold; one ended up in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the other in the Gardner Museum in Boston (De Franceschini: 13–14 for description and history). The mosaic in the Metropolitan Museum presents the same iconography as one found in Hadrian’s villa, thus indicating a 2nd century phase for this villa, as also attested by walls in opus mixtum. A reference in the 19th century excavation report to “3rd and 4th century phases as indicated by construction in different building techniques” cannot be conrmed. The only indication of a pars rustica was the recovery of part of a mill (olive mill or our mill?). De Franceschini 2005, #4

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Figure L233. Suburbium, Prima Porta: Valle Lunga (after De Franceschini 2005).

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525

SUBURBIUM L233 – Prima Porta, Valle Lunga The villa is located along the Via Tiberina (mile II) and was partly excavated. The investigations uncovered part of the residential area with atrium and impluvium [A]. The presence of structures in opus quasireticulatum indicates construction in the mid-1st century b.c., but the villa was redecorated in the 1st/2nd century a.d., as shown by the style of mosaics in the rooms around the atrium and by the columns built in bricks in the impluvium. In this same period the bath quarters, only partly excavated, were built to the north of the atrium. The baths were built in pre-existing structures, and the building technique consisted of walls made with broken bricks and tiles and opus reticulatum for the apses, whereas the circular room [B] (caldarium?) was in opus latericium. On the north side of the villa was the pars rustica where a torcular [C] was found. The presence of a vat next to the press bed and of two other vats in an adjacent room, connected by channels to the press, seems to indicate the production of both wine and oil. De Franceschini 2005, #3

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Figure L234. Suburbium, Prima Porta: Via Tiberina (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L234 – Prima Porta, Via Tiberina The villa is usually referred to as the “villa of the (modern) Via Tiberina, km 0.850”. In antiquity it was located near mile I of the Via Tiberina, on a terraced hillside overlooking the Tiber. Very little of the villa was excavated; apparently, it was built in the 1st century b.c., since evidence for an earlier structure in quasi-reticulatum and obliterated by later construction was found. Part of the atrium and a few rooms around it were excavated. In a second phase a portico built in opus reticulatum and a room with a mosaic oor were added. The portico covered an area that in the rst phase must have been utilitarian, possibly a press room. An underground room with frescoes, connected to a staircase in room [A], and a small bath complex also belong to this phase. Room [B] was possibly a storage area, since numerous fragments of dolia and amphorae were recovered, while to the north of it two ollae pertusae should indicate a garden. The nds date mostly to the Julio-Claudian period, and no other information about later phases is available. De Franceschini 2005, #6

Figure L235. Suburbium, Prima Porta: Villa della Terma (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L235 – Prima Porta, Villa della Terma Located on the right bank of the Fosso di Prima Porta, the structures recovered in 1878 belonged to a bath complex, most likely part of a villa. Very little documentation of the remains exists, but the various brick stamps were recorded and attest a construction in the Severan period and subsequent restorations down to Theodoric in the 5th century. The iconography of a mosaic oor, discovered in a hall with an apse and featuring a scene with chariot races in the circus, is recorded in a drawing. De Franceschini 2005, #8

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Figure L236a. Suburbium, Quintilii villa: overview (after Paris 2000).

Figure L236b. Suburbium, Quintilii villa: detail (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L236 – Quintilii Villa Located on the Via Appia (mile V), the rich, monumental villa belonged to the brothers Sextus Quintilius Condianus and Sextus Quintilius Valerius (both consuls in 151 a.d.). The two Quintilii brothers are mentioned in the sources as authors of a lost work on agriculture written in Greek. It became part of the Imperial scus under Commodus in 182–183 a.d., when the emperor ordered the execution of the two brothers under the charge of conspiracy. Several changes and restorations to the villa are shown by brick stamps dating from Commodus’ age to 238 a.d. Other nds, such as the portrait of Etruscilla, wife of Decius, indicate that for the whole of the 3rd century the villa was still in use. Brick stamps of Theodoric indicate at least a partial restoration of the complex in the 6th century. The excavated parts of the villa include the core of the residential quarters [C] resting on monumental substructures where part of the service areas was located; the bath quarters [A]; a smaller bath complex [D]; a round building, the so-called “Teatro Marittimo”, whose function is unclear [B]; a large garden [E]; several cisterns [F]; and a private aqueduct feeding the whole villa and the large nymphaeum [G], which was the monumental façade of the estate on the Via Appia. The private aqueduct was supplied by the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. The residential quarters featured a courtyard paved in marble (36 u 12 m) and a portico on one of its long sides. Next to this area was a small bath suite. In this sector of the villa, a hall with an octagonal plan is worthy of note. It was covered by a dome and was heated, possibly used as an oecus. Underneath it were the service quarters (kitchens, storerooms, praefurnia). In all the rooms of the residential part and of the large baths the paving is in lavish opus sectile. The area where the ruins of the villa stand was known since the 1400s as “Statuario”, a name alluding to the numerous sculptures discovered in the area (for an account on the history of the discoveries through the centuries see Paris 2000: 11 ff.). Most of the statues recovered represent divinities: Jupiter seated on a throne, Asclepius, Cybele, Isis, etc. A late Imperial inscription, dated to the 4th century a.d. and recovered in 1879, refers to a vineyard in the area of the villa, property of a vir perfectissimus (CIL, VI.8857: Deo annoente felis pedatura Susti v(iri) p(erfectissimi)). The villa rustica with torcular, calcatorium, and pars fructuaria discovered in 1929 at the 7 km of the Appia Nuova might have been part of this estate. Paris 2000; De Franceschini 2005, #77

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Figure L237. Suburbium, S. Alessandro (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L237 – S. Alessandro The villa, located near mile VIII of the Via Nomentana, has been cut in two by the construction of a modern road. The investigations focused on a rectangular courtyard and the surrounding rooms. The construction of the villa has been dated to the 1st century a.d. It was destroyed by re in the 2nd century and later reoccupied and used for various manufacturing activities. This reoccupation phase was dated by coin nds to the 4th century a.d., and the villa was in use until the 5th century. The courtyard was a garden; on its west side was a portico [A] with white stuccoed columns linked by a low wall. The foundations of the portico were in opus quadratum; on the north side was another portico with brick pillars instead of columns. On the east side of the garden, the portico was not very well preserved, but buttressing walls in opus latericium on the external side were noted. Two rooms had reticulate walls; room [B] had a vat faced in cocciopesto, added in a later phase, where many dolia fragments were found. The two rooms to the north of this had opus sectile oors, as indicated by the imprints left in the mortar by the tiles. Room [C] opened onto a portico with two pillars and had two dolia, plus a semi-circular vat in bricks with three channels, interpreted as a nymphaeum; the room, in its original function, may have been an exedra looking into the portico and garden. Two rooms were to the north of C, in one fragments of painted plaster were found, while the other had a mosaic oor in black and white tesserae with oral motifs, which showed signs of repairs. A small vat with a circular hole was built, covering the mosaic. In these rooms the abandonment levels contained coins that give a terminus post quem of the 4th century a.d. To the west of these rooms was a courtyard, whose paving was made re-using various building material, including parts of two male togate statues dated to the mid-2nd century a.d. More rooms [D]were found to the west of this courtyard; one presented at least two vats; the recovery of four large iron ingots, plus some iron tools, may suggest that metal working took place in this room. In the northwest corner of the portico was a square vat, which was paved with re-used pan tiles and which is probably related to the two pottery kilns found in two rooms to on the north side of the courtyard, where in the original phase the bath suite was. One of the rooms of the bath suite, which had an opus sectile oor, showed traces of re-use for utilitarian purposes, since a vat faced in cocciopesto was built resting directly on the sectile oor. The rooms discovered to the south of the modern road were partially preserved; one of the rooms, which had a counter and opus spicatum oor, may have been the kitchen, while another room, with reticulate walls, originally had a sectile oor. De Franceschini 2005, #31

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catalogue: latium

Figure L239. Suburbium, S. Basilio (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L238 – S. Anastasio The villa was located on a hill near mile X of the Via Nomentana. The earliest structures detected are in reticulate and date to the late Republican/early Imperial period. Three rooms of the residential part were discovered, with walls in opus latericium dated to the 2nd century a.d. In a later phase, one of the rooms was divided by a wall in opus listatum, which covered the mosaic oor, while in the two other rooms new mosaic oors were laid on top of the previous ones (no drawing or picture exists of these mosaics). A few years after the initial discovery structures relating to the pars rustica were excavated. One room, paved in cocciopesto with molding along the walls, had two channels in the oor, which connected the press bed to the three vats in the next room. This complex has been dated to the rst phase of the villa due to the presence of a reticulate wall. In a later phase, the vats were lled with rubble up to the oor level. It seems that the villa was abandoned in the 4th century a.d., but there is no documentation that explains what elements were recovered to suggest this dating. De Franceschini 2005, #27

SUBURBIUM L239 – S. Basilio The villa was built in the 1st century b.c. along a diverticulum which connected the Via Nomentana and Via Tiburtina. The building had foundations in opus quadratum and walls in opus reticulatum. It also had a Tuscan atrium paved with black tesserae onto which opened three rooms, as shown by the mosaic thresholds. To the south of the atrium was the garden [A] anked on two sides by porticoes [B]. To the east of the garden, various rooms have been identified; one [C] was labeled the triclinium because of a oor with a central emblema. To the north of this room was the staircase leading to the upper oor. Two rooms [D; E] had no ooring and have been interpreted as storerooms. To the west of the atrium was a vat with steps and, around it, the remains of opus spicatum ooring, probably belonging to the pars rustica. No data are available on the stratigraphy and the chronology of the site. De Franceschini 2005, #35

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Figure L240a. Suburbium, Settebassi villa: overview (after Coarelli 1981).

Figure L240b. Suburbium, Settebassi villa: detail (after Coarelli 1981).

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SUBURBIUM L240 – Settebassi Villa The medieval place name “Settebassi” given to the remains of this villa seems to allude to a certain Septimius Bassus who may have owned the villa in the late Empire. This is one of the largest suburban villas known. The central part consists of three nuclei and a large central garden area. The rst nucleus of the villa, built over a late Republican villa, was the northeastern sector next to the Via Tusculana. It consisted of the residential quarters with no atrium or central court, but showing an irregular layout for the various rooms. The bath quarters [B] were located in the southeast corner, and to the north of the residential part was a large peristyle [C]. In the rst phase, access to the peristyle was on the east side, not in line with the residential part. On the basis of brick stamps, the rst phase is dated to 134–139 a.d. In a second phase, dated by brick stamps to 140 a.d., a group of large rooms was added on the north side [A], among which was a hall divided into three parts with a central apse, fountain, and large semi-circular nymphaeum. In the third phase (140–168 a.d.), the villa became the largest of the suburban villas. A large terrace was added to the previous structures; on two of its sides, the terrace had cryptoporticoes 230 m long. To the front of the villa, a two-story wing was added. This part was organized around two large halls, illuminated by high windows. A cistern, fed by a private aqueduct coming from the Aqua Claudia, was to the east of the garden. The villa had a sector for production, as several villae rusticae discovered in the area testify. It became the property of the Basilica Lateranensis, probably through a donation by Constantine. Restorations dated to the early 4th century are attested, as well as an occupation of the site down to the 5th–6th century. Several 4th century burials were also identied within the villa. Coarelli 1981; Mielsch 1987; Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003

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Figure L241. Suburbium, Tenuta Serpentara (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L241 – Tenuta Serpentara The villa was built on various terraces descending toward the Tiber and was not far from the Via Salaria. It was built sometime between the 1st century b.c. and the 1st a.d., as attested by reticulate walls, and was restored in the 1st century a.d., as indicated by walls with irregular facing. The investigated part of the villa featured an atrium with impluvium. To the west of the atrium was a bath suite added in the early Imperial period [A]. Room [B] may have been the kitchen, which might be inferred from the presence of a well in the room. To the northeast of this room, two cocciopesto-faced vats have been interpreted as cisterns, added in conjunction with the baths’ construction. A wall [C] probably divided the residential part from the pars rustica. To the south of this wall two rooms, paved with bessales, have been attributed to the pars rustica, but room [D] was a nymphaeum. The lack of information in the excavation report does not allow any further speculations, although De Franceschini suggests that room D may have been a vat instead, related either to a torcularium or a fullonica. A survey carried out by Quilici recorded many glass paste tesserae, Republican and Imperial pottery, opus spicatum bricks, suspensurae, and paving stones with furrows worn by carts. About 100 m to the south of this villa is another structure with clear utilitarian function that may have been part of the estate of this villa. De Franceschini 2005, #22

SUBURBIUM L242 – Tomba di Nerone The villa was discovered in 1959 during the construction of the Overseas School. In antiquity it was located next to the Via Cassia (mile VI). Only two rooms and parts of two others were excavated. The building technique consists of reticulate walls. Room 1 had a black and white tesserae mosaic dated to the 1st century a.d. on the basis of pottery from the early part of the century found under the mosaic oor. Two phases seem to be visible within this structure: 1) late 1st century b.c., to which the type of reticulate seems to belong, in addition to a fragment of wall decoration in the Second Style; 2) a second phase in the 1st century a.d. to which the mosaic oor belongs. Room 2, featuring an apse, was paved in opus sectile, as shown by the tile imprints in the mortar layer (fragments of marble recovered include pentelic, africano, rosso antico, verde antico), while rooms 3 and 4 were paved with rectangular marble slabs. The structure had another phase in the late Empire: under the masonry base in Room 1 a coin of Gallienus was found, which gives a terminus post quem of the mid-3rd century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #20

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Figure L243. Suburbium, Tor Carbone (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

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SUBURBIUM L243 – Tor Carbone, “Domus Marmeniae” so-called The villa located not far from the Via Appia (mile IV) was excavated from 1883 to 1895, and the only existing description dates to that time. The earliest nucleus seems to have been the so called “Small Villa” [A] which dates to the 1st century a.d. However, it is reported that walls in opus quadratum were seen below these structures; therefore, the construction of the villa may be earlier. In the 2nd century a.d., as indicated by brick stamps of the Antonine period, the villa was drastically enlarged. In this phase the complex featured bath quarters in the northeast corner, a large central peristyle anked by rooms in the north corner, either a garden [B] of the stadium type or a courtyard, and two storerooms with dolia [C]. Two cocciopesto vats (1.5 u 1.6 m and 3.7 u 2.9 m), located to the east of the “stadium” may have belonged to wine making facilities. Lugari, the owner of the land, judged that the rooms with dolia belonged to a later phase, which should be dated to the 4th or 5th century a.d., but it is not clear on what grounds this statement was made. However, the baptistery built in Room [D] and the tomb/mausoleum in Room [E] certainly belong to a late Imperial phase. At the time of discovery, the tomb was thought to have been that of St. Urban, and the villa that of Marmenia, a noble woman who lived under Commodus. In reality, the structure built in brick has been dated to the 4th century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #78

SUBURBIUM L244 – Tor de’ Schiavi or Gordiani The villa was built in the 1st century b.c. and then enlarged between the late 1st b.c. and the 1st century a.d. Unfortunately, intense modern building activity has destroyed the Republican remains of the villa; only part of the basis villae remains, built in opus incertum. The layout of the complex in the second phase, with walls in opus quasi-reticulatum and reticulatum, included an atrium in the residential part and, to the east of it, another atrium in the pars rustica. Around the atrium were barrel vaulted cryptoporticoes; in a later period, one cryptoportico encountered structural problems and, to avoid collapse, was lled with conglomerate two meters thick. A staircase with eight steps led to the upper level, which was at the same elevation as the courtyard of the pars rustica. In the middle of the residential atrium was a garden, possibly with a fountain. Around the garden, and in correspondence with the cryptoporticoes below, was a quadri-portico with mosaic oor. A paved road ran along the north side of the villa. In the southeast corner of the atrium rusticum was the torcularium and lacus; the complex was in use for a long period of time, as shown by the various layers of oors and resurfacing found. This part of the villa also featured an enclosed garden, a terrace, portico, and another garden to the south of it. In front of the portico was a room with its back wall in opus reticulatum but with the south wall decorated with lesenae in opus

Figure L245. Suburbium, Tor Marancia (after Mielsch 1987).

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vittatum. To the east of this room were the baths, which showed the same orientation as the Republican villa, but the wall facing was not preserved, and they could not be dated, although De Franceschini suggests a 2nd century date based on an analogy with other villas. In the 2nd century a.d. a new wing was added to the villa to the east of the portico. The main feature of this new complex was a nymphaeum with a curvilinear vaulted portico on the east side and a central rectangular niche anked by two semicircular ones on the west side. The facing of the walls is in opus mixtum on one side, opus latericium on the other, and dates to the time of Hadrian; signs of restorations in opus vittatum were also present. This new wing of the villa also had an upper story, as indicated by a spiral staircase. In the southwest corner of the villa was the famous aula ottagona, which was standing above ground and had been drawn by Piranesi and Ligorio among others. It was built using bricks and presented alternating rectangular and semi-circular niches. The pillar in the middle of the hall was a medieval intervention used to hold the roong once the hall was turned into a tower. The hall has been dated to the period of Diocletian (284–305 a.d.) or Gordian III (225–244 a.d.). To the 3rd century are also dated a cistern built in opus vittatum, and a second cistern, located next to the aula ottagona, with wall facing in opus vittatum. As regards the water supply, the Republican villa had a “tunnel-cistern”, whereas to the 2nd century date two cisterns, one of which was two-story and free standing. In the 4th century, under Constantine, the mausoleum and the basilica were built, and it is assumed that the villa was in use at least until the 5th century a.d. This villa has traditionally been attributed to Gordian III, since we know from the SHA that he lavishly restored an Imperial residence on the Via Praenestina. This complex is the only one known that, on the basis of size and richness, may have been the Imperial residence, although of the structures recorded only the aula ottagona and one cistern belong to his period. Nothing is known of the nds uncovered during the 19th century excavtions or during the 1950 emergency excavation. De Franceschini 2005, #53

SUBURBIUM L245 – Tor Marancia This suburbanum of Numisia Procula was excavated at the beginning of the 19th century and is no longer standing. Numerous brick stamps gave the building a date of the third decade of the 2nd century a.d., and the name of Numisia was stamped on stulae aquariae. The residential part was planned around a large peristyle [A]. On one side of the peristyle were the baths [B], whereas the various rooms of the residential part were organized in symmetric apartment-like clusters, with the rooms opening either onto the peristyle or onto smaller courts. Mielsch 1987; De Franceschini 2005, #72

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Figure L246. Suburbium, Torre Maura (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

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SUBURBIUM L246 – Torre Maura The villa was built on various terraces on a hill on the Via Labicana. The rst phase dates to the 2nd century b.c. In the 1st century b.c. it was enlarged with the construction of a Corinthian atrium with impluvium [A]. Another building phase is dated to the 3rd century a.d.; in this period the rooms on the south side of the complex were built, featuring walls constructed with small tufa blocks and mosaic oors with geometric patterns. Phases are also known from the Late Antique and early Medieval periods. Structures located to the northwest of the atrium may have belonged to the bath quarters, but since they were very poorly preserved, it is not possible to be certain. The pars rustica was probably on the east side of the excavated area, where two vats [B] lined with cocciopesto and portions of opus spicatum ooring were recovered. Among the nds were a stula with a stamp of a freedman of Commodus and a large sarcophagus with a hunting scene. De Franceschini 2005, #64

SUBURBIUM L247 – Torre S. Eusebio The villa was discovered in 1916 and subsequently destroyed by a quarry. The parts explored consisted of a storeroom to the north; two rooms of the pars urbana, one paved in opus sectile, and the other in mosaic; and part of the baths. Gatti, who excavated the villa, dated its construction to the 2nd century a.d.; this dating is conrmed by the discovery of a brick stamp of 139 a.d. It is known that in the past many marble statues were discovered in this area. Other nds include architectural terracottas, fragments of opus sectile in red porphyry, two stulae stamped P. Fulchinius Decimus fec., and an altar with a dedication by C. Lucretius C.l. Optatus. De Franceschini 2005, #43

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SUBURBIUM L248 – Torre Spaccata The villa, built on a hillside, occupied an area ca. 2,300 m²; however, not much of its layout is known. Partial investigations located only portions of the enclosing wall, two cisterns, and part of three rooms with tessellated and mosaic oors. It was probably built in the 1st century b.c. and restored in the 1st century a.d., as indicated by a brick stamp. An undated later phase is shown by a mortar layer that covered the oor in two of the rooms. De Franceschini 2005, #66

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SUBURBIUM L249 – Torrino The villa stood on a low hill, and was in part investigated in 1981; however, we lack detailed information about the nds. The excavation report states that the villa dated to the Republican and Imperial periods, so presumably it was built in the Republican period and had a later building phase, but no description is offered. It is also reported that the villa obliterated a previous bulding with walls in opus quadratum, dated to the 5th century b.c., but it is not clear on what grounds the date was proposed; similarly, there is no information on the date of abandonment of the site. The description of the remains is also vague, talking in general terms of a “villa with peristyle, residential rooms to the north and pars rustica to the south, a kiln and circular cistern”. Nothing else is known, but De Franceschini, on the basis of an excavation picture showing a mosaic oor with missing emblema, makes a comparison with a mosaic from the villa L233 – prima porta, valle lunga dated to the 1st century b.c./ 1st century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #88

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Figure L250. Suburbium, Via Ardeatina (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L250 – Via Ardeatina The villa was located on the Via Ardeatina (mile III). Two parallel terracing walls in opus quadratum employing large tufa blocks indicate a Republican phase for the villa, probably the 2nd century b.c. The underground tunnel-cistern and related wells should also belong to the same period. The tunnels of the cistern were 1.80 m high, faced with marble powder-based plaster and lined with cocciopesto ooring. A barrel vaulted rectangular room, originally part of the underground cistern network, may have been transformed later into a nymphaeum. On the north side, excavations conducted in 2000 revealed rooms in opus quadratum and reticulatum with oors in opus sectile. These rooms belonged to the residential part and date to the 1st century b.c./early 1st century a.d. A nearby modern farm incorporates in its building a serious of barrel vaulted rooms in opus reticulatum, which were very likely a cistern. No data are available for the abandonment date of the villa. De Franceschini 2005, #80

SUBURBIUM L251 – Via Capobianco The villa was built on a hill along the Via Nomentana (mile VII) and included a residential part and a pars rustica. The rst phase dates to the late Republic or the Augustan period, as attested by reticulate walls. During the construction of a road in 1923, rooms unfolding on three sides of a courtyard were discovered. The pars rustica was located on the north side of the villa, where a dolium was found in situ together with remains of opus spicatum ooring. In the residential part mosaics, as well as remains of opus sectile, were recovered, but a precise dating of these elements was not possible. The building was modied in the 2nd century a.d., as shown by structures in opus latericium with Hadrianic brick stamps. In this area a press bed and part of a our mill were recovered during eld survey. De Franceschini 2005, #26

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Figure L252. Suburbium, Via Carciano (after De Franceschini 2005).

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SUBURBIUM L252 – Via Carciano The villa was built on a hillside terraced with retaining walls and overlooking the Aniene River. The rst phase dates to the 2nd/1st century b.c. due to the presence of walls in opus incertum made with tufa. To this phase also belong the underground tunnel-cistern faced with cocciopesto and an open air cistern (or pond) [A], built using tufa and faced with cocciopesto. A second phase is dated to the 1st century a.d. based on the use of opus reticulatum. To this phase date a retaining wall, the nymphaeum [B] with a pond covered in colored cocciopesto, and rooms to the southeast of the garden [C]. The retaining wall was buttressed by triangular and rectangular elements [D] (anterides, see Vitr. de Arch. 6.8.6). De Franceschini notes that this type of buttressing is known only in a few other examples: the villa of S. Nicola (L139) at Ladispoli and the temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill. To the west of the nymphaeum was a small garden, where planting pots were recovered in situ. In the 3rd century a.d. the bath quarters and a second nymphaeum were built around the garden using opus listatum. Most of the surviving oors date to this phase and include mosaics, opus sectile and other paving re-using marble slabs. On the north side of the complex, between the cistern and a corridor, were rooms with their original oors preserved, consisting of cocciopesto with crustae or tesserae, and a probable storage area. A statue depicting Heracles and a herma were also recovered, together with marble veneer and painted plaster fragments. De Franceschini 2005, #42

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SUBURBIUM L253 – Via Casalotti The villa was built in the 2nd century a.d., and nds indicate an occupation down to the 4th century. The bath quarters were excavated in 1930 and again in 2000. They featured a room with a black and white tesserae mosaic depicting a marine scene. A second room at a lower level had a white tesserae mosaic. The recent investigations focused on the area to the north of the modern road, where rooms were discovered oriented on the same axis as those found in 1930. They featured tubuli, crustae, and fragments of mosaics collapsed from an upper story. A horrea, containing eight large dolia in situ, was also discovered, as well as a probable adjacent one, containing only one dolium. A rectangular vat and a circular stone base may relate to the production of oil. De Franceschini 2005, #47

latium: SUBURBIUM

553

SUBURBIUM L254 – Via Lucrezia Romana The villa was built in the 1st century b.c. near mile VII of the Via Latina. In the Severan period it was remodeled as shown by walls in opus vittatum and opus mixtum, and was probably in use until the 4th century a.d. The site had already been excavated in 1923 by Paribeni, who discovered two rooms with mosaic oors, a torcularium with a small vat, and a portico with stuccoed brick columns; of these discoveries no plan exists. In 2000, on the occasion of works for a sewer line, the complex was excavated again, uncovering parts of four rooms with mosaic oors dated to the 2nd and 3rd centuries a.d. Not far from the villa, there is also a circular mausoleum on a square podium, dated to the Augustan period, where two statues were found depicting husband and wife. The villa was on the plain, not far from a small river. Recent discoveries have located, in the direction of the river, traces of buildings, probably the pars rustica, which were completely destroyed, and also traces of a structure dug into the tufa bank, interpreted as a nymphaeum because of the presence of fragments in the shape of shells, which may be related to fountains. A small dike in opus quadratum blocked the river in order to create a small articial basin for the needs of the villa. The interior of the dike was lined with cocciopesto. De Franceschini 2005, #82

Figure L255. Suburbium, Via Pollenza (after De Franceschini 2005).

554 catalogue: latium

latium: SUBURBIUM

555

SUBURBIUM L255 – Via Pollenza The villa was built in the 1st century b.c., as attested by reticulate walls, oors with crustae, and a tunnel-cistern. The part that was investigated during emergency excavations consists of rooms of the pars urbana [A] on the northwest side, belonging to the rst phase. Two partially excavated rooms on the north side had opus spicatum oors and probably belonged to the pars rustica. Some of these rooms have mosaic oors that were redone in the 1st century a.d. To the southeast, bath quarters [B] in opus mixtum and latericium, dated to the late 1st/2nd century a.d., were discovered (brick stamps of 115, 123, and 138 a.d.). A brick stamp of Faustina Minor in one of the suspensurae indicates a restoration in the late 2nd century. One room had part of its mosaic oor (geometric design, black and white tesserae) preserved on the suspensurae. Pottery nds indicate an occupation of the villa down to the 4th century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #33

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Figure L256. Suburbium, Via Quadraro (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: SUBURBIUM

557

SUBURBIUM L256 – Via Quadraro The villa was built in the 1st century a.d., as indicated by the opus reticulatum with brick corners. In the 3rd century a.d., most of the villa was remodeled with walls built in opus vittatum. The portion excavated consists of a central peristyle with fountain [A] and probable bath quarters, as indicated by fragments of tubuli and by pool [B], which had marble veneer. A rectangular structure to the southeast with three internal pillars was probably a cistern. The villa was used until the 4th century a.d., and traces of progressive robbing of the structure were detected. De Franceschini 2005, #70

SUBURBIUM L257 – Via Ripa Mammea The villa, built on a hillside along the ancient Via Tiburtina, was discovered in 1979 and was destroyed after emergency excavations carried out by the Soprintendenza. Terracing walls in opus quadratum indicated construction in the 2nd century b.c.; in the 1st century b.c./1st century a.d., the villa was enlarged by the construction of new terracing walls in opus reticulatum. A white battuto oor, decorated with white tesserae and polychrome crustae and a white tesserae mosaic with black border, found on the top of the hill, evidently belonged to the residential quarters and dated to this phase. At the level of a lower terrace was a oor in white battuto with black tesserae, a room with dolia, and a barrel vaulted cistern faced with hydraulic mortar, which had been dug into the tufa bank. The room with dolia may be the same one documented by Lanciani, who also found a travertine block, probably part of a torcular, and remains of rooms paved in opus glinum. On the east side of the hill, towards the river, more structures with a utilitarian nature were located, probably horrea next to the docks on the river bank. Indeed, the villa had a small port on the Aniene. A third phase, dated to the late 1st century/early 2nd century a.d., was attested by walls in opus mixtum and a mosaic with a design also found at Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli. De Franceschini 2005, #45

Figure L258. Suburbium, Via Togliatti (after De Franceschini 2005).

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latium: SUBURBIUM

559

SUBURBIUM L258 – Via Togliatti The villa was built in the 2nd century b.c. on a tufaceous hill located between the Via Latina and the Via Labicana. Excavations carried out in 2000 also detected remains of a previous building in opus quadratum dated to the 6th century b.c. Area [A] was probably the atrium with an impluvium connected to an underground cistern. A small nymphaeum, hexagonal in plan, with a oor in cocciopesto with small tesserae was to the east of the atrium. In the late 1st century b.c., the villa was enlarged with new structures in opus reticulatum. In this phase the rooms previously belonging to the pars urbana were transformed into a pars rustica with the installation of two presses. In this part of the villa [B], a vat, part of the oil mill, and a room with cavities for dolia dug into the tufa oor were found. Two open air cisterns also date to this period. In a third phase, dated between the 2nd and 3rd centuries a.d., two additional cisterns were built. One was under peristyle [C]. During this phase a peristyle with rooms on its east side was built. The portico had pillars painted in yellow, and on the south wall were remains of a fresco, probably dating to the 2nd century a.d. In the 3rd century a mausoleum was built in one of the rooms [D]. The last phase of the villa has been dated to the 5th/6th century a.d. In the east corner three rooms were identied, which in part covered previous structures and in part were built ex novo with re-used building material. These rooms were a kitchen, a small circular cistern, and a doliarum (four re-used dolia dating to a previous age were found in situ). De Franceschini 2005, #63

SUBURBIUM L259 – Via Vigne Nuove, “Faon’s” Villa, so-called Of this villa, once visible on the top of a hill, only the free standing cistern is left (29.5 u 14 u h. 3 m). Nybby, Lanciani, and Tomassetti had described the structures of the villa, built in opus reticulatum and latericium and extending for 300 m², but the remains were already no longer standing when Ashby conducted his survey of the area. There are no data by which to reconstruct the layout of the villa, and only a generic chronology can be inferred. The rst nucleus dates to the 1st century b.c.; a terracing wall was partly cut and incorporated in the foundations of the south wall of the cistern, which is in opus reticulatum and dates to the early Imperial period. Survey in the area by Lanciani, and in more recent times by Quilici, recorded marble slabs, column fragments, capitals, rhomboidal oor tiles, sigillata, coarse ware of the Imperial period, and a press bed. De Franceschini 2005, #32

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Figure L261. Suburbium, Vignacce (after Coarelli 1981).

latium: SUBURBIUM

561

SUBURBIUM L260 – Via Vigne Nuove, Val Melaina The villa was excavated in 1980. The plan is articulated in three parts: to the south is the bath quarter, in the center the residential rooms around a courtyard, and to the north the pars rustica, where large dolia were sunk into the terrain. Next to this room was the torcular room paved in opus spicatum. This part should belong to the rst phase of the villa and should be ascribed to the late Republican period, since part of the ara is under the portico in opus reticulatum, which was built in a second phase. Two other arae next to this one were obliterated by the paving of this same courtyard. Contemporary with the creation of the paved courtyard is a new press with xed ara; it was not possible to determine whether the presses were used for the production of oil or of wine. The villa was occupied until the 3rd century. Carandini 1985b; De Franceschini 2005, #25

SUBURBIUM L261 – Villa delle Vignacce The so-called villa delle Vignacce is located at mile IV of the Via Latina. The platform where the villa stood presented a buttressing wall on the northeast side. At the west end of this wall were at least three large cisterns, a large exedra in opus reticulatum, and a nymphaeum. The main part of the villa, next to a probable garden area, featured a large hall with an apse anked by smaller rooms; to the east of these rooms were other rooms among which was a round hall with dome. Half of the dome is still standing, showing in section the amphorae used in the construction. This is one of the oldest preserved examples of this building technique. The opus mixtum used in the building gives a date of the late 1st–early 2nd century a.d. To the south of the residential complex, parallel to the Aqueduct Felice, which runs along the course of the ancient Aqua Marcia, is a large two-story cistern built in opus reticulatum, mixtum, and listatum and dated to between the 2nd and the 4th centuries a.d. Brick stamps recovered from the villa give dates of 123, 124, and 127 a.d. In 1780, stulae aquariae bearing the name of Q. Servilius Pudens were discovered. He was one of the biggest brick-producers of the time of Hadrian. Many sculptures were discovered in the late 1700s, among which were the colossal portrait of Iulia Domna (Musei Vaticani) and a Tyche of Antiochia, copy of an original by Eutichides. Under Constantine the villa was part of the Imperial praedium extending from the Via Praenestina to the Tusculana. Coarelli 1981; De Franceschini 2005, #71

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SUPINO (Supinum)

L262 – Supino Remains of a villa were partially excavated in 1964 along the road SS 156 Supino-Morolo. They consist of a bath complex in opus reticulatum, featuring a caldarium, a praefurnium with vaults in opus caementicium, and a round laconicum. One room is paved in opus sectile and had marble veneer, while two others have black and white mosaics with marine scenes dated to the 2nd century a.d. Coarelli 1982 SUTRI (Sutrium) (See Map 5, p. 284)

L263 – S. Giovanni a Pollo The main building of the villa (41 u 56 m) consisted of residential quarters with a courtyard. Separated from this part was a bath complex. Traces of wall decoration, mosaic oors, and columns have been recovered. The villa was connected to Sutrium by a 2 km long paved diverticulum. Duncan 1958 TARQUINIA (Tarquinii)

L264 – Martanum This site is located 3 km north of ancient Gravisca between the stream that ows into the sea at Pian di Spille and the mouth of the river Marta. The presence of a villa is inferred on the basis of the remains of two shponds visible in the sea just off the coast. The better-preserved one is U-shaped; the other pond is rectangular. The U-shaped piscina is in line with the center of a rectangular precinct measuring 700 u 430 m, which likely dened the limits of the villa maritima. Remains of concrete walls faced with bricks suggest an Imperial date. De Rossi et al. 1968; Higginbotham 1997; Rustico 2004

Tarquinia L265 – Portaccia The villa was discovered in 1930 on the right side of the Mignone River. No description of the structures was given, and the only nds mentioned were many fragments of dolia; Romanelli also added that other Roman ruins came to light nearby and were related to production quarters: he identied a stone press bed. It is not clear whether these latter structures are related to the villa of the Portaccia or to another complex. Romanelli 1943

latium: tarquinia

563

Tarquinia L266 – Vigna Grande In 1986–1987, a rectangular room with a hypocaust, presumably part of the bath suite of a villa, was found in the area called Vigna Grande, northeast of the train station of Tarquinia near Colle Tartaglia. The building technique employed was opus vittatum mixtum. In this area, a 17th century building with a foundation of two Roman semi-hypogeum rooms, which are barrel vaulted and separated by an arch, is still standing. The only pottery fragments recovered were African sigillata C (3rd century a.d.), sigillata D, type Atlante 11, and spatheia (5th century a.d.). The establishment of the complex is thus dated to the end of the 3rd century and interpreted as the bath suite of a villa dominating the valley of the Marta River, well positioned in relation to the Via Aurelia Nova and to the crossing of the river, since the bridge of the Roman road is 2 km away from the site. Scapaticci 1992

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Figure L267. Terracina, “Villa of the Sulpicii Galbae” (after Coarelli 1982).

latium: terracina

565

TERRACINA (Tarracina)

L267 – “Villa of the Sulpicii Galbae” On a hill next to the Republican Via Appia going towards Fondi, a basis villae in opus incertum with a cryptoportico is known. Some scholars relate this villa to the Sulpicii Galbae, on the basis of the literary testimony of Suet., Galba. Coarelli 1982

Map 15. Tivoli (A. Marzano).

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latium: tivoli

567

TIVOLI (Tibur) Tibur was one of the preferred areas of the Romans for leisure retreats from the mid-Republican period onwards and many villas were identied in its territory. The area underwent a renewed popularity when Hadrian built his villa/palace there. The territory has been extensively studied under the Forma Italiae project.

Tivoli L268 – Acquoria The site is in the proximity of Colle Quintiliolo and features a terrace belonging to a villa which looks onto the River Aniene. Two phases have been identied: one dated to the 2nd–1st century b.c., the other to the 1st century a.d. In 1826, a statue of Asclepius, now in the Museo Gregoriano Profano in Rome, was discovered next to the cryptoportico. Mari 1991, #60

Tivoli L269 – Acquoria Only the basis villae in opus incertum is still visible on the left bank of the River Aniene, 350 m west of Acquoria. The platform measures ca. 70 u 20 m. About 90 m to the southeast of this location a triangular cistern was discovered. The building technique used indicates a date in the 2nd–1st century b.c. Mari 1991, #65

Tivoli L270 – Casale Rosa The remains of a villa are located between Valle Pussiana and the Via dei Colli di S. Stefano on the northwest slope of the hill. The retaining wall of the terrace was built in opus mixtum. On the south side is a pool in opus caementicium (18.30 u 1.80 m), which may have divided the pars urbana from the pars rustica. Some strucutres built in opus incertum show an older phase. A cistern in opus reticulatum is tentatively dated by Mari to the 2nd century a.d. Mari 1991, #100

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Tivoli L271 – Casale S. Angelo Ancient substructures forming a basis villae and other remains in opus incertum were re-used in the building of Casale S. Angelo, near the Via di S. Gregorio. The substructures present a cryptoportico with three wings. Between the cryptoportico and the embankment was a panoramic terrace. The basis is dated to the mid-2nd century b.c. At a lower elevation and outside the villa proper was a pool. Two arae of torculares have been recovered, together with architectural elements and a marble torso. Mari 1991, #127

Tivoli L272 – “Cassius’ Villa” The villa has been attributed to Cassius by the antiquarian tradition on the basis of the place-name Carciano, deriving from the Latin form Cassianus. This site is close to L300 and L302, and presents three terraces in opus incertum. In its rst phase, the villa had only one terrace in opus polygonale with a small villa rustica. A second terrace was built, possibly in the age of Sulla. Probably in the mid-1st century b.c. (dating proposed on the basis of opus incertum almost like opus reticulatum) the terraces were extended to the south, and a room was transformed into a nymphaeum. This site is famous for the discovery of statues of the Muses and Apollo, now in the Musei Vaticani, and of numerous herms of Greek personalities. All the sculptures are copies made in the time of Hadrian. Giuliani 1970, #214; Neudecker 1988

Tivoli L273 – Colle Lecinone On the northwest side of the hill remains of a villa are visible on three different levels. The rst phase of the villa dates to the 2nd century b.c. (terrace in opus polygonale). Between the 1st century b.c. and the 1st century a.d., substructures in opus incertum were added to enlarge a natural plateau, and a two-nave cistern (23.50 u 3.20 m) was also built at this time. On the plateau many fragments of bricks, pottery, dolia, and the ara of a torcular were seen. Mari 1991, #18

latium: tivoli

569

Tivoli L274 – Colle Nocello, northwest side The villa had two large terraces, one above the other, with a cistern built in opus incertum on the upper one. On the lower terrace, which had walls in opus reticulatum, various fragments of architectural decoration were recorded. In the 19th century, black and white tesserae mosaics were recovered along with a funerary inscription (I.I., 157, a dedication to L. Cominius Maximus, a military man from Mantua, by his wife Numitoria Moschis). Mari 1991, #36

Tivoli L275 – Colle Nocello, southeast side The large basis villae is visible on the southeast side of the hill. To the north of the platform, a rectangular cistern with three naves is still standing. The rst phase of this villa dates to the 2nd century b.c. (the retaining wall of the terrace in opus quadratum and in opus polygonale). In a second phase, dated to the 1st century b.c., the addition of retaining walls in opus incertum enlarged the terrace; later, in Imperial times, another enlargement of the plateau was made with a wall in opus reticulatum. Mari 1991, #40

Tivoli L276 – Colle Nocello, west side This is one of the most impressive villas in the territory of Tibur. It was built on two terraces. The lower one, in opus polygonale, measures ca. 70.60 u 27.30 m. The upper one, belonging to the rst phase of the villa, is in opus quadratum. In the 19th century, remains of a portico with Doric columns were recorded. Sculptures, now in the collection of the Museo Nazionale Romano in Rome, were discovered in 1928 on the upper terrace. Two pieces, a gure of Faunus and a copy of a cult statue of Artemis, are of very ne quality. Mari 1991, #37

Tivoli L277 – Colle Ripoli, Troianello The villa is at times referred to in the literature as “Trajan’s villa.” The basis villae measures ca. 100 u 80 m. Three large, vaulted rooms built in opus incertum (1st century b.c.) are located on the north side. The villa has a small rectangular cryptoportico. In the middle of the terrace, one can observe on the surface a concentration of building material, probably belonging to the main building of the villa. The southwest corner of this area presents many fragments of stucco decoration. Some portions of walls show restorations belonging to a later age. Mari 1991, #86

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Tivoli L278 – Colle S. Antonio (or Colle Rosa) A long wall in opus reticulatum (ca. 1st century a.d.), forming the substructures for a terrace pertaining to a villa, is visible today. Judging from archaeological material recovered on the surface or in non-systematic explorations, there were buildings both on the articial terrace and below it. The residential area was probably on the articial platform, where different types of marble and pottery (including black glaze) have been recovered. This is most probably the villa known in the 18th century as Munatius Plancus’ residence. Mari 1991, #1

Tivoli L279 – Colle Vitriano The villa was built on two rectangular platforms made by retaining walls in IV Style opus polygonale dated to the 2nd century b.c. On the lower terrace is a rectangular piscina (24.70 u 8.60 u 1.20 m). Mari excludes the hypothesis that this was a natatio, thinking of a vivarium instead, on the basis that the villa had not a purely residential character. Lanciani reported seeing “inniti marmi e mosaici” at this site. Other constructions beside the pool/pond were probably on the lower level, since traces of building material and opus spicatum were recorded. On the upper terrace (ca. 34 u 20 m) numerous pottery fragments were visible. At this site Ashby saw “arched constructions in opus incertum and conglomerate” no longer visible today. Mari 1991, #8

Tivoli L280 – Colle Vitriano, east side Scattered remains belonging to a villa were identied in this area: a cistern, part of the substructures built in a different building technique, and, on the north side, a cryptoportico. The presence of a portion of wall in polygonal technique dates the earliest attested phase of the villa to the 2nd/1st century b.c.; Mari tentatively dates the enlargement of the villa platform and the cryptoportico to the 1st century a.d. Mari 1991, #16

latium: tivoli

571

Tivoli L281 – Colle Vitriano, north side Judging from surface nds, this was interpreted as a small villa. The corner of a terracing wall in opus polygonale dated to the 2nd century b.c. is visible. A travertine block with rectangular sockets on one side may have been part of a torcular. Mari 1991, #14

Tivoli L282 – Colle Vitriano, west side This was the largest and richest villa in the territory of Tibur. The remains consist of two terraces made of ashlar masonry and a bath complex in opus reticulatum and latericium, located on the southeast side of the lower platform. Different building phases are attested. To the 2nd–1st century b.c. belong the two terraces built in opus quadratum. In the 1st century b.c., some additions in opus incertum were made. The enlargement of the lower terrace by walls in opus reticulatum and the construction of the baths date to the 1st–2nd century a.d. In 1736, Furetti and Tebaldi found in this villa “marbles”, brick stamps, and a putto with a goatskin, part of a fountain. Del Re mentions the discovery of marbles, stulae, and fragments of statues and reliefs. Mari 1991, #11

Figure L283. Tivoli, Colli S. Stefano (after Coarelli 1982).

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latium: tivoli

573

Tivoli L283 – Colli di S. Stefano This villa is located immediately next to Hadrian’s Villa. It is commonly known as the “villa of the Vibii Vari”. The rst phase of the villa is Republican in date and includes one terrace with central peristyle [A], supported on the west and south sides by an L-shaped cryptoportico. During Hadrian’s age, the lower terrace was added. At the east end of the cryptoportico, frescoes depicting Greek poets were seen, with their names inscribed in Greek letters. The peristyle, excavated in the 18th century, had small rooms on the south side and, on the east side, several rooms different in size and shape. Among these rooms was also a fountain/nymphaeum. An elliptical pool [B] surrounded by four channels is located at one end of the large terrace of the villa. A second pool was about 100 m from the rst one. On the southeast corner of the lower terrace, of which only the buttressing walls in opus reticulatum remain, was a rectangular building with niches [C], identied as a sacrarium on the basis of the inscription Locu Sanctu found nearby (II, 72). This terrace projects towards Hadrian’s Villa with a large exedra. Besides probable residential quarters placed next to the exedra, this terrace also presented a towerbelvedere and cisterns. A large number of the brick stamps recovered date to the Hadrianic period, when the villa underwent major restorations and enlargements. Brick stamps also attest a minor phase in the mid-1st century a.d. A stamp dated to the mid-4th century coming from a private aqueduct and the above-mentioned elliptical pool, considered to be late Imperial in date, may attest a substantial late Imperial phase. The names of two probable owners come from fragmentary inscriptions (see I.I., 132) recovered at the site: C. Iulius Plancius Varus Cornutus (cos. in 100 a.d. with Pliny the Younger) and Vibius Varus (cos. 134). Mari 1991, #157

Tivoli L284 – Due Macere At this site, just northwest of the Via Delle Piagge, one can see the remains of a villa attributed to Munatius Plancus by the antiquarian tradition. It was built on a large, rectangular terrace (110 u 80 m) with L-shaped cryptoporticoes on the north and west sides. The terrace was built in two different phases in Republican times. Mari 1991, #67

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catalogue: latium

Tivoli L285 – Galli In 1965, some rooms pertaining to a villa were excavated. Two architectural phases were identied: one in opus incertum (Republican), the other in opus reticulatum dated to the 1st century a.d. Possibly to this same phase date the three rooms built in opus caementicium with ooring in cocciopesto decorated with mosaic tesserae and opus sectile. Mari 1991, #137

Tivoli L286 – Granaraccio (see chapter 4, fig. 10 for the plan) The villa was discovered in 1953 near km 23 of the Via di Poli. Only the pars rustica of the villa was excavated, but fragments of mosaics and plaster scattered in the surrounding area were indications of a fairly elegant residential part. Most of the walls were preserved only at foundation level, except on the east side, where a wall in opus quasi-reticulatum dated to the age of Caesar was identied. Two rooms were investigated. One, paved in tufa blocks, had the base for a mola olearea. In the second room, two torcularia with four settling vats were discovered. The presence of two parallel presses is an indication of a sizable production of olive oil. The rst calcatorium measures 2.25 u 1.40 m; the second measures 6.55 u 1.40 m. According to Brun 2004: 11, the placement of the vats and presses should indicate that there were two more presses in the room and probably another mola olearea. If this hypothesis is correct, then production on this estate must have been rather substantial. Faccenna 1957; Brun 2004

latium: tivoli

575

Tivoli L287 – Grotta Papale The villa is articulated on two terraces (ca. 40 u 50 m and 40 u 55 m). About 100 m from the platform of the villa is a semi-underground nymphaeum (6 u 6.25 m) with apse, called “grotta papale”. The villa was one of the largest in the area: the extent of the complex has been calculated to be about 23,000 m². The villa had at least two phases: a Republican one dated to the end of 2nd century b.c., which already included the two terraces, although the upper one was smaller in size, and an Imperial phase dated to the 1st–2nd century a.d. During this phase a cryptoportico was added on the northwest side, while on the southeast side some structures in opus reticulatum were added, maybe the baths. To the northeast the villa was enlarged by the addition of a semi-underground room, a nymphaeum, and cistern (probably fed by one of the public aqueducts, such as the Anio Vetus). In the past the villa was linked to the family of the Cocceii or to Lucius Verus. Also, the name of T. Aelius Rubrius Superstitis was proposed as its owner on the basis of the recovery of an inscription on a statue base reading: Herculi . . . T. Aeli Rubri Sup. (CIL, XIV.3542). Mari 1991, #104

Figure L288. Tivoli, Guidonia (after Caprino 1944–45).

576 catalogue: latium

latium: tivoli

577

Tivoli L288 – Guidonia In 1942, during works to enlarge the military airport of Guidonia, remains of a villa were discovered and partly explored. The site was labeled as a small villa rustica by Caprino, but the presence of elegant mosaic oors and columns bases indicates that the villa had an elegant pars urbana besides having a pars rustica with a torcularium. The investigated area included a room [A] paved with a mosaic in black and white tesserae, which had in the center a sort of central emblema. Room [B] presented a rough cocciopesto oor, while a small room in front of it, and at a lower lever than the oors of the surrounding rooms (–0.29 m), was faced with ne cocciopesto; it was therefore interpreted as a vat or storage area. Its opening towards Room A did not seem, to the excavator, to be a doorway but a later destruction of a wall. On the other side of Room A was a room with a mosaic oor [C], anked by one with cocciopesto oor; the narrow openings (0.14 m on average) in the wall separating it from Room C were interpreted as a later modication of this space for utilitarian purposes. The press-room [D] had a travertine circular press bed (ø 1.86 m), a channel leading to two vats, and a block for the arbores. In this room, at least two building phases were identied; in the second, undated phase the press room was enlarged. To the west of it was a room uncovered in part, whose original oor level was not preserved; probably the room originally had a beaten earth oor and was the cella vinaria or olearia, since the report mentions the nding of numerous fragments of dolia in it. Room [E] was a large vat/cistern (13.83 u 7 m), faced with cocciopesto and with molding at the corners and also with calcareous deposits ca. 0.5 cm thick on the walls. A smaller vat/cistern was to the west, but it was not excavated. The building technique used for the walls, on average preserved to a height of 0.5 m, consisted of small, irregular blocks of local travertine bonded with lime and pozzolana. Caprino, on the basis of the mosaics, suggested a date of the 1st century a.d. Scanty information is given of the nds, dismissed as “few and of no importance”. Besides the dolia fragments, also mentioned are the recovery of a travertine column base and shaft and a marble slab with inscription reading: M. Cluvius Iucundus/et Lalus Salliae mag./Fortunae Conuenti/donum dederunt. Caprino 1944–45

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Tivoli L289 – Guidonia, Inviolata The site occupied by this villa was subject to illegal excavations that destroyed much of the evidence pertaining to phases of the villa. The total area of the complex has been estimated at ca. 10,000 m². The villa stood on a natural tufaceous platform looking to the southeast and connected by means of a diverticulum to the Via Tiburtino-Cornicolana. A large two-nave cistern, 40 m long and dating to the Imperial period, with a terrace or room on top (oor in opus spicatum) stood at a higher level. The residential part is identiable by surface nds, such as marble fragments, mosaics, painted plaster, and elements belonging to the baths. A cryptoportico shows two building phases: built in opus incertum on a footing of tufa blocks, the south part was later re-built in opus reticulatum. Contemporaneous with this reconstruction was the building of another cryptoportico on the west side and probably some residential structures. Rooms in opus mixtum also attest another phase. These structures were badly damaged by the illegal excavations, and only part of a mosaic in black and white tesserae depicting a dolphin and of a staircase leading to the upper oor are preserved. Possibly, the remains of another quadrangular structure in travertine ashlars represent a funerary monument. From this complex comes the famous marble group depicting the Capitoline Triad dated to the Antonine period and saved from the black market by the investigations of the Carabinieri in the early 1990s. The construction of the villa has been dated to the early 1st century b.c. on the basis of the oors in opus signinum with lozenges and on pottery nds. The area downhill from the villa platform presented a dense surface scatter of pottery and tombs alla cappuccina; the pottery ranges chronologically from the 4th century b.c. to the 4th century a.d. Mari 1983, #45; Gatti 1991; Reggiani 1991

Tivoli L290 – Lecinone, Scalzacane The villa was rather large and built mainly in tufa opus reticulatum. The substructures on the southwest side of the platform consist of three barrel vaulted rooms. On the platform a concentration of fragments of cocciopesto ooring with inserted colored stones is visible. Further up the hill are two cisterns: a small one (3 u 3 m) and a larger, rectangular one. In the area of the villa, some tombs alla cappucina with black glaze pottery as grave goods were discovered. This spot was probably rst occupied by a late Republican villa, as has been inferred on the basis of ceramic nds and the cocciopesto oor with tesserae. The large substructures date to the 1st–2nd century a.d. A mola olearia and fragments of dolia for fattening dormice were found, but it was not possible to attribute them to a specic phase. Mari 1991, #20

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Tivoli L291 – Lecinone, Scalzacane Immediately to the north of villa L290 was a small villa of which the substructures and a torcular were recorded. Mari 1991, #19

Tivoli L292 – Monte Giorgio/Colle Piano The Hotel Torre S. Angelo (the former convent of S. Angelo) was built on top of the remains of the so-called villa of Catullus. The attribution was made by the antiquarian tradition on the basis of the lines mentioning a fundus the poet would have had in the area, but this attribution is groundless (see Catul., 44.1: o funde nostre seu Sabine seu Tibur). Only an L-shaped cryptoportico is preserved. Mari 1991, #27

Tivoli L293 – Pianelle dei Signori Reali The remains of a large villa measuring ca. 20,000 m², the so-called villa of C. Popilius Caro, are located on two terraces. The lower terrace measures 70 u 28 m. Two vaulted rectangular rooms, set side-by-side but belonging to different chronological phases, are in the middle of the upper terrace. In Republican times, there was only one room with an external fountain; later, the fountain became the niche of a nymphaeum. The rst building phase of the villa is in opus incertum and dates to the 2nd–1st century b.c.; the second phase is in opus reticulatum and dates to the 1st–2nd century a.d. Judging from surface material, the residential quarters must have been in the south part of the lower terrace and in the north part of the upper one. Mari 1991, #87

Figure L294. Tivoli, Quintiliolo (after Mari and Boanelli 1991).

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Tivoli L294 – Quintiliolo The substructures of a villa, attributed to Quintilius Varus on the basis of the modern place name, are located 1 km from the church of S. Maria in Quintiliolo. The villa was built on the site of a previous villa, possibly dating as early as the 3rd century b.c., on two terraces. A U-shaped cryptoportico [A], later transformed into a cistern, was identied. In the Augustan age, some rooms and a nymphaeum were added. The villa was enlarged to the north, east, and west with the construction of new substructures at the beginning of the 2nd century a.d., as indicated by the opus mixtum building technique. Possibly, on the lower terrace was a natatio or a piscina [B]. Cozza (1952: 270) noted that on the short sides of the presumed pool, two podia with holes are located; maybe these were sh holes. Cozza 1952; Mari and Boanelli 1991

Tivoli L295 – Via Colli di S. Stefano The villa, also known as the “Villa of the Lollii Paolini”, was in the past thought to be part of Hadrian’s Villa. It is located southwest of Ponte della Ferrata along the Via dei Colli di S. Stefano. The remains are distributed on two terraces; the lower one measures 230 u 40 m, the upper one 230 u 60 m. The terracing walls are in tufa opus reticulatum. Along the west terracing wall runs the aqueduct for Hadrian’s Villa. The remains of the buildings, located mostly on the upper terrace, are all datable to the 2nd century a.d. Recently, E. Salza Prina Ricotti has re-proposed the theory that this complex was part of Hadrian’s Villa. Mari 1991, #153

Tivoli L296 – Via delle Piagge Remains of a villa with a terrace and complex substructures are located 200 m from a small villa/farm. About 70 m southeast of the front of the terrace is a series of vaulted rooms, possibly the substructures of a road leading to other nearby villas. Mari 1991, #69

Tivoli L297 – Villa This villa and cistern have been in use from the late Republic to the 4th/5th century a.d., as has been inferred from surface nds, including mosaic tesserae, marble fragments, black glaze pottery, and African sigillata. Mari 1991, #85

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Tivoli L298 – Villa Only the basis belonging to a villa is visible. It measures 100 u 45 m. A tomb was located at the east end of the terrace. It was probably a “temple-like” tomb, an architectural type typical of the Antonine period. In this case it seems that the Republican terrace was enlarged in Imperial times. Mari 1983

Tivoli L299 – Villa Gregoriana On the grounds of the 19th century Villa Gregoriana and located on the right bank of the Aniene River are the remains of a villa attributed to Manlius Vopiscus. The ancient villa followed the contours of the cliff and presented a narrow terrace supported by concrete vaults faced in opus incertum. The front of the villa is ca. 130 m long. It consisted of two parts of which the south, with its series of barrel vaulted rooms, is the better preserved. Three adjacent and intercommunicating rooms in this southern portion of the villa (walls of concrete faced in opus incertum and vaulted ceilings) were designed for sh-breeding. The measurements for these covered shponds are as follows: the central one is 5.3 u 8 m, the lateral ones 2.95 u 8 m, and the height of the ceiling is ca. 7.8 m. There was no access between the ponds and the rooms that were built on this same terrace. The shpond was connected to the upper level of the villa by means of a ramp (1.5 m wide, 3.2 m high). An aqueduct cut into the hill behind the pond fed the piscinae and the rest of the villa. The opus incertum used in the vaulted shponds has been dated to the late 2nd or early 1st century b.c. Giuliani 1970, #198

latium: tivoli

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Tivoli “Villa of the Pisones” This large archaeological area, known as the villa of the Pisones because of a place name attested in a medieval document dated to 985, includes three villas (L300, L301, and L302). Many sculptures were found in past centuries in villa L300 or L302 (or possibly in both; the record of the discoveries is not precise). Among the discoveries were a metric epitaph and seven herms, now all lost, except the herm of Aristophanes (Museo degli Ufzi, Florence; see I.I., 424, 554, 556–7, 570, 576, 587). A herm of Alexander the Great (the herm “Azara”), coming from this site, is now at the Louvre; fteen (or maybe sixteen) herms of various philosophers and poets are in Madrid. Neudecker 1988

L300 – “Villa of the Pisones” #70 Large substructures in opus incertum dated to the 2nd century b.c. form two rectangular terraces 164 m long. In Imperial times, a bath complex built in opus reticulatum was added in a peripheral area. A ramp connected the lower terrace with the upper one, where a piscina was located. The pool is located between villas L301 and L302, near the bath complex of villa L301. Mari 1991

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Figure L301. Tivoli, “Villa of the Pisones” (L301) (after Coarelli 1982).

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L301 – “Villa of the Pisones” #72 The villa was built on two rectangular terraces. The substructures show different building phases. The lower terrace has a complex series of underground rooms built around a pre-existing terrace in opus polygonale and a cryptoportico. Possibly, a small villa dating to the 2nd century b.c. was transformed into a residential villa around the beginning of 1st century b.c. The cryptoportico was transformed at a certain point into a water cistern. An Imperial building phase in opus reticulatum is attested. To this phase belong a rectangular cistern on the margin of the upper terrace and maybe a bath complex. Mari 1991

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Figure L.302. Tivoli, “Villa of the Pisones” (L302) (after Coarelli 1982).

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L302 – “Villa of the Pisones” #73 The basis villae for this complex presents an L-shape. As is often the case with rural villas, there is a lower platform that was probably the garden [A]. On the east side of the courtyard is a long room [B] (7.35 u 5 m), maybe a nymphaeum. Two building phases are detectable, according to the different building techniques: opus incertum (2nd–1st century b.c.) and opus reticulatum (1st century a.d.). In this phase an enlargement to the south side created the garden area. A room with a series of vats may have been used for the storage of snow. In the 18th century this villa was attributed to P. Titudius Capito, on the basis of an inscription recovered in the area which mentions the construction of his tomb (CIG III.6242). Mari 1991

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TOR BELLA MONACA The two villas on the Via Gabina are sometimes referred to as the villas of “Tor Bella Monaca” or “Tor Angela”. Please see entries under “Via Gabina.” TOR CALDARA

L303 – Tor Caldara Located 5 km northwest of Anzio (Antium), the promontory of Tor Caldara was occupied in antiquity by a maritime villa. The ancient remains are scantily preserved because of sea erosion and illegal constructions, but were already recorded by various scholars, among whom were Lanciani and Lugli. The area immediately inland is characterized by sulphureous springs and sulphur deposits, exploited in ancient and modern times. The nds related to the extraction of sulphur date the Roman exploitation of the deposits to the 1st/2nd century a.d. The villa was dated by Quilici, on the basis of the visible structures and the pottery recovered (undecorated Arretine and sigillata chiara), to the 1st century a.d. and was still in use in the 2nd century a.d. On the sea side remains of a semi-circular structure were visible in section; it had a mosaic oor, circular and square niches on the walls, and white marble veneer, and was probably a nymphaeum. The walls were built with bricks cut from bessales. Recent archaeological investigations have identied a room on the northwest side of the complex built in opus mixtum with oor and wall revetments in polychrome marble. The original nucleus of the villa was enlarged to the east and south during the 2nd century a.d. using opus latericium for the walls. A probable garden was identied next to this area. Traces of a staircase built partly in brick and partly in wood and leading to an upper story were located in the corridor connecting the triclinium with the eastern part of the complex. In a subsequent but undated phase, in a portion of the supposed garden, various rooms were added, including a kitchen with annexed latrina.

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Because of the closeness of location, coincidence of chronology, and the absence in the sulphur extraction area of any indication of dwellings or domestic pottery, it can be said that the villa was related to extraction activity. Lanciani and Lugli had also seen two other maritime villas in the area: one located to the north of the small river on the north side of the promontory of Tor Caldara, and one to the south of Tor Caldara. Quilici saw only scanty bits of conglomerate walls in the area where the “south villa” stood; the “north villa” has been completely destroyed by major earthwork for the construction of an illegal camping. Quilici 1984; www.euromedheritage.net/tc/strutture_dune_villa.htm, consulted on 12/03/2006

Map 16. Tusculum (A. Marzano).

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TUSCULUM Tusculum, because of its amenities and its closeness to Rome, was very popular among wealthy Romans as a vacation spot. To possess a villa there became a status symbol. From ancient sources we know about eighty names of owners, including emperors like Tiberius, Galba, etc. Two statue bases in peperino with the names of Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus and M. Fulvius Nobilior come from the area of the forum of Tusculum. Apparently, Caecilius Metellus was one of the rst to own a villa in the area, whereas Fulvius Nobilior (cos. 189 b.c.) was from Tusculum. The inscriptions date to the 1st century B.C. The territory of the town of Tusculum, the Ager Tusculanus, corresponds to the modern territory of Frascati, part of Grottaferrata and Monte Porzio Catone. The data gathered in the Forma Italiae volume for the Ager Tusculanus (Valenti 2003) show that a considerable number of villas present building phases in opus incertum, in some cases in combination with opus polygonale, which date between the late 2nd century b.c. and the early 1st century b.c. Scenic positions on hills were preferred, and Valenti registered an even distribution of settlements in the territory with the exclusion of the portion to the southwest of the town, where villas are less dense. Not much can be said of the plan and architecture of the villas, since they have not been excavated. Recurrent visible features are the terracing walls, at times decorated with big niches, and cisterns and cryptoporticoes (L-shaped cryptoporticoes appear in the earlier villas). The villas are mostly distributed along main roads, as for instance in the case of the Via Latina and the ancient road, corresponding to the modern Via di Colle Pizzuto (Valenti 56–57). In the Liber Coloniarum (L.I. 298. 10–11) there is mention of land distribution under Sulla in the territory of Tusculum. Valenti notes, however, that because of the morphology of the Ager Tusculanus with many hills, it is difcult to nd villas and roads oriented along parallel axes reecting the centuriation, since they needed to adapt to the terrain. The majority of the sites identied in the study present building phases in opus reticulatum, indicating a date between the mid-1st century B.C. and the mid-1st century A.D.; in addition to this, pottery surface nds also present material datable to this period. It seems that, as in the case of Tibur, there was a hierarchy in the settlement types with villas that do not seem to have had production quarters; the scarce traces of villas with production quarters come from the portion of the territory that is characterized by a lower elevation and a atter surface. According to Valenti (61), the closeness of villas built on hill crests excludes, in many cases, the possibility that they had annexed a fundus, as was the case for the nearby, rather at territory of Collatia, where numerous archaeological nds have attested the presence of production quarters (elements of presses, etc.). Later building phases show that in the Imperial age villas were still used as residences, even if literary sources record few names of owners. The Imperial scus progressively incorporated large parts of the territory. Few new constructions occurred in the mid-Empire, not

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catalogue: latium because of a “crisis” of the area but for the lack of available space. Archaeological data about occupation in the 4th and 5th centuries are scarce compared with the previous periods. The Forma Italiae volume is rich in entries attesting intense settlement patterns in the territory starting from the Republican period. In many cases the presence of cisterns, substructures, or monumental tombs can be taken as indications of villas. Among the 900+ entries in Valenti 2003, I have reported here only those labeled with no doubt as villas and showing minimum evidence of having been elite residences.

Tusculum L304 – Abbazia di S. Nilo The southwest side of the abbey of Grottaferrata is built on an ancient cryptoportico ca. 90 m long and 5.60 m wide and divided into two naves. The exterior of the cryptoportico wall shows remnants of the original facing in reticulate. At a lower level are three barrel vaulted rooms, part of the substructures. Other rooms belonging to substructures are visible behind the cryptoportico. Eight columns in Parian marble were discovered in the 11th century and re-used in the church. The villa was built on a rectangular platform and had at least two terraces; on the northeast side was another room, part of the substructures on that side, later transformed into a cellar, which has an external wall in opus incertum. To the residential part should be attributed the structures identied in a probe trench opened by the Soprintendenza in 1984 in the cloister: a wall in opus quadratum ( peperino) and oor in cocciopesto; a room with an apse in opus latericium that rested in part on the peperino wall; a wall in opus quasi-reticulatum and a black tesserae mosaic. These elements indicate a residential part but are not enough for any consideration of the plan. The rst phase dates to the late 2nd century b.c.; the reticulate dates to the 1st b.c., while structures in brick indicate a building phase also ca. the early 2nd century a.d. It seems that the round marble altar with 10 gures dated to Antonine age, which was transferred by the prince Pamphili to Villa Doria Pamphili, can be identied with the base discovered by the monks of the abbey in 1600. Valenti 2003, #720–736

Tusculum L305 – Bel Poggio The remains of the villa consist of vaulted substructures, part of opus spicatum oor, and the base of a column in situ. A cistern located at a higher level also belonged to this villa. No dating elements are available. Valenti 2003, #177–178

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Tusculum L306 – Camaldoli The villa was located in the area overlooking the Convent Camaldoli and may have extended onto the upper esplanade currently covered by woods and also onto the lower one, where the church of the Eremo di Camaldoli was built in a ve-naved Roman cistern; this last structure, however, plus a room decorated with stucco discovered 20 m from the church and a reticulate terracing wall may also have belonged to a separate villa. What currently survives of the “upper” villa is only a cistern (27.60 u 5.60 m), but in 1901, rooms paved with geometric black and white tesserae mosaics were discovered. These structures were built in opus mixtum, and the various brick stamps recovered date to the 1st century a.d. Part of a secondary road oriented southeast-northwest (width varying between 2 and 4 m), evidently a diverticulum leading to the villa, was also discovered. Valenti 2003, #823–830

Tusculum L307 – Cappellette Along the road between Frascati and Monteporzio Catone is the site of a large villa, which in the Imperial period may have belonged to Matidia Augusta, since in 1888 a stula with her name (CIL XV.7822) was discovered here. The complex had two separate parts. One, with high reticulate retaining walls, was located on the esplanade to the west of the Astronomical Observatory, where fragments of oors and underground rooms are located. Possibly, a quadrangular terrace at a lower level protruded from this main nucleus. The reticulate back wall of the terrace presented a series of masonry columns on square bases in front of it, thus creating a “blind” portico. A massive retaining wall was on the opposite side and at a lower level. The wall is articulated in seven large, semi-circular niches faced in opus reticulatum and opus mixtum. More reticulate substructures are visible on the northwest and southwest sides of the platform occupied by the Observatory, which indicate the investment, in labor and capital, put into the construction of the villa; the existing walls are up to 15 m high. More retaining walls, but in opus polygonale, were discovered in 1998, whereas part of a probable cryptoportico (9 u 3.20 m with three windows and divided into two naves) with reticulate facing is known. Finally, excavations carried out in 1996–97 uncovered two rooms with mosaic oors and reticulate walls. The baths have been identied to the west and northwest of these rooms. The rst phase of construction dates to the 2nd century b.c., with a monumental phase related to the upper terrace dating to the late 1st b.c. The retaining walls with niches may date to the Hadrianic period. Valenti 2003, #397–409

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Tusculum L308 – Cappuccini In the area between the convent of the Cappuccini and the Villa Rufnella are three terraces belonging to a villa. A massive terracing wall in opus caementicium buttresses the platform on the northeast and northwest sides. The northeast wall also presents a series of perpendicular buttressing walls in bi-color reticulate (using leucite and pietra sperone). Two cisterns (one still in use, the other known from a drawing by Lanciani) were on the top of the esplanade. In the northeast wing of the convent, remains of rooms with reticulate walls were discovered in the early 20th century. Of this group the only visible structure nowadays is a wall with an apse and wall decoration featuring a yellow background and delicate oral motifs. The oor of this room had triangular polychrome marble tiles. In the 17th century, a nymphaeum was discovered, featuring a wall looking to the northeast with seven niches, alternately square and semi-circular, and wall mosaics. The building technique indicates an early phase in the late 2nd century b.c., a second one in the late 1st century b.c., and possibly another phase in the 1st century a.d. Valenti 2003, #511–517

Tusculum L309 – Casaccia The villa stood on a platform measuring ca. 40 u 50 m; on this area numerous surface nds are visible, such as tiles, bricks, cubilia, mosaic tesserae, black glaze, and African sigillata A, C, and D. Ashby found on this spot tufa columns (Tuscan order), fragments of painted plaster, and marble. Two cisterns could be related to this complex, one (22.23 u 3.44 m) was on the same level as the villa, and the other (11 u 19.20 m, divided into three naves) stood at a higher level. From the surface pottery nds one can suppose a period of occupation that spanned from the late Republic to the late Empire. Valenti 2003, #865–867

Tusculum L310 – Casalaccio The villa occupied a platform measuring ca. 120 u 100 m; it was built in the late 1st century b.c. and was used at least until the 2nd century a.d. Part of the cryptoportico with remnants of its painted decoration and substructures in opus incertum were recorded. A two nave cistern, still in use, presents on its roof a mosaic oor with white tesserae and a black border. Fragments of marble architectural pieces recovered in the area of the villa are dated, stylistically, to the 2nd century a.d. Valenti 2003, #79–82

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Tusculum L311 – Casale Bevilacqua The surface of the villa platform measured ca. 180 u 90 m; the building technique used for the terracing walls has been dated to the early 2nd century b.c. Two cisterns can be related to this complex, and in the past, fragments of mosaics, marble, and statue pieces were found. Valenti supposes that the villa was in use at least until the Imperial period. Valenti 2003, #167–171

Tusculum L312 – Casale Brandolini-Casale Mazzini Traces of ancient structures in this area were already reported by Ashby. The remains of the villa consist of walls in opus latericium overlooking an ancient road running to the east, part of a room with a mosaic in white tesserae and signs of marble revetment on the walls, and a large area with surface scatter: common ware, building material, Italic sigillata, African sigillata C. The general chronology offered by these elements is the 1st century a.d. to the 3rd century a.d. Valenti 2003, #295–299

Tusculum L313 – Casale Celli The villa is located in the territory of the modern town of Monte Porzio Catone. The villa was built in the late 2nd century b.c. on the little hill protruding towards Colle Pisano. The remains include three vaulted rooms, probably part of the bath quarters, now completely covered by vegetation, and a barrel vaulted cryptoportico (29.03 u 3.95 m), showing signs of various ancient and modern interventions (blocking of openings, etc.). In a second phase, possibly related to the construction of the bath quarters, two rectangular rooms were abutted against the northeast wall of the cryptoportico and put in communication with it, while the walls were covered in cocciopesto for use as a cistern. Surface nds include Italic sigillata, African sigillata C and D, mosaic tesserae and cubilia, thus giving as the latest date for occupation of the villa the 3rd–4th century a.d. Valenti 2003, # 314–316

Tusculum L314 – Casale Celli This villa is not in the same location as the previous entry L313, despite the similar name of the casale. The modern building was built on the site occupied by the ancient villa; all information related to the nding of ancient materials, dating as far back as the 19th century, indicates the area immediately below and to the west of the casale. The nds

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catalogue: latium include numerous stulae with no stamps, architectural pieces such as capitals and columns, and fragments of mosaics brought to the surface by agricultural works. One polychrome mosaic with geometric patterns and part of another depicting a portico are dated to the 1st century b.c. To the northeast of the casale is a platform and its retaining wall in opus caementicium (visible part, 33.55 m long) with seven large semi-circular niches, whose facing is almost opus quasi-reticulatum. In the middle of the platform is a circular open air tank. This area, at a lower elevation than the residential part of the villa, must have been the garden. No other data on the chronology of the villa are available.

Devoti 1978, # 104 (under the name Casale di Pilozzo); Valenti 2003, #318–323

Tusculum L315 – Casale Fiorano The remains ascribable to this villa consist of a cryptoportico with stucco coffered ceiling and reticulate walls discovered in 1879 and excavated in 1913; both the type of reticulate and the stucco motifs are datable to the mid-1st century b.c. The Soprintendenza excavated two barrel vaulted rooms built in opus caementicium, which belonged to the substructures, and various terracing walls in reticulate. In the 18th century, statues were uncovered in this area; Lanciani recorded the discovery of brick columns, plastered and painted. The villa occupied a platform measuring ca. 180 u 200 m, and its construction can be dated between the late 1st century b.c. and the early 1st century a.d. Valenti 2003, #41–42

Tusculum L316 – Casale Grande A villa was built on the northern side of a hill sometime in the late 2nd century b.c. The distribution of the visible remains suggests that it was not very large (a nucleus measuring 45 u 30 m was identied, oriented east-west), but the villa may have extended to the south. Two cisterns and one of the rooms of the substructures (with reticulate walls) were incorporated in the modern farmhouse. Another room with reticulate and opus mixtum walls, barrel vaulted, was also identied, indicating a substantial building phase in the 1st–2nd centuries a.d. In the modern farmhouse, ancient material recovered from that spot and from surrounding areas was visible, mostly related to funerary inscriptions and altars. Valenti 2003, #308–312

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Tusculum L317 – Casale Segni The villa extended over an area of ca. 200 u 100 m, cut on the northern part by the modern railway. The villa seems to have been built in the late 2nd/early 1st century b.c., with at least one other phase in the 1st century b.c./1st century a.d. A funerary inscription mentioning Silius Italicus (CIL, XIV.2653) and dated to 100 a.d. had led some to suggest that he was the owner. Various walls in opus incertum and reticulatum have been seen in the past, and ancient material, such as pieces of statues and fragments of funerary inscriptions, is walled in the nearby farm, which is built on top a Roman cistern. Valenti 2003, #260–264

Tusculum L318 – Casale Sonnino In this area stood a large villa, measuring ca. 300 u 120 m. A few terracing walls survive, in opus incertum and opus reticulatum, and three cisterns. Other structures and numerous fragments of different kinds of marbles, columns, etc. were reported in this area in the past, but are no longer visible. The villa shows a late 2nd century b.c. phase, as attested by a wall in opus incertum, and an early Imperial one. There is the possibility that the ndings listed under the nearby site L338 – Pallotta and this one should be related to one villa, in which case the inscription of Cornutus Tertullus attests a 2nd century a.d. date. Valenti 2003, # 300–306

Tusculum L319 – Casale Venturini The extent of the ancient villa is not determinable, but the discovery of mosaics in that area attests the presence of a residential part with a certain décor. The main feature ascribable to the villa complex is a cistern, incorporated as the foundation of the modern farmhouse. The cistern measures 27.40 u 9.80 m and was divided into three barrel vaulted naves; at the east end, perpendicular to the preceding ones, was another nave. The cistern is dated to the 1st century a.d. Valenti 2003, #335–336

Figure L320. Tusculum, Castel De Paolis (after Valenti 2003).

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Tusculum L320 – Castel de Paolis Valenti lists two separate villas under Castel de Paolis, keeping Ashby’s distinction, but warns that the remains very likely belong to one complex. Most of the area is presently occupied by private villas and could not be properly surveyed. Combining information from old accounts and visible, accessible remains, one can say that the complex extended from the highest point of Castel de Paolis for ca. 150 u 200 m. The small church of Castel de Paolis, now in ruin, presents a wall in peperino reticulate and was built on a barrel vaulted room, located on the north side of the hill (substructures?). Not far from the church, a modern house incorporates a rectangular room with walls in reticulate and a vault in caementicium. To the southeast of this group of remains is a terracing wall in opus mixtum [A] with four niches in the façade and terracotta water drains. Another wall [B] with niches is incorporated in a modern villa 2.80 m away from the previous one. Behind the niches is a room built in brick with a cocciopesto oor. Two phases can be listed: the rst dates to the 1st century b.c., the second to the early 2nd century a.d. Valenti 2003, #616–624

Tusculum L321 – Castel Savelli Three different groups of ancient remains can be related to one villa located along the northeast side of a hill overlooking the Via Latina at Grottaferrata. At least two phases can be detected; one dates to the late 1st b.c./early 1st century a.d., to which belongs a platform in reticulate (leucite and tufa) with an underground cistern (2.97 u 5.16 m, barrel vaulted). A second phase is dated to the 2nd century a.d. and includes a room to the southwest of the platform, with its northwest wall built in red brick (modulus 0.27/0.28 m). Not far from this area were found funerary inscriptions mentioning the Iavoleni Capitones; thus, Valenti suggests that the medieval document which mentions the fundus Capitonis may refer to this property (see L337). Valenti 2003, #581–583

Tusculum L322 – Castel Savelli – Borghetto Various ancient structures are related to a very large villa, which in Valenti’s calculation occupied an area of ca. 115 u 210 m, facing the northeast side of the Via Latina. At least two terraces were recognized (upper: 115 u 140 m; lower 110 u 70 m). The residential part was located on the southeast portion of the upper terrace; the rest of the upper terrace and the lower one were very likely occupied by gardens. In the rst phase the villa platform was smaller on the northwest and northeast sides. The walls related to this phase are in opus incertum with

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Valenti 2003, #592–599

Tusculum L323 – Cipriana On the northwest side of the hill, where the modern Villa Cavalletti is, were the ruins of a Roman villa, well visible in the 19th century. On the southeast side, and on the highest point of the hill, there was reported to have been an open air cistern, rectangular in plan but with an apse on the northeast side. In the middle of the apse was a small rectangular niche. Near this cistern were rooms in opus latericium, one of which had niches. Several architectural pieces were recorded in the area of the villa (gray marble columns, a small marble head, peperino fragments, etc.). A quasi-reticulatum, buttressed terracing wall on the northwest side is still visible, but the area is currently occupied by residential villas and a convent, which destroyed much of the ancient structures. Nonetheless, Valenti traced enough structural remains to indicate three original terraces of which the lowest had vaulted substructures. The opus quasi-reticulatum dates to the 1st century b.c., whereas the opus latericium (plus the brick stamps discovered in the 19th century) indicates a phase in the 2nd century a.d. In older literature the complex is referred to as Cato’s or Cicero’s villa, but these attributions have no grounds; it has also been called the villa of the Vibii Ru because of the discovery in the area of funerary inscriptions of this family. Valenti 2003, #687–695

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Tusculum L324 – Cocciano Of this villa several, disconnected elements are known: substructures in opus caementicium, a circular open air cistern tapping a spring, other substructures (36 rooms) with remnants of facing in reticulate, surface material, including the discovery of stulae (CIL, XV.7272 imp. Vespasiani Aug.), and the bath quarters. In 1997, excavations were carried out in an area left almost untouched by the earthwork that, in the 1970–90, destroyed part of the villa. A series of walls belonging to different phases was discovered, built in opus incertum, quasi-reticulatum, reticulatum, and mixtum. The interpretation of these structures is unclear, but the chronology extends from the 1st century b.c. to the 2nd century a.d. The villa was probably built on two terraces and was quite large. Traditionally, because of the stula mentioned above, the villa is considered to have been the property of the Imperial scus by the time of the Flavians. Valenti 2003, #208–219

Tusculum L325 – Colle delle Ginestre The villa located on the southern side of Colle delle Ginestre (currently heavily built over) was traditionally, but with no sound proof, attributed to Cicero. For this reason, in the late 19th century the area was referred to as the “Bagni di Cicerone”. The fragmentary data allow a dating of the complex to the late Republic with a subsequent building phase in the early Imperial period. Ashby and Albert recorded on the northwest side of the hill a retaining wall in opus quadratum, the presence of stone staircases, and a room with a black and white mosaic and painted plaster. On the east side was a buttressed retaining wall in opus caemeticium, delineating a terrace on which Ashby saw fragments of mosaic oors. On the south side was a reticulate wall with niches, a type of retaining wall that occurs frequently in villas of this area. Lastly, when a villa was built in 1921 on the top of the hill, structures in reticulate and opus latericium were discovered. To the north of the modern villa in 1930, a “large semi-circular hall” was seen with traces of a white tesserae mosaic, presumably belonging to the bath quarters. Valenti 2003: #764–768

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Tusculum L326 – Colle Giudice The area of the villa has been known since 1851 from surface material scatter and some structures in reticulate, including a room with a pool, where a Faunus statue was found (now in the Museum Gregoriano Lateranense). The scanty structures stood on a small hilltop. The reticulate walls date to the late 1st century b.c.; the statue has been dated to the 1st century a.d. Valenti 2003, #135–6

Tusculum L327 – Colle Pisano In its original phase this villa measured ca. 105 u 135 m. It was built on two terraces and had several building phases (in opus incertum: late 2nd century b.c.; in opus reticulatum: mid-1st century b.c.; in opus mixtum: late 1st–early 2nd centuries a.d.; in opus latericium: mid-2nd century a.d.). In the 2nd century a.d. the bath quarters were added, and the terrace was enlarged to the east. The baths show changes in their use at a given point; the pool was covered with opus caementicium, and the hypocaust openings in the wall were blocked by brick structures. The residential part was on the east side of the villa platform and located at a higher elevation. Past reports mention the discovery of various rooms in this area. A two-nave cistern and terracing walls are also known. It is possible that the statues of a bearded Dionysus in the Vatican Museum and of the four caryatids in the Villa Albani, discovered in the 18th century, were found in this villa. Valenti 2003, #235–242

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Tusculum L328 – Colle Pisano The remains of this villa consist of a rectangular, barrel vaulted cistern (2.80 u 12.65), a terracing wall, and ve barrel vaulted rooms in opus incertum with some restoration in bad quality opus reticulatum. Two phases are attested; one in the 2nd century b.c./early 1st century b.c. and restorations in the late 1st century b.c. Valenti 2003, #246–250

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Figure L329. Tusculum, Convento delle Monache (after Valenti 2003).

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Tusculum L329 – Convento delle Monache When building works were conducted in 1823 in the area of the Convento delle Monache at Grottaferrata, an ancient platform measuring 120 u 90 m with substructures on three sides was discovered. On the south and southeast sides of the platform was a series of rooms (7 u 5.90 m each, with end wall curved); on the northwest side, the rooms of the substructures were instead rectangular. The rooms were found lled with soil, so in antiquity there was no access to them. The portion still surviving today includes part of the front wall on the southeast and southwest sides, built in bi-color reticulate ( peperino and leucite). The convent has a rich collection of antiquities recovered during earthwork in their property, which include architectural pieces (marble columns, peperino capitals), terracotta statues, herms dated to the 2nd century a.d., etc. The vineyard to the north of the convent presents a large area (3,600 m²) of medium density surface scatter, including black glaze and African sigillata. Large leucite stone piles on the margin of the vineyard seem to relate to a wall in opus polygonale, maybe destroyed when the vines were planted. A second vineyard, to the east of the convent, presents a larger scatter of surface nds (4,900 m²), in this case also including mosaic tesserae, small marble tiles, Italian sigillata, and African sigillata. Remains of another terracing wall were discovered on the southwest side of the hill where the convent is located. This wall presents various building phases: one in opus incertum and a second phase featuring buttressing walls in opus quasi-reticulatum. This retaining wall delimits a second platform, lower than the one described above. It is not clear, however, whether the two platforms relate to the same villa complex or to two separate villas. On this lower platform in 1913, a large nymphaeum was discovered with reticulate walls and a series (every 2.80 m) of large niches (2 m wide). In between the niches were terracotta semi-columns. The opus incertum of the lower platform can be dated to the late 2nd century b.c., whereas the walls in bi-color reticulate can be dated to the early 1st century a.d. The pottery visible on the surface indicates an occupation at least down to the 2nd century a.d. Possibly, the various statues recovered at Bagnara and identied with those at the Altes Museum in Berlin, and the honorary inscriptions naming members of the Iulii Aspri (CIL XIV. 2505, 2510–12, 2514, 2517) should be related to the villa in the area of the Convent and not, as thought, to a funerary monument. On this complicated issue see Valenti 2003: 311–314. If this hypothesis should be correct, one could then add a 3rd century a.d. occupation phase for the villa, since to this date belong the persons mentioned in the inscriptions of the Iulii Aspri. Valenti 2003, #650–662

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Tusculum L330 – Cornufelle The villa was built on two terraces (lower: 90 u 70 m; upper 105 u 90? m). The remains of the villa consist of a terracing wall in opus incertum visible for 130 m, another terracing wall in opus reticulatum with large niches and square drainage holes, cisterns located on the upper level, and dense surface pottery scatter (among which are 1 fragment of black glaze, 1 fragment of an African amphora, African sigillata A, and A/D, African cooking ware, and dolia). From the type of surface nds, it appears that a garden was on the lower terrace. Occupation of the villa goes from the early 1st century b.c. to at least the early 3rd century a.d. Valenti 2003, #35–41

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Tusculum L331 – Fontana Candida The remains of the villa are covered by vegetation and were cut in half by a modern road, which exposed the foundation levels. The structures are in opus reticulatum; a rectangular room is visible with a curved south side and a north side which may have been open. In recent years, during agricultural work in order to plant a vineyard, pieces of architectural decoration were recovered, such as Corinthian capitals, fragments of marble pillars, other fragments in peperino, travertine, and red tufa, a possible funerary slab with the fasces of a consul in relief, part of the stone base of a torcular (0.69 u 0.23 u 0.53 m), and a stone block with rectangular sockets for arbores. In addition to all this, several architectural pieces were re-used in the farmhouse, denoting an elite status of the residence, which also had production quarters. Valenti dates the structure tentatively to the late Republic/early Empire. Valenti 2003, #256–258

Figure L332. Tusculum, Fontana del Piscaro (after Egidi 1981).

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Tusculum L332 – Fontana del Piscaro The villa, the remains of which consist of the massive substructures which formed the basis villae and of a cistern and a pool ( piscina or natatio?), has been known since the 17th century. The antiquarian tradition attributed its ownership to L. Licinius Lucullus because the villa is located in an area identied as the ager Lucullianus on the basis of the recovery of two dedicatory inscriptions by freedmen of the gens Licinia (CIL, XIV.2721–2722). Another reason for the interpretation was the fact that the villa is not far from the mausoleum commonly known as the “Tomb of Lucullus” or the “Torrione di Micara”. The dimensions of the basis villae mark the villa as the most monumental of the Ager Tusculanus. The basis is on a hill overlooking Rome, and it has a rectangular shape with a protruding part on its southwest side. The northwest side of the platform measures 166.50 m; the southwest side, from one extreme to the other, is 163 m long, while the protruding part measures 123.50 m. The southwest portion of this protruding part is square-shaped with a at surface and was a hortus pensilis. The enclosing wall in opus reticulatum with cubilia of int had semi-columns holding arches. Three major building phases were identied. To the oldest one (late 2nd–early 1st century b.c.) dates the L-shaped cryptoportico [A] (45 m long, 5.10 m wide, 3.50 m high), built in opus incertum and originally divided by a series of thirty-one columns with Doric capitals and with 24 small windows placed at 1.60 m intervals. In Phase 2 (rst half of the 1st century b.c.), an ambulacrum was built abutting the exterior of the northwest wall of the cryptoportico. In Phase 3 (late 1st century b.c.–early 1st century a.d.), the villa platform was greatly extended to the southwest, and the new area was enclosed by a wall, whose external surface with reticulate facing had a series of blind niches framed by lesenae which had in the middle semi-columns. Another cryptoportico borders the garden-terrace on two sides. On the northwest side of the platform, resting on one segment of the cryptoportico, are ve barrel vaulted rooms [B] with windows. Their ceilings and walls present traces of painted stucco decoration and frescoes. One can distinguish plants, owers, and a bird. The middle room had a ceiling decoration (part of which is in private collections) which has been dated to the 3rd century on the basis of comparison with similar decoration in the Hypogeum of the Aurelii. In the middle of the substructures was a cistern, while the use of other rooms and corridors remains unclear. Repairs and additions in opus mixtum indicate a Phase 4 (ca. early 2nd century a.d.), while the 3rd century decoration of the vaulted room constitutes Phase 5. The southern part of the platform [C] does not present structures and was probably the garden. Not far from the villa is a large cistern (39.50 u 21 m). To the northwest of the site is a circular pond (not in the plan ø 45.70 m in Egidi; ø 45.50 m in Valenti), possibly a piscina for sh breeding or an open air water basin. The cistern is at a lower level than the villa platform and, if it belonged to this estate, was probably used for garden irrigation. If, however, this structure relates to

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catalogue: latium the large circular covered cistern known as the “Torrione di Micara” (not to be confused with the above-mentioned circular mausoleum also called “Torrione di Micara”, see Valenti, 147–8), it could have belonged to another villa located at a lower level. It is reported that in the 16th century one could see the steps leading into the pool.

Egidi 1981; Valenti 2003, #154

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Tusculum L333 – Monte Porzio Catone The remains pertaining to this villa include a large cistern, 7.60 m wide and at least 41 m long and divided in two naves by a wall with 11 arched openings; a second cistern (14 u 4.50 m), barrel vaulted; and an L-shaped cryptoportico built in opus caementicium with facing in opus incertum, which buttresses the east side of an esplanade. The side of the cryptoportico that looks onto the valley has a series of windows; there are signs of ancient blockings in opus incertum. A third cistern (4.35 u 9.32), possibly an open air basin in its rst phase, was later roofed. The area between the cryptoportico and the two smaller cisterns is covered with pottery fragments (tiles, common ware, African amphorae, sigillata Africana C and D, black and white mosaic tesserae). In the past a marble female statue was found; fragments of tufa columns which are not in situ are visible around the site. Four marble sculptures in the Museo Nazionale Romano are said to have come from this site: a head of a peplophoros, a head of Athena (both copies of Greek originals of the 5th century b.c.), another head of Athena, considered to be an original piece from Magna Graecia, and the head of a horse. In the 18th century, fragments of the inscription CIL, XIV.2627 were found (M. Durmius/C. Caelius C. f./ex. s.c.). The area of the villa measured at least 100 u 200 m; it was built in the late 2nd or early 1st century b.c. and was used at least down to the 3rd/4th century a.d. Devoti 1978; Neudecker 1988; Valenti 2003, #269–276

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Figure L334. Tusculum, Monte Porzio Catone (L334) (after Valenti 2003).

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Tusculum L334 – Monte Porzio Catone In 1885, a retaining wall in opus polygonale and remains of rooms with mosaic oors, probably belonging to the bath quarters, were discovered. The platform formed by the retaining wall had an L-shaped cryptoportico [B] built in opus quasi-reticulatum; a staircase on one end of the cryptoportico led to the upper terrace. In the interior of the cryptoportico, many fragments of polychrome marble tiles were discovered, mostly rosso antico. The structures on the platform above the cryptoportico were described by Tomassetti as having been built in reticulate with threshold and door frames in marble, oors in sectile and mosaic, and fragments of painted plaster. The various statues bought in 1885 by the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe may come fom this villa. Two cisterns belonged to this complex (one shown in plan, [A]). The villa had at least two terraces, enlarged at some later point toward the northeast. Three different phases can be identied from the building techniques: one dated to the 2nd century b.c. (walls in opus incertum), a second to the late 1st century b.c., to which belong the cryptoportico and rooms in opus reticulatum. A third phase, to which belong the statues, walls in opus mixtum, and marble oors, dates to the 1st century a.d. Valenti 2003, #804–806

Tusculum L335 – Monte Salomone The villa, traditionally called the villa of the Licinii for the discovery of a brick stamp mentioning Licinius, was located on the southwest side of the hill Monte Salomone, where surface nds are still visible (building material, opus spicatum bricks, cocciopesto fragments, marble tiles for opus sectile, mosaic tesserae, African sigillata, and amphorae). Illegal excavations in 2001 uncovered part of a barrel vaulted room with reticulate walls in the same spot where Ashby had recorded the presence of vaulted substructures with mosaic oors and red tufa columns. Possibly, the discovery on the south slopes of Monte Salomone in 1850 of structures with opus sectile ooring, marble thresholds, painted plaster, and marble revetments refers to this same villa. Valenti 2003, #889

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Tusculum L336 – Monti Tuscolani To this villa probably belong the bath quarters discovered in 1834. On this spot, a wall in opus mixtum is visible. Valenti observes that the location, at the mouth of a small valley, is rather unusual for a residential complex and suggests that maybe the villa was built when other, more panoramic areas in Tusculum were already saturated with villas. The building technique of the wall indicates a late 1st/early 2nd century a.d. date. Valenti 2003, #870–871

Tusculum L337 – Montione The platform onto which the Pia Colonia Gosio was built in 1925 belonged to a large Roman villa. Nowadays, its northwest limit is clearly visible, with a terracing wall in conglomerate, which, apparently, in the 1930s still had traces of reticulate facing. Valenti suggests an upper platform measuring 150 u 150 m, and a lower one (150 u 50 m) that may have been a garden. The rectangular cistern sketched by Lanciani, and only in part surviving, probably belonged to this property, since it is located near the villa and on a higher level than it. Other structures, including reticulate walls and mosaics, were destroyed when the Pia Colonia was built. The earliest phase detected dates to the 1st century b.c., whereas the presence of walls in opus mixtum indicates at least one more phase in the late 1st–2nd century a.d. Two funerary inscriptions dated to the 1st century b.c. were discovered in the area (AE 1987, 226–227). In Lanciani’s opinion, the property belonged to the Iavoleni Capitones on the basis of a medieval document of the 7th century mentioning a fundus Capitonis, but it seems that this reference should instead be related to another area near the XI mile of the Via Latina (see L321). Valenti 2003, #561–569

Tusculum L338 – Pallotta The villa was located in the same area where the cardinal Pallotta built his palace in the 17th century. Valenti could not verify much of the information reported in old accounts, since this area has been drastically modied in recent years. Old accounts report that during works for the planting of a vineyard “bagni, molini di oglio, colonne, statue, camere lavorate di mosaico e un piedistallo di no marmo con iscrizione” (baths, oil mills, columns, statues, rooms with mosaics and a ne marble base with an inscription; CIL, XIV.2925) were discovered. Lanciani saw a rectangular cistern divided into three naves, and MacCracken indicated another one, with pillars in conglomerate and possibly divided into seven naves,

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incorporated in the villa of the cardinal. The above mentioned inscription names Iulius Cornutus Tertullus, cos. in 100 a.d. See also the entry for Casale Sonnino, L318. Valenti 2003, #349–353

Tusculum L339 – Parco A large articial platform measuring 250 u 200 m rests, on its north and east sides, on walls faced in opus incertum and opus reticulatum. About half of the platform rests on an incredible series of ancient substructures (covering an area of ca. 210 u 80 m; 189 rooms forming the substructures have been identied). These rooms all have barrel vaults and walls in opus caementicium. In a subsequent phase the eastern halves of rooms 86–87 were transformed into a cistern; later, the western part of room 86 was subdivided by means of reticulate walls, and apparently, the cistern ceased to exist. Three small rooms behind 86–88, numbered as 35–37, have walls with white plaster (and red vault) and present several interesting grafti and writings with charcoal, referring to the daily amount of building material given to the masons. In room 37 the traces of wall decoration indicate red frames on a white background and other elements removed at some time; originally, the room had a window and a door, later blocked, and a small masonry counter or bench. On the west side of the complex are the remains of a room ending in a semi-circular exedra. Excavations revealed four more rooms (159–162) decorated with semicolumns with Doric capitals. The walls show restorations and blockings in opus reticulatum, opus mixtum, and opus latericium. The complex phases of the villa are not yet completely clear. The earliest phase was identied by the opus incertum, dated to the 2nd century b.c., visible along the 16th century wall that encloses the area; dated to the mid-1st century b.c are the remnants of opus quasi-reticulatum (rooms 10, 24) on which rest the walls in opus caementicium of the substructures. Other rooms have walls faced in opus latericium with bessales (early 2nd century a.d.) Valenti 2003, #426

Tusculum L340 – Petroccetto The villa platform with a cistern was described by Ashby. In aerial photographs one can see the frontage of the platform measuring ca. 130 m; a mosaic oor was also discovered in this area. From a drawing on an old map, it seems that there were two terraces divided by buttressing elements or substructures. Valenti 2003, #176

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Tusculum L341 – Quarto Montione The terracing walls pertaining to this villa dene a platform measuring 180 u 130 m. A series of barrel vaulted rooms form imposing substructures. On the north side of the platform is a protruding rectangular part with a room, probably a cistern, judging from the cocciopesto mortar on the walls. Structures built in reticulate with large cubilia date the villa to the mid 1st century b.c., but on the villa platform no surface nds were seen. Valenti 2003, #151

Tusculum L342 – La Ruffinella On a hill to the east of Tusculum, about 600 m from the amphitheatre, in 1741 the architect L. Vanvitelli ordered the excavation of the structures of a large Roman villa in order to nd building material for the construction of the Villa Rufnella. The ndings were described and plans produced before proceeding with the total demolition of the ruins, but the drawings were lost. The structures still existing today include a three-nave rectangular cistern (14.50 u 8.70 m), another cistern still lled with water, a barrel vaulted room (2.10 u 4.90 m) that may have been a cistern, since it is faced with cocciopesto, and a piscina (20 u 6 m) located to the east of the previous feature and faced in cocciopesto. Pottery dated to the 1st and 2nd centuries a.d. was recovered in its proximity. From the description of Vanvitelli’s “excavation” it seems that the villa had four courtyards with porticoes; for two of them, a drainage channel in peperino to collect water from the roof is mentioned. The water from these courtyards was collected into two of the cisterns, but all the cisterns were connected to each other. Next to the cisterns were discovered the bath quarters and, probably, a nymphaeum, since the report mentions “seatings covered with sea-shells”, in addition to rooms with hypocausts and marble veneer. Stamped stulae were also recovered, as well as oors and various artifacts, including two reliefs with bacchic scenes, a sundial, and the famous brick stamp reading M. Tuli (CIL, XV.2277). The discovery of the brick stamp has led some scholars to identify this villa with Cicero’s property, but the dating of the stamp is controversial (1st century a.d. for Dessau, Ciceronian for Coarelli, see bibliographical references in Valenti 2003: 345, note 1057). Already Canina had pointed out that the elevation of the villa is higher than the springs for the Aqua Crabra, which fed Cicero’s villa. Rich and abundant mosaics were discovered, both gurative and geometric, with elaborate patterns, but they were all lost. Only some of the polychrome ones were removed and transferred to the Museo Kircheriano. The oors apparently showed two phases, as in the report it is mentioned that a mosaic with small tesserae was covered by one made

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with larger tesserae and that the central emblema had been removed and replaced by another design. The villa was on two terraces; the upper one measured 120 u 50 m, and it is on this one that Valenti believes the structures described in the 1746 account were located. The lower terrace measured 140 u 140 m. The wall in opus quasi-reticulatum and some of the mosaics that survived can be dated to the mid-1st century b.c. Various brick stamps are dated to the mid-Empire, while the mosaics with large tesserae and two polychrome panels, now in the Museo Nazionale Romano, are dated to the 3rd–4th centuries a.d. Valenti 2003, #789–794

Tusculum L343 – Selva di Mondragone The villa was built on at least three terraces, oriented southeast-northwest, on an area measuring 150 u 120 m. The area of the villa is cut by the modern road Frascati-Tuscolo. Valenti surveyed two cisterns (one measures 29 u 10.30 m, divided into three naves; the other measures 18 u 13.50 m and presents three naves), retaining walls in conglomerate with leucite chippings, substructures in opus reticulatum, and vaulted rooms. The generic date for the complex is the late Republic and midEmpire. Valenti 2003, #808–814

Tusculum L344 – Spinetta A few statues were discovered in the 19th century at this site and attest the richness of the villa (e.g., statues of divus Claudius and Apollo, now in the Galleria Borghese, etc.). The visible structural part consists only of a two-nave cistern. In 1821, structures with painted plaster and semi-columns with stucco were seen. Another identied feature of this complex is a series of tunnels/cryptoporticoes, where opus sectile fragments were found. Valenti 2003, #130–132

Tusculum L345 – Sterpara The villa was built on two terraces; the lower one was delimited by a natural cut in the rock bed, the upper one by terracing walls in opus incertum and opus polygonale. The front of the basis villae measured ca. 90 m. The only available dating, based on building technique, places the construction in the late 2nd century b.c. Valenti 2003, #46–48

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Tusculum L346 – Ventidue Rubbia The site of a villa is indicated by a retaining wall in opus caementicium, a second one in brick, visible in a modern structure, and pottery surface scatter. This is probably the villa that Lanciani described as an “imposing villa with cryptoporticoes like the ones at Hadrian’s villa”. The remains listed by Valenti under #60–62 may also have been part of this villa. The brick wall indicates an Imperial phase. Valenti 2003, #63–65

Tusculum L347 – Vermicino Two cisterns, polychrome mosaic tesserae, marble ashlars, peperino columns, and a circular structure, seen by Ashby but no longer standing, are the only known vestiges of this villa. The scanty data available show a late Republican/early Imperial phase (opus reticulatum), restoration in the 2nd century (opus mixtum), and a lavish phase in the 4th century, attested by a polychrome mosaic found in 1834 and now at the Villa Borghese (ve panels, depicting scenes of gladiatorial combats and venationes, were cut and removed). According to Canina, the mosaic was placed in a portico along a peristyle. Valenti 2003, #5–8

Tusculum L348 – Vigna Ferri Some of the substructures of the villa are visible, including a vaulted corridor in opus caementicium. Surface nds include mosaic fragments, a limestone tessera from a scutulatum oor, and pottery, such as black glaze, African sigillata C, and post-antique ceramics. The occupation phases go from the late Republic to at least the 2nd century a.d. Valenti 2003, #133

latium: tusculum

619

Tusculum L349 – Villa Campovecchio The remains of this villa include a nymphaeum, described by Ashby, of which part of the apse in caementicium survives along a modern terracing wall that probably follows an ancient one. In front of the nymphaeum was a circular piscina. 19th century documents report the discovery in this spot of “rooms with marbles and terracotta tiles and mosaics”, which seem to have belonged to the bath quarters. In a nearby vineyard, in 1883, fragments of reliefs with Egyptian motifs were discovered, together with a large mask depicting Oceanus, fragments of antessae, peperino columns, granite, travertine, and a brick stamp dated to 134 a.d. Modern Casale Campini was built over a Roman cistern. Valenti reconstructs a complex on two terraces of which the upper one was the larger (200 u 130 m) and included the nymphaeum. The second platform (100 u 130) opened in front of the nymphaeum and presented the circular pool, which may have been used for irrigation of a garden located on this terrace. The type of nymphaeum described by Ashby and the kind of reticulate facing indicate a mid-1st century b.c. date with at least another phase in the 2nd century a.d. Valenti 2003, #634–642

Figure L350. Tusculum, “Villa dei Furii” (after Valenti 2003).

620 catalogue: latium

latium: tusculum

621

Tusculum L350 – “Villa dei Furii”, so-called The popular name for this villa, whose remains are currently almost completely covered, rests on the discovery in this area, in 1842, of two dedicatory inscriptions to Fortuna and Mars by the military tribune M. Furius (CIL, XIV.2577–2578), which should relate to a sacred area. On the basis of topographical indications and morphology, Valenti sees as referring to the same villa various discoveries which occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries. To the complex belonged rooms, discovered in 1885 and 1915 (the plan reports only this latter discovery), which were built employing various techniques: opus quadratum, opus reticulatum with bonding corners in brick, opus mixtum. On higher ground was a cistern (not in the plan), which may have fed a semi-circular pond (based on a diameter of 13.70 m) with steps leading into it on one side [A]. In the pond were two fragments of brick columns covered with stucco; sea-shells were discovered nearby, perhaps belonging to the wall decoration of a nymphaeum of which the pond may have been part. Several rooms of the residential part were uncovered, measuring on average 5 u 6 m, some with mosaic oors and an underground cistern below them. Completely puzzling is the structure uncovered to the west of the residential part [B]: two converging walls creating a circular room in which a low wall delineated a square. The description of the 1885 discoveries seems to indicate that the villa was provided with a pars rustica; a room with a “circle” in the middle made in opus spicatum was perhaps a press area. This room had a black and white mosaic oor in intstone and marble; it is impossible to say whether the supposed press was a later conversion of the room from residential to utilitarian function or vice-versa, since no stratigraphic data are available. Another room had a staircase leading to an underground room, which had in the middle a large sunken dolium (stamped on the rim: IIS), the upper part of a our-mill, and numerous fragments of dolia. A third room also presented a sunken dolium. Although the description is not very accurate, all the elements clearly indicate a production area. The same report offers a glimpse of what must have been the richness of the villa in listing the various kinds of marble recovered in other rooms (alabaster, pavonazzetto, cipollino, portasanta, pink alabaster, etc.). The complex was probably built in the Republican period; Valenti observed on site part of a wall with facing in opus quasi-reticulatum, which would attest a second phase in the 1st century b.c., whereas description in the old reports of bi-chrome reticulate and opus mixtum indicate a late 1st century a.d. phase. He also observed on the surface numerous fragments of African amphorae. Valenti 2003: #832–836

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Tusculum L351 – Villa Domitilla The limits of the ancient villa are visible in the aerial photograph of the esplanade in front of the Astronomical Observatory of Monte Porzio Catone. The total area measured ca. 105 u 250 m and was articulated on two terraces. On the upper terrace, where a cistern is located (7.50 u 31 m, divided into two naves, with reticulate walls), mosaic oors and fragments of architectural pieces ( peperino ashlars, columns, etc.) were discovered. Pottery recovered in the area dates from the late Republic to the mid-Empire, including black glaze, African sigillata A and C, and African cooking ware. The villa was built in the late 2nd century b.c.; the discovery of polychrome mosaics and opus sectile oor points to the 2nd century a.d. Valenti 2003, 380–392

Tusculum L352 – Villa Falconieri The site where villa Falconieri stands corresponds to an ancient platform of a Roman villa, measuring 220 m on the northwest side. Three different terraces have been identied, the lowest one probably a garden. On the middle terrace, fragments of mosaic oor were discovered (black and white tesserae with geometric patterns). On the upper terrace was a cistern, visible only in part. The construction is dated to the late 2nd century b.c. with a second phase in the early Imperial period to which belong the mosaic and reticulate walls. Valenti 2003, #500–508

Tusculum L353 – Villa Gammarelli The villa stood in the area to the southeast of villa Gammarelli and had an upper terrace, measuring ca. 70 u 30 m; numerous surface nds are still visible here, including bricks, pottery, etc. The terracing wall of the lower terrace was identied, in opus caementicium, indicating an extension for this platform of ca. 30 u 150 m. The construction of the villa dates to the late 3rd/2nd century b.c., as attested by a retaining wall in opus polygonale; structures in opus reticulatum and in opus latericium indicate a second phase in the early 1st century a.d. A third phase is dated to the the early 2nd century a.d. The data are too fragmentary to attempt any reconstruction of the plan of the villa. The only information that relates to the residential part is the discovery of a fragment of mosaic ooring in a vineyard. Ashby reported the discovery of some underground rooms (cisterns?). Valenti 2003, #850–857

latium: tusculum

623

Tusculum L354 – Villa la Torretta The fact that the farmhouse called la Torretta is built on a Roman cistern (now used as a cellar), measuring 14 u 17 m and divided in six naves by pillars, and that there are, around the casale, numerous ashlars, pieces of columns, Corinthian capitals, and peperino columns, indicates that these features belonged to a villa. Valenti, after studying the terrain morphology, suggests an extension of 150 u 100 m for the platform. He noticed a large marble block with V-shaped sockets which may have belonged to a press. Other ancient artifacts kept in the area of the farm can be instead related to a funerary context. Valenti 2003, #603–605

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Figure L355. Tusculum, Villa Lucidi (after Valenti 2003).

latium: tusculum

625

Tusculum L355 – Villa Lucidi The ancient villa was a large complex, extending north-south for at least 400 m. A multi-room cistern located on a higher elevation supplied the villa (currently incorporated in the ground oor of the Villa Lucidi). The north and west side of the villa complex presented vaulted substructures. 10 rooms are located on the west side with reticulate wall facing, showing subsequent phases (a reticulate using smaller cubilia); seven vaulted rooms built in reticulate were on the north side. In a subsequent phase, semi-circular structures in opus mixtum were added, possibly related to the transformation of the structures above them. The east side of the villa platform presented a simple linear retaining wall in reticulate. The residential part of the villa was probably in the area currently occupied by the vineyard and the casale, where in the past the nding of statues, oors, and baths has been reported (two oors on suspensurae, one in cocciopesto with white tesserae, the other a black and white tesserae mosaic with geometric patterns). Valenti mentions that in 1988 a cryptoportico in opus caementicium was discovered, but that he could not survey the structure. Sporadic material recovered in the area includes fragments of a statuary group, terracotta antessae dated to the Augustan period, and an oscillum in white marble. In the 18th century polychrome mosaics and opus sectile oors were discovered; possibly, this is the spot where the statue of Augustus signed by Ophelion and now in the Louvre was found. The villa was built sometime in the 1st century b.c. and was occupied at least until the 3rd century a.d. On the basis of an inscription discovered in 1879 (CIL, XIV.2757), mentioning a freedman of the Vinicii, ownership of the villa has been attributed to this family. Valenti 2003, 362–379

Tusculum L356 – Villa Mondragone The Renaissance Villa Mondragone was built on the platform belonging to a Roman villa. The front of the platform, looking to the north, measured 60 m; the north-south extension of the platform is not clear, but there were probably various terraces. The vestiges ascribable to the villa include a cistern on the top of the hill, still used as such; below the “Giardino Segreto” of villa Mondragone is a retaining wall in reticulate with blind arches and small pillars at the side (every 3 m; the wall is 32 m long and 7 m high); other structures, either pertaining to substructures or retaining walls are known in the area of the modern villa. In the southwest corner of the villa, in the 18th century, stamped stulae mentioning the Quintilii were recovered. Coarelli reports that stulae bearing the names of Nero and Matidia were also recovered, but these may be the stulae kept in the collection of antiquities of the villa, which Valenti (2003: 227, note 547) says were in fact discovered at Prata Porci. Recent investigations in the villa have identied in the main courtyard an

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catalogue: latium underground cistern with two naves, a fragment of polychrome mosaic oor (late Republican/early Imperial), and a black and white mosaic with small crosses. It has been reported that when the Renaissance villa was built, numerous statues (e.g., a colossal head of Antinous, now at the Louvre, a head of Hera, at the Galleria Borghese, etc.) columns, and alabaster fragments were found. On the basis of the available elements the earliest phase of the villa is dated to the late 1st century b.c., and the latest, based on the nds coming from a probe trench opened by the Soprintendenza, to the 2nd century a.d.

Valenti 2003, #414–418

Tusculum L357 – Villa Muti The existence of a Roman villa in the area occupied by the Renaissance villa Muti at Grottaferrata has long been known. The complex unfolded on various terraces. The visible ancient remains include part of a terracing wall in opus polygonale, abutted by one in opus reticulatum; another terracing wall in opus mixtum; a rectangular cistern with four naves, located on the highest ground and mostly covered by vegetation; and reticulate walls visible in the interior of the Renaissance palace. In the late 19th century, Lanciani excavated in the garden to the south of the palace, discovering 12 rooms with reticulate walls cut at about 1 m from the oor, which he dated to the time of Augustus. The oors were in opus sectile, featuring palombino, lavagna, and giallo antico; a peperino column with Doric capital was also discovered. The rst phase has been dated to the 3rd–2nd century b.c., the second to the late 1st century b.c., and a third phase to the late 1st–early 2nd century a.d. Valenti 2003: #546–552

Tusculum L358 – Villa Rasponi To this villa one can relate a cistern located on the southern side of the hill of Tuscolo. Rectangular in plan and divided into 10 barrel vaulted naves, it measures 40 u 15 m. The facing of the wall is in opus incertum. Bath quarters were also discovered downhill from this cistern with “crude mosaics and marble fragments”. While the opus incertum can be placed in the late 2nd century b.c., the bath quarters with the marble fragments should probably date to the Imperial period, perhaps the 2nd century a.d. Valenti 2003, #786–787

latium: tusculum

627

Tusculum L359 – Villa Torlonia Numerous and confusing references to the discovery of ancient remains and artifacts in Frascati can be traced through the centuries for the area where Villa Torlonia stands. Valenti’s research concludes that the Roman villa was oriented on the same axis as Villa Torlonia and that it extended for ca. 240 m on the side looking northwest. There were two, or possibly three, different terraces. On the main esplanade was the residential part and probably also a garden. Data for a chronology of the complex are scant: a reticulate wall employing large cubilia dates to ca. the mid1st century b.c., whereas for the reticulate walls using peperino, Valenti suggests an Imperial date, since peperino is not used in this area before that period. It seems that in the 16th century statues coming from this site were sold in Rome; it is also reported that abundant marble fragments of various kinds were discovered, but all this information cannot be checked. Traditionally, the property has been attributed to Licinius Lucullus because, in the 17th century, Kircher wrote of the discovery of an inscription with his name; this, however, is controversial (see Valenti 2003: 271–272 for a discussion). Because of this, later scholars, such as Grossi Gondi in 1908, thought that Lucullus had one immense property spanning from the “Torrione di Micara” (Valenti 2003, #160) to the remains in Luogo Nuovo (ibid., #546–552) to Villa Torlonia. According to Coarelli (1981: 119), the villa under modern Frascati (Valenti 2003, #437–487; see L115) also belonged to Lucullus’ property. This situation makes it very difcult to understand to which ruins in particular scholars are referring when they mention “Lucullus’ villa”. Coarelli 1981; Valenti 2003, #525–535

Figure L360. Vacone, Sassogrosso (after Stermini 2004).

628 catalogue: latium

latium: vacone

629

VACONE

L360 – Sassogrosso This villa was located in the Ager Foronovanus. It is also commonly known as “Horace villa”. During restoration works in the 1980s, the torcular vinarium and the canalization bringing the must to a cryptoportico [A], where the rest of the working process took place, were excavated. A second vaulted cryptoportico [B] in opus incertum, provided with windows, had on top a corridor with a mosaic made in pink marble from Cottanello. A second wall in opus polygonale was recorded; it was preserved for more than 10 m and was the retaining wall of the basis villae. Muzzioli 1980; Sternini 2004; poster from the exhibit “Sabina” at the DAI-Rome, Fall 2000

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catalogue: latium

Figure L361. Veio, Villa Campetti (after De Franceschini 2005).

latium: veio

631

VEIO (Veii)

L361 – Villa Campetti The villa was built between the 2nd and the 1st centuries b.c. on the hill next to the Archaic temple of Apollo in Veii (temple of Portonaccio). The hillside was terraced with a wall in opus quadratum, and on the upper terrace the villa was built with structures in opus quadratum and opus incertum. To this rst phase one can attribute an atrium [A] and oors in opus signinum with marble tesserae, plus an underground cistern with walls in opus incertum that originally had ve naves. In the early 1st century b.c., the villa was enlarged (structures in opus reticulatum) with the addition of a large peristyle [B] surrounded by rooms (on which no information is available) and a nymphaeum [C] with a series of niches, where traces of oor mosaic, painted plaster, and a marble socle remain. Next to the nymphaeum a second free standing cistern was also built in opus reticulatum. In the late 1st or early 2nd century a.d., a bath quarter was added in the northeast corner, built in opus latericium but adapting pre-existing reticulate structures. The presence on the upper terrace of a long vat built in opus caementicium and faced with cocciopesto with moldings has been tentatively related to production acitivities (calcatorium?). Also, two smaller vats to the southeast of the second phase baths have been related to utilitarian use because of their cocciopesto lining; they have steps leading into them at one corner, and it is not clear to which phase they belong. De Franceschini reports that the villa was used down to the 4th century a.d. and that traces of later settlements date to the 5th and 6th centuries, but individual nds, including coins, brick stamps, painted terracottas, etc., are not discussed since they have not been published yet. A stula was found next to the nymphaeum, recording the Imperial concession to drawn water given by Antoninus Pius to the municipium of Veii. De Franceschini 2005, #2

Figure L362. Velletri, S. Cesareo (after Vighi 1941b).

632 catalogue: latium

latium: velletri

633

VELLETRI (Velitrae)

L362 – S. Cesareo The villa was built on two terraces on the hill of S. Cesareo, 3 km southeast of Velletri. It had a Republican phase and a clear Hadrianic phase. It was excavated in 1937–38 by Vighi and, by local and antiquarian tradition, was attributed to the Octavii, Augustus’ family. The main part of the villa was on the upper terrace and measured ca. 100 u 29 m. In the substructures of this terrace was a three-nave cistern. A large garden occupied most of the lower terrace [A]. A portico looked onto the garden. On the east side of this terrace were the bath quarters [B]; on the west, an exedra with a fountain [C]. The building technique used for the structures is opus mixtum, dated to the 2nd century a.d., but in various spots earlier walls were identied, dating the rst phase of the villa to the early 1st century b.c. In the area of the impluvium a mosaic oor also dates to the 1st century b.c. Brick stamps indicate that in the 2nd century two building phases occurred, one between 123 and 130 a.d., the other between 135 and 150 a.d. Vighi 1941b

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catalogue: latium

VESCOVIO (Forum Novum)

L363 – Vescovio Geophysical survey carried out by the British School at Rome located, just outside the ancient town, a large suburban villa. (See also under Cottanello for information on nds in the town and its ager.) The villa was partly excavated starting in 1998. Two trenches were opened, the rst one in the large T-shaped atrium and surrounding rooms, including also a section of the cryptoportico parallel to the main south wall (in opus quasi-reticulatum). A monumental staircase was found, the corners of which were in opus vittatum mixtum, a technique uncommon in this area before Hadrian. Next to the staircase a owerpot was found, presumably in situ. To the west of the staircase remains of a terracotta-lined rectangular basin, maybe a fountain, were discovered. It was fed by a lead waterpipe. To the south of the main wall were found thousands of loose tesserae, which presumably were never used. The cryptoportico, which was partly lled with rubble and refuse (50s–60s a.d.), may have led to the staircase and from there into the atrium with impluvium. Most of the structures of the villa seem to date to the 1st century a.d., but no denite traces of walls or oors have been found in any of the structures. The presence in one room of opus spicatum and of a drain only 0.25 m below the surface was puzzling because it was set in the foundation level. 3rd century a.d. pottery from the drain seems to indicate that this was part of a small farm built within the foundations of the villa after the abandonment of the Neronian building. Several rooms around the atrium revealed massive leveling dumps. Attention in the northern trench was focused on the northern part of the eastern bath suite, the central courtyard, and the northern courtyard. Most of the exposed area of the bath suite comprised only foundations as in Zone 1, though one room contained a long thin feature with an opus signinum oor and a vat, which produced pottery and lamps of the mid-1st century a.d. A broad channel-like feature ran around the interior of the courtyard. Vases, of the type used in shponds especially for murenae, were built into the sides of the channel. In the area of the northern courtyard, a structure lled with levels of collapse with thick spreads of roong tile and stone was found. Although, as elsewhere in the villa, the structure rested within, and partly over, the foundations of the monumental period, the later structure seems to have been inhabited and to have collapsed naturally after abandonment. Large dolia smashed in situ in and around the building suggest that it was primarily agricultural. Coins from in and around the structure include issues of Severina, wife of Aurelian (270–275 a.d.), an early issue of Diocletian (284–305 a.d.), and numerous, much worn 4th century coins. Pottery suggests occupation well into the 5th century. It seems that the villa, probably laid out in the Neronian period, was never completed. This would explain the lack of any contemporary oors or nished wall surfaces, and the virtual absence of rubble of any kind,

latium: vescovio

635

except over the northern courtyard. Some activity, however, occurred in the south area with construction of the staircase in the Hadrianic period or later and of the agricultural building near the atrium. Possibly, the south wall was a terracing wall, intended to create a platform. The shpond in front of the north courtyard was used until the mid-3rd century. www.arch-ant.bham.ac.uk/bufau/research/forum_novum/eldwork_1998. htm, consulted on 02/2004

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Map 17. Via Cassia (A. Marzano).

latium: via cassia

637

VIA CASSIA The following entries regard sites located along the Via Cassia between mile XVII and mile XXIV, as described in Fontana 1989.

Via Cassia L364 – Campana Besides surface nds, such as pottery fragments, related to a villa, the Soprintendenza recovered, in 1956, a funerary inscription of Domitius Apollonius. Fontana 1989, #3

Via Cassia L365 – Casale Sili A rich villa, Imperial property, was discovered in 1874 at Casale Sili along the Cassia. At that time elegant mosaics, a stula with the stamp P. Septimi Getae (CIL, XI.3816), and rooms in opus reticulatum and latericium were recovered. Field survey carried out in the area by the Gruppo Archeologico Romano recovered pottery fragments, bricks and tiles, and marble architectonic pieces. The chronological span of the material found goes from 50 b.c. to 300 a.d. Armellini 1875; Becatti 1970; Fontana 1989, #1

Via Cassia L366 – Costa del Follettino In 1928, Stefani observed structures in tufa, no longer visible. Modern survey recovered pottery, tiles, and marble, but the material is undatable. Stefani 1928; Fontana 1989, #2

Via Cassia L367 – Monte Lupoli #20 In the area pottery fragments, tiles, mosaic elements, and painted plaster were recovered along with architectural pieces in gray tufa, travertine, and marble. The materials are dated between 50 b.c. and 300 a.d. Stanco 1982; Fontana 1989, #20

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Via Cassia L368 – Monte Lupoli #31 Among the nds in this area are pottery, tiles, mosaic fragments, and a cippus in Luni marble with the inscription Iul Ful, a boundary stone for the limitatio of private property. The materials date from 50 b.c. to 300 a.d. Fontana 1989, #31

Via Cassia L369 – Osteria dell’Ellera In 1982, the Soprintendenza per l’Etruria Meridionale excavated the area. Pottery fragments, tiles, marble elements, and mosaic pieces were recovered along with structural remains. The nds have a chronological span from 50 b.c. to 300 a.d. Ward-Perkins 1968; Fontana 1989, #5

latium: via cassia

639

Via Cassia L370 – Ponte S. Silvestro In the area there are two cisterns and structures in opus reticulatum. The surface nds include pottery, tiles, and mosaic tesserae. The objects found date from 50 b.c. to 500 a.d. Ward-Perkins 1968; Fontana 1989, #4

Via Cassia L371 – Via Cassia, km 27 Of this villa only pottery, tiles, tufa blocks, and the remains of bath quarters were detected. The chronological span of the material found goes from 50 b.c. to 300 a.d. Stanco 1982; Fontana 1989, #19

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Figure L372. Via Gabina Site 10 (after Painter 1980).

latium: via gabina

641

VIA GABINA The following two sites are located along the Via Gabina, and are sometimes also referred to as villas in “Tor Bella Monaca” or “Tor Angela”.

Via Gabina L372 – Site 10 This villa was a farmhouse during the late Republic. During the Empire it appears to have been a fairly rich villa, according to the material recovered during excavation. In late antiquity, possibly in the early 4th century, a rectangular structure, 120 m long, was built on the site. At least part of the structure can be identied as a storage room for grain, built in opus vittatum dated to the late 3rd–early 4th century a.d. It had a tiled courtyard with a central building, maybe a hay barn. Along the outside of the building’s perimetral walls many burials have been recovered (35), dated to the 6th century a.d. Painter 1980; Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003

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Figure L373. Via Gabina, Site 11 (after Painter 1980).

latium: via gabina – via palombarese

643

Via Gabina L373 – Site 11: villa with small hortus In its earlier phase (ca. 250 b.c.), the settlement was a simple farm structure. It was later reshaped and expanded into a U-shaped complex (phase 1B) with central courtyard. Working quarters were placed in the arms of the U, and the residential part was at the base of the U. Small rooms were added along the west ank of the villa shortly after (Phase 1C). The terminus ante quem for Phase 1C is the end of the 3rd century b.c. The residential section has traces of First Pompeian Style wall decoration, indication of a certain degree of luxury. Major rebuilding of the structure occurred in Imperial times, in three different phases: 1. The U plan was converted in the early Imperial age into a domus with standard atrium [A]. 2. Between the late 1st/early 2nd century a bath suite was added in the southwest section; in the hortus a large pool [B] was added. 3. Adaptation of the northeast part of the villa to industrial use: the rooms of this quarter were equipped with facilities for olive oil production [C] (reticulate faced masonry). There may also have been wine production in an area to the south. The excavators tentatively date this phase immediately after the previous one. The very few 3rd century pottery fragments recovered suggest that the villa was abandoned around the rst half of the century. The excavator detected traces of later occupation by squatters. Painter 1980; Oliver-Smith and Widrig 1981; on land use see Littlewood in MacDougall 1988 VIA PALOMBARESE (Ager Ficulensis) (See Map 14, p. 464)

L374 – Via Marco Simone The villa, in part excavated in 1992, was badly damaged by agricultural work. Walls in opus quadratum indicate a construction in the 2nd century b.c. This nucleus consisted of some rooms with cocciopesto oors decorated with limestone tesserae. In the early Imperial period the villa was enlarged, and a mausoleum and a free standing cistern were built in reticulate technique. A third phase occurred in the 2nd century a.d., when the bath quarters were added and the cistern was re-done using opus mixtum and opus latericium (brick stamps of Hadrian were recovered). Also belonging to this phase is a group of rooms with simple oors of beaten earth, indicating a utilitarian use for these spaces. A cryptoportico connected the bath quarters and the original nucleus located on different levels. To the north of the cryptoportico was a courtyard paved with tufa and basalt and provided with a well. In the late 2nd/3rd century a.d., new polychrome mosaic oors were laid in the baths. Coin nds indicate a use of the structure down to the 5th century a.d. De Franceschini 2005, #100

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catalogue: latium

Map 18. Viterbo (A. Marzano).

latium: viterbo

645

VITERBO In the area around Viterbo, both members of the Roman elite and families of Etruscan origins had villas. From Cicero we learn that in the territory of Axia (Castel d’Asso) the Tarquinian Fulcinii and Caesennii had fundi, as did his rival senator C. Fidiculanius Falcula. For the Imperial age, we have some names of owners listed in the inscription CIL, XI.2006, about the construction of an aqueduct for the villa Calvisiana owned by Mummius Niger Valerius Vegetus. The names of the owners of the fundi crossed by the aqueduct are given, among which is the rich senator P. Tullius Varro.

Viterbo L375 – Asinello (See Chapter 4, Figure 12 for the plan) Located 500 m west of the ancient Via Cassia (mile L) on a low hill at the meeting point of the Fosso dell’Olmo and the Fosso delle Farine, a building with octagonal plan was excavated. According to the opus reticulatum building technique, it dates to the mid-1st century b.c. The complex was an oil factory, very likely part of a villa. A 2.05 m wide doorway allowed carts to access the interior and to unload their cargo. The space was divided into ve rectangular rooms arranged in a cross and into four triangular and four polygonal rooms. One of the polygonal rooms was the cella olearia equipped with large dolia. Before the construction of this building, the tufaceous hill was planted with vineyards, since a grid of trenches was detected below the foundations of the structure. The trenches are comparable with those identied in the area of Musarna (8 km from the site, between Viterbo and Tuscania). It seems likely, therefore, that there was a change in the type of cultivation with the prevalence of olive trees. However, Brun recently suggested that the complex was producing wine and not oil. The complex must have been a strong landmark, located exactly midway between Chiusi and Rome. Material nds show two phases, a 1st century b.c.–1st century a.d. phase (black glaze fragments, sigillata, thin wall ware, two Julio-Claudian coins) and a 3rd–4th century one (African red slip, lamps, coins of Probus and Constantine). Some fragments of volcanic mill-stones were also recovered. The site is about 500 m from the remains of the Roman bridge of San Nicolao on the Fosso dell’Olmo, which was restored in medieval times. Barbieri 1995; Broise and Jolivet 1995; Brun 2004

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catalogue: latium

Viterbo L376 — Bagnaccio The remains are located to the north of Viterbo at the intersection of the modern road Cassia 2 and the road towards Marta. A bath complex, already discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, was excavated by the Soprintendenza per l’Etruria Meridionale in 1978. The complex is considered to have been part of a rich villa. The excavated rooms consist of two large rooms with walls in opus reticulatum and latericium with polychrome mosaic oors and three smaller rooms. Only one of these three rooms, measuring (1.34 u 0.75 m), was completely excavated. It had a monochrome yellow mosaic for paving. Of the two larger rooms, one (4.15 u 3.20) was a caldarium (suspensurae and tegulae mammatae were recovered) with a masonry bench along one side. The other room, the extent of which is not determinable due to damage to the structures as a result of modern building activity, was probably the frigidarium. The complex received some additions and changes in a later phase(s). Besides the mosaics, traces of marble crustae show the elegance of the complex. The polychrome mosaics have been dated to the early 2nd century ( frigidarium) and to the late 2nd century (caldarium). The area is known even today for its sulphureous hot springs, around which the Roman remains are located. Barbieri 1991

Viterbo L377 – Faggianello In 1825, stone elements of a torcular and lava mill-stones were found in this area. Later, after some excavation, a terracing wall in opus quadratum, a room, part of a bath suite, and a cistern were uncovered. Barbieri 1999

Viterbo L378 – Ficoncella This villa’s ruins were described by Semeria. Nowadays, only brick fragments are visible on the ground. Barbieri 1999

Viterbo L379 – Fonti This site is not far from the L382 – Panatta villa. In 1901, on the top of a hill, walls in opus incertum and a probable caldarium were discovered. In the same area, in 1970, the Soprintendenza retrieved objects from a late Republican tomb, part of a small necropolis. Barbieri 1999

latium: viterbo

647

Viterbo L380 – La Mattonara The ancient remains discovered consist of a long wall in opus quadratum, many over-red pottery fragments, indicating a kiln, and a columbarium. Barbieri 1999

Viterbo L381 – Paliano Remains of a Roman villa are visible at Casale Paliano to the west of the Cassia. Note the place-name Paliano indicating a Roman praedium. Barbieri 1999

Viterbo L382 – Panatta In 1719, two mosaic oors belonging to a villa were discovered. They are known only from the illustrations in the book by F. Bussi, Veterum Etruscorum Monumenta in Viterbiensi territorio reperta, 1738. Their iconography can be ascribed to mosaics dated to the end of the 1st–2nd century a.d. A paved road connected the villa to the Cassia, but the road probably continued towards Tobia, also serving the villa L379 – Fonti. Barbieri 1999

Viterbo L383 – Strada del Diavolo A paved road is still visible for a couple of hundred meters going up the hill. About 100 m to the north of the modern Strada del Diavolo, eld survey led to the identication of a villa. Terracotta fragments are spread over an area of 1000 m²; some fresco and marble fragments were also recovered. A semi-underground structure in opus caementicium is visible. Some sigillata fragments date the complex to the early Empire. Barbieri 1999

Viterbo L384 – Tobia The villa was partially excavated (only part of the bath suite) by the local Soprintendenza. No datable pottery was recovered with the exception of fragments of an African patera (Hayes 67), datable to the 4th century. Traces of frescoes and mosaics with black and white tesserae were recovered. Oral tradition tells of the recovery in the area of mosaics, lead pipes, and fragments of marble statues. The main part of the villa must have been on the hillside, where eld survey recovered pottery sherds (among them African sigillata D, showing a frequentation down to the late Empire). Some paving stones around the area should indicate that the fundus was connected by a secondary road to the Cassia. Barbieri 1999

Map 19. Villa sites in Tuscany (A. Marzano).

TUSCANY

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catalogue: tuscany

Figure T1. Ansedonia, Le Colonne (after Dyson 2002).

tuscany: ansedonia – le colonne

651

ANSEDONIA (Cosa) (See Map 20, p. 686)

T1 – Le Colonne The villa known as Le Colonne is not far from the site T4 – Settefinestre and consisted of three articial terraces; the retaining wall of the lower terrace, as in the case of Settenestre and the other nearby T2 – Villa della Provinca (SIC ! ), featured a series of small circular towers, decorative in purpose. It was built in the late 2nd century b.c. The site was partially investigated in the mid-1970s. Modern agricultural activity had in many cases destroyed all standing remains and damaged ancient deposits. The residential part of the villa was on the uppermost terrace; the northeast face of this platform was fronted by a buttressed, vaulted passage divided by cross walls into separate chambers. On the northwest side of the terrace was a hippodrome-shaped garden [A], visible in aerial photographs; to the north of it was probably a colonnade, as indicated by one surviving, standing column. Excavations revealed a pool and surrounding peristyle [B] with brick-made columns. The pool, featuring hydraulic mortar and lead pipes, was added in a subsequent phase; originally, the area was an open courtyard paved with diamondshaped tiles. In a later phase, four rubble walls with the interior packed with compact terra rossa soil were inserted in the middle of the pool, thus creating an “island”, and the colonnade was destroyed; the east side of the ambulatory was also divided into smaller spaces by the construction of walls made with tile and rubble. Deposits of material nds date this conversion of space to the late 1st/mid-2nd century a.d. Perhaps this was caused by the earthquacke of 51 a.d., which had devastated Cosa. On the south side of the peristyle, traces of a collapsed upper story were recovered, consisting of fragments of opus signinum ooring decorated with pebbles. In the later phases of occupation, the area around the peristyle had a more utilitarian function; one of the rooms on the south side of the pool corridor had a crude oor with a drain and remains of collapsed mud-brick walls. Northeast of the peristyle eight rooms were identied with mosaic or scutulatum oors. In one of them, many fragments of multicolored oor mosaic were found along with two small, rectangular features that may have been settings for a press; another room had a hypocaust oor. In this area traces of an earlier structure were also detected. Most of the nds recovered in the excavations came from “dumps” in basement rooms. The lowest deposit was made of debris dumped there when the surrounding rooms were still in general use; there was a high concentration of stamped Italian sigillata ( Julio-Claudian). Coin and pottery nds suggest that the villas was occupied at least until the end of the 4th century; however, some gaps in occupation were detected: little evidence was recovered for material dated to the end of Republic, and this may be connected with the sack of Cosa by pirates in the 70s b.c.; no Flavian coins were found, and this also seems to suggest a break in occupation after the earthquake of 51 a.d. Coin nds, sigillata, and other pottery resume in abundance in the 2nd century; another break in occupation may have occurred in the

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catalogue: tuscany

Figure T2. Ansedonia, La Provinca (after Carandini and Cambi 2002).

tuscany: ansedonia – la provinca

653

mid-3rd century (cf. parallel situation of Cosa), but the villa underwent a clear revival in the Costantinian period. Other nds include numerous black glaze fragments, Graeco-Italic, Dressel 1, and Dressel 2/4 amphorae, two of which were stamped with the name Sestius, glass, lamps, and glaze ceramic for the later phases of occupation, which indicate the persistence of household rituals such as formal dining. Quilici and Quilici Gigli 1978; Dyson 2002

Ansedonia T2 – La Provinca (SIC!) Located near T4 – Settefinestre and T1 – Le Colonne, the villa complex is clearly visible in aerial photographs. The villa was not excavated, but on the surface is visible the retaining wall, probably of the garden, featuring small turrets, as in the case of Le Colonne and Settenestre. Possibly, the same architect built the three villas; on the basis of the wall with turrets, the construction of the villa is dated to the late 2nd century b.c. Quilici and Quilici Gigli 1978; Carandini and Cambi 2002

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Figure T3. Ansedonia, Settenestre (after Carandini 1985a).

tuscany: ansedonia – settefinestre

655

Ansedonia T3 – Settefinestre On the northern part of the hill of Settenestre, located only 3.5 km from Cosa, a large villa was completely excavated. The area of the villa, including the gardens, unfolded along the west side of the hill. The hill overlooks the valley where the ancient road leading from Cosa to Saturnia ran; a diverticulum departing from this main road led up to the villa. Another road on the opposite side of the hill reached an eastern valley and the road that led from the Aurelia to Monte Alzato. Different chronological phases have been identied. The construction of the villa is dated to the late 1st century b.c. During the Julio-Claudian and Flavian periods, building phases were minimal and did not substantially changed the layout of the villa. In the rst phase, the villa had a square-shaped main body with sides measuring 44.35 m (= 150 Roman feet). This body was divided into pars urbana [B] and pars rustica [C], provided with oil and wine presses; three corridors connected the two parts. The two sectors had separate accesses on the east side of the complex. The entrance to the residential part opened into the Tuscan type atrium, whereas that to the pars rustica opened into the cavedium. Next to this door were two masonry benches. The residential part consisted of a peristyle in axis with the atrium, a Corinthian oecus with exedra, and on the south and east sides, colonnaded garden-terraces. The exedra of the peristyle opened onto a garden [A] enclosed by perimetral walls with decorative turrets. The pars rustica featured service rooms, like the kitchen, next to it small balnea, a small room with a well, a stable, probably for donkeys, and the rooms for the torcular vinarium and torcular olearium. From this sector of the complex there was also access to the cryptoportico. The large substructures of the villa were in part used for utilitarian purposes: the lacus vinarium was located here. The rest of the substructures seem to have been used as a covered gestatio. The service courtyard [D] had only one access and was surrounded by various buildings. Here excavators identied a kitchen, on the basis of masonry counters and a vat, maybe intended for the servants. The side of the courtyard opposite the kitchen presented two rows of six cellae (3 u 3 m), thought to have housed about 45 slaves. For the water supply of the villa, two rectangular cisterns were placed under the atrium, fed not only by the impluvium but also by drains coming from different parts of the villa.

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catalogue: tuscany The second major phase occurred between the time of Trajan and the Antonine dynasty. Changes took place both in the residential part and in the production and service area. In the residential part the décor of the rooms was updated from Second Style wall paintings to Fourth Style. Space distribution was also slightly altered; for instance, the door between the triclinium and the atrium was walled up. Large bath quarters [G] were built between the hortus and the garden with turrets, while the old balnea were also restored and used. In the pars rustica the two presses were disassembled and removed. The walls of the wine-press room were plastered and possibly transformed into storerooms for grain. The room that in the rst phase was the probable stable for donkeys was transformed into a latrina with twenty seats, in communication with the residential part only. A second large courtyard [E] was added next to the previous service courtyard. Labeled as “the new slave quarters”, this courtyard featured on three sides a series of twenty-three cellae (3 u 3 m). The northeast side of the courtyard had larger rooms, one of which might have been a kitchen based on the presence of masonry counters. A piggery [F] was also added in this period. In the late 2nd century, signs of decay started to appear. The repairs were crude and poorly done. The only access to the “new slave quarters” was walled up for no apparent reason; maybe an epidemic occurred. In the Severan age, the villa was systematically deprived of precious building materials. In one room, various building materials were piled up: mosaic tesserae, marble pieces, plaster, and oor fragments. The people intent on this operation seem to have lived for some time at the site in precarious living conditions. Hearth-spots were located. In the kitchen, many animal bones and African kitchen-ware were recovered, overlying a layer of dark soil (a fact that should indicate a period of abandonment). The pottery gives a terminus post quem of the 2nd century.

tuscany: ansedonia – settefinestre

657

Material culture recovered consists of various kinds of objects from glass fragments to metal utensils, sh hooks, loom weights (a total of seven; of these, four come from the phase of decay of the villa), decorative elements of furniture in bone, and abundant pottery. Amphora types include Italic production (such as Dressel 1, Dressel 6A, Dressel 21/21), Spanish (Dressel 2/4, Dressel 7/11), Gallic, and African (Tripolitana I, Africana I and II, etc.). The highest concentration of pottery nds appears for the Antonine age and later for the second half of the 3rd century (data after the chart in Carandini 1985a vol. 3: 89). Carandini 1980; 1985a; 1989b

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Figure T4a. Ansedonia, Torre Tagliata: overview with location of ancient remains (after Ciampoltrini and Rendini 1990).

Figure T4b. Ansedonia, Torre Tagliata: area B (after Ciampoltrini and Rendini 1990).

tuscany: ansedonia – la tagliata or torre tagliata

659

Ansedonia T4 – La Tagliata or Torre Tagliata (also known as Torre S. Biagio) Near the ancient harbor of the colony of Cosa, along the beach, there are the remains, scarcely preserved, of a large villa maritima. Part of the structure is enclosed in the tower Della Tagliata or Puccini. It was partially excavated and described in the 19th century. In 1923, some structures were accidentally uncovered (no longer existing): rooms pertaining to the residential part with mosaic oors and frescoes, the bath complex, and the drainage and hydraulic system. The entire complex of the villa is a rectangular shape, measuring ca. 120 u 90 m, with two smaller blocks [B; D] on the east and west side of the main complex. The baths [B] were next to the tower, peripheral, as usual, with respect to the main building. To the south, an ambulatio connected the residential part to the abovementioned smaller units, the production or harbor quarters. On the seaside a terrace on substructures [A] was a pier, dated to the 2nd century a.d. by brick stamps (CIL, XV.313: from the glinae Marcianae, naming C. Calpetanus Favor; CIL, XV.696–7: Trajanic in date, from an Imperial glina and naming T. Camidienus Atimetus; CIL, XI.929: naming Claudius Gobathus, a stamp attested also at T20 – Giglio and T19 – Giannutri; stamps on dolia of Trajan and Plotina). Probably, the villa became/was part of the Imperial property, since a funerary inscription mentioning an Augusti libertus procurator was found. Pottery nds date from the 1st century a.d. to the 5th century a.d. The villa seems to have been built when the harbor of Cosa was in decline. African ware and Hayes amphorae show that the villa still functioned as a maritime landing place in the 5th century. The same types of amphorae and pottery were recovered from the shipwrecks of Giglio Porto. Probably, the nearby lagoon was used as a shpond for shbreeding. Close by a necropolis with tombs alla cappuccina was discovered, and about 30 tombs were excavated. The buildings labeled as “grain storerooms” [C] are peripheral to the villa complex. Two archaeological campaigns explored these constructions, establishing that they were constructed in the middle of the 2nd century a.d. and had a long life up to a restructuring phase in the 5th century. In this phase, the oor level was raised using debris, and a large vat faced in opus signinum was added. The destination of this complex is not completely clear. Possibly, the area was used for industrial activities, like sh processing. Tuna was

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catalogue: tuscany abundantly shed in the area, as mentioned by Strabo, and in the area of Portus Cosanus, already in the late Republic, there were shponds for sh-breeding. It may also have been a structure for the storage of goods, either for the villa itself or to be shipped, considering that the villa harbor assumed some of the function of the Augustan harbor, located to the west of the villa and abandoned in the 2nd century.

La Romanizzazione 1985; Ciampoltrini and Rendini 1990; Ciampoltrini 1991

tuscany: asciano

661

ASCIANO (See Map 19, p. 648)

T5 – Asciano According to Ciampoltrini, the large room with mosaic oor that was found by chance at Asciano is part of a large villa. The site, in antiquity, was at the intersecting point of the agri of Clusium, Arretium, and Saena. Communication routes included the Hadrianic Cassia and its secondary routes and the roads along the Umbro River (Ombrone), connecting the Val di Chiana to the sea. Possibly, the Longobard curtis regia of Sexianum, attested for the beginning of the 8th century, was located in the structures of the villa. Ciampoltrini 1990

Figure T6. La Befa, Carcerelle (after Dobbins 1983).

662 catalogue: tuscany

tuscany: la befa – carcerelle

663

LA BEFA

T6 – Carcerelle La Befa is part of the Comune of Buonconvento in the province of Siena. The villa site is located at the meeting point of the Ombrone River and the Torrente di Crevoli. The villa was not completely excavated. Two areas of the complex were identied, labeled as Northern Sector and Southern Sector. The Northern Sector was, archaeologically, more complex, preserving several stratied deposits and presenting three architectural phases. It contained a bath suite, heated rooms, evidence of mosaic oors and walls revetted in colored marbles. Extant remains suggest a southwestern orientation for this residential wing. With a few exceptions, the building technique used is brick-faced opus caementicium. Seven rooms belonging to the rst phase were excavated, plus a courtyard with cement paving [E]. Five rooms [B–D; G; H] presented hypocaust systems. Room [F], the largest one, served as the furnace room for Rooms G and H. Excavators suggest that this room may have been the kitchen, but no evidence of this were recovered. The other heated rooms were heated by a furnace probably located in Room [A]. This rooms and the adjacent one have walls constructed of coursed eldstones and terracotta tiles, maybe sign of a different chronological phase. It is unlikely that all the heated rooms were part of a bath suite; Rooms G and H must have been just heated rooms of the residential quarters. The late 1st century a.d. has been proposed as the date for this rst phase, but secure dating evidence is completely lacking. In the second phase, an apsidal room [I] was added, built in courses of eldstones and roof tiles and paved with terracotta slabs. The ceiling was vaulted. The presence of a lead drain and of a masonry base (for a labrum) and the absence of a heating system indicates that this was the frigidarium. The walls presented different phases of decoration from painted plaster to marble revetment (cipollino and Carrara). No dating evidence was recovered for this room. In the third phase, the layout was completely rearranged, suggesting massive destruction at the end of the second phase, corroborated by debris levels found in most rooms. Numismatic evidence dates this destruction to the late 4th century. The rebuilding activities included the removal of the oors in Rooms G and H, the blocking of the opening between Room G and the furnace in F, and the lling of Room G with rubble consisting of oor and wall fragments, leveling it with boulders and laying a plaster oor at about the same elevation as the original oor. Room F ceased to be a furnace room and was divided into two rooms. Traces of red painted plaster were seen on the walls of the newly added room. The previous doorways in Room F were blocked, and debris ll created the bedding for a stone pavement. The quantity and variety of the nds in the debris level (amphorae, marble base and shaft, fragments of vaulting tubes, ue tiles, bone and ivory implements, mixed with patches of ash and mortar) indicate that the debris was dumped in the room during the clean-up of the villa after the destruction phase. Rooms A and B also presented the same type of stone pavement as Room F. Room I,

664

catalogue: tuscany lled with rubble as well, seems to have gone out of use. The courtyard produced the startling nd of twenty thousand individual mosaic tesserae plus a few chunks of mosaic. The tesserae must have come from the hypocaust rooms; the villa occupants took care to systematically separate the tesserae, thus showing the intention to re-use them in a new mosaic or to maybe sell them. From the Southern Sector come coins dated between 240 a.d. and 335 a.d. Excavators believe that this part underwent the same destruction as the Northern Sector and was not used during Phase Three. The terminus post quem for the third phase is the 4th century. It seems that the occupation during this phase was brief, since the mosaic tesserae, for whatever purpose they were saved and stored, were left unused and no trace of wear was seen on the oor of Room 4. Traces of some other structure were located about 126 m north of the Northern Sector, maybe part of the villa complex or of some other building. The stratigraphy of the Southern Sector was heavily disturbed by the construction of the modern railway. The difference in orientation and room size should indicate a different function (and maybe construction date) from the Northern Sector. The nding of amphorae and dolia fragments points to the utilitarian nature of this part of the villa. Other nds from the site include red slip cups, plates, pitchers, cooking ware, glass beakers, a pierced lead disk (maybe a loom-weight?). The abovementioned amphora fragments were Spanish, African, and Italic forms. Excavators propose to relate the massive destruction of the villa to the barbarian invasions culminating in the sack of Rome in 410 a.d.

Dobbins 1983 CAPRAIA ISLAND (Caprasia)

T7 – Capraia In 1983, investigations carried out by the Soprintendenza at Capraia Porto discovered structures ascribable to a maritime villa, called “Villa del Porto”, built in the 1st century a.d. and in use until the 5th century a.d. From a certain point on, the villa was used by a monastic community, as happened with other small islands of Tuscany. Part of the ancient structures is under the church of S. Maria Assunta. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, not far from the church, some statues and architectural pieces were found during agricultural works. These nds include an Augustan “bathing” Venus, a column base, a relief depicting a knight on a sea-horse, and a trapezophoros. The late Imperial building phases are the better preserved. Some sort of production area, consisting of a series of ponds in opus signinum, has been excavated. Maybe, it was used for sh processing. A spatheion, dated to the late 4th–5th century a.d., was used as a pipe to connect the ponds, thus offering a chronological

tuscany: castelnuovo berardenga – chianciano terme

665

term. On the west side of the church, other rooms where found, one of which has a mortar oor and a pond with a drain. This area was used as a cemetery from late antiquity down to modern times. Pottery datable to the rst phase of the villa includes Italic sigillata, with and without decorations, lamps “a volute”, and thin wall ware. To the early Imperial phase are also dated the numerous holes for plants – possibly a vineyard – identied during the excavation. This area was thus cultivated up to the 3rd–4th century, when it was partly substituted by arable land. Ducci 1991; Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996 CASTELNUOVO BERARDENGA

T8 – Fontealpino Traces of at least six different structures have been identied during eld survey. Probably, it was a villa complex with pars rustica and pars urbana, including a bath suite. Surface nds include bricks, tiles, marble, travertine slabs, mosaic tesserae (green serpentine marble, black and white), nails, and a small bronze base. Occupancy of the site goes from the 1st century b.c. to the 5th century a.d. Valenti 1995 CASTIGLIONCELLO

T9 – Castinglioncello Not far from Castiglioncello, on a hill overlooking the small bay of Portovecchio, in 1920, E. Galli noted the remains of a villa. The ruins consisted of walls and oors in opus sectile. In 1952, Lopes Pegna recorded remains of walls on the beach at the foot of this villa, either collapsed from the hill above or vestiges of piscinae for sh-breeding. Pottery and lamps, dated to the 1st century a.d., were found. Not far from this site, but inland, there is a Roman farm with glina. Lopes Pegna 1952; Torelli 1992 CHIANCIANO TERME (Ager Clusinus)

T10 – Le Camerelle On the top of a hill, the remains of a monumental cistern are visible (25 u 9.50 m). The cistern has three naves divided in the middle by a corridor and by four smaller compartments. The perimetral walls and the dividing ones are preserved, made in opus latericium covered by opus signinum. The vaults, built in opus caementicium, are preserved only in the central part. Above the existing part of the vaults are the remains of a oor in opus signinum and a wall in bricks. To the east there is another

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catalogue: tuscany oor in signinum decorated with pieces of sandstone. This complex was probably part of a villa located on the southwest side of the hill. In this spot in the last century, Maggi reported seeing column bases, capitals, opus spicatum oors, mosaic oors, and oors made with rhomboidal tiles. The scarce pottery nds seem to show a frequentation of the site starting in the 1st century b.c. The use of bricks in the realization of the cistern and the fact that in other areas of Chianciano we have enlargement and restoration works of pre-existing complexes under Trajan (numerous brick stamps of 114 a.d. were recovered), might indicate that this construction can also be ascribed to the same period.

Paolucci 1988

Chianciano Terme T11 – Mezzomiglio The remains uncovered in recent excavations may be part of a villa or a public bath complex (an identication with the fontes Clusini sung by Horace has been proposed). The structures uncovered consist of small balnea and a large pool paved with tiles resting on impermeable clay. The pool was fed by a natural spring, still running. Both the balnea and the pool (in this case at least the paving) are dated by the stamp found on some of the tiles: Vop et HastCos (Vopisco et Hasta consulibus, 114 a.d.). The pool was surrounded by porticoes on at least three sides (only half of the pool has been excavated). The columns were made of brick, but only a few bricks have been recovered. The columns rested on travertine, ashlar blocks. The walls of these corridors, built in opus incertum, show a previous phase (also, pottery dating to the second half of the 1st century. was recovered), and a later, poorly done, restoration in opus caementicium. The structure was in use until the 4th century a.d., not as a pool but as a fountain, as indicated by the large number of drinking vessels recovered. Noteworthy are some peculiarities in the building technique. For the pool, the natural impermeable property of the clay layer was exploited instead of being faced in opus signinum. In the balnea, the walls are built using local red sandstone, cut in the shape and size of bricks, to give the impression of opus latericium. If this was indeed a villa, it could be related to a tribunus militum of the 2nd century a.d., Laronianus. His incomplete name and part of his equestrian cursus honorum are attested by a fragmentary inscription on a marble base, found re-used in an old house near the site and now in the local museum. Soren et al. 1998; Soren 2006

tuscany: chianciano terme – cortona

667

Chianciano Terme T12 – Montauto Field survey identied a Roman villa or farmstead. The rst phase probably dates to the 1st century b.c. (recovery of black glaze pottery). A new building phase is attested under Trajan based on the recovery of a stamped tile with the names of the consuls of 114 a.d. Paolucci 1988

Chianciano Terme T13 – Palazzo Bandino Tiles bearing the stamp VopHastCos (Vopisco et Hasta consulibus, 114 a.d.) had been recovered in eld surveys, together with pottery fragments and pieces of opus signinum. This material seems to refer to a villa rustica. The nds date from the 1st century b.c. to the 2nd century a.d. Paolucci 1988 CORTONA (Cortona)

T14 – Ossaia This villa falls in the architectural category of “portico villa”, and it spread horizontally (200 m frontage) and vertically over at least two terraces in addition to a basis. Only part of the residential quarters was excavated. Based on its location near Cortona, it is likely that the villa was part of a suburban extension of the town. The excavators detected three phases of occupation. The excavated areas have a frontage of about 150 m. The structures belonging to Phase I (90 b.c.–ca. 80 a.d.) were built in opus quadratum. To this phase date a long enclosing wall, reception rooms with black and white tesserae mosaic oors, an ‘L’ shaped portico with a vista onto the Val di Chiana, and a small garden area in the centre of the portico. A hallway ran by two pools located to the east of the portico. The wall of one of the pools was painted and decorated with architectural mouldings to create the impression of pilasters. Area 1 was very likely a peristyle garden in Phase I; a small hand from a marble statue was recovered. In Phase II (100 a.d.–200 a.d.), Area 1 was converted into an industrial area for the production of roof tiles and semilateres. Brickwork constructions can be noted, including a tank. A considerable quantity of lead, in the form of objects and large chunks, was found in the northeast part of Area 1. In Phase III (230–550 a.d.), however, Area 1 regained some of its original magnicence and function as the ‘L’ shaped portico reverted to a garden with lavish opus sectile oors and polychrome mosaics laid over the pre-existing remains (two pools were lled up and covered with opus sectile). Aerial photographs, combined with archival evidence, indicate a large round structure with numerous lead pipes, probably a nymphaeum or a bath complex, some 75 m. to the south of Area 1.

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catalogue: tuscany In Phase I, Area 2 was composed of an atrium-peristyle complex with cubicula, a tablinum, and two larger rooms opening onto a small colonnaded garden with a stairway leading to the (unexcavated) terrace above. The rooms, where a quantity of hairpins, clips, and loom-weights was recovered, had black and white tesserae mosaics. In Phase II many changes occurred in the use of the space of the villa. Previously residential parts were changed into working spaces. The garden was closed up and lled in to serve as additional working space for the production of pottery and lamps. Many examples of over-red pottery were found in this area. Also, waste from metal working and lead pieces were recovered, together with fragments of a mill-stone. Rudimentary and crudely done drains cut the rooms. The same area in Phase III became a dump with the closed up stairway used as an amphora storage area; rooms were cut up and evidence of hearth areas, and possible burials, was recovered. Area 3 during Phase I contained a T-shaped oecus with two columns at the entrance, surrounded by various reception and amphora storage rooms to the north as well as a kitchen, portico, bath complex, and enclosed garden to the south. The enclosed garden with a fountain was accessible from the bath complex as well as from the portico. A second garden, as yet unexcavated, at the northern extremity of Area 3, is postulated on the basis of a small gate leading from a mosaic oor to a lower level. In Phase II, the enclosed garden with a fountain was divided into a working area, and a kiln was constructed in the garden, while the northern area of the site had fallen out of use by the beginning of the 2nd c. a.d. In Phase III, the bath complex was used as an apsidal reception hall with a gured polychrome mosaic and a monumental entrance created by partially lling in the original garden area, destroying the Phase II kiln, and building a large stairway. It seems that at least three changes in ownership can be identied on the basis of brick stamps. The rst possible owners of this villa were the Vibii Pansae, a family from Perugia. The stamp “Caesarum” found in the area of a possible portico connecting Area 2 to Area 3, with walls in opus reticulatum, should indicate ownership by Caius and Lucius Caesar. For Phase II, some brick stamps with the name of a freedman of Aulus Gellius were recovered. Whether these brick stamps indicate the villa owners or just the owner of the glinae where the bricks and tiles were produced remains an open question, but in this case Gualtieri tends to see an indication of villa ownership (Gualtieri 2000).

tuscany: cortona

669

The amount of pottery recovered for Phase 2 is greater than for the other phases (it includes Eastern sigillata B, African red slip, and large quantities of Middle Adriatic terra sigillata produced locally in the mid2nd and 3rd centuries, loosely imitating African red slip). The type of pottery nds for this period is similar to what was recovered in Chianciano Terme, T11 – Mezzomiglio, a site not far from Ossaia. Possibly, the changes that occurred during the later phases indicate an evolution of the villa into a vicus complex. The excavators detected evidence of squatter occupation after the 5th century. Fracchia and Gualtieri 1996; 2001

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ELBA ISLAND (Ilva)

T15 – Villa della Linguella The area where this villa was built was later occupied by the fortications realized by the Medici, thus the ancient stratigraphy has been highly disturbed. The Soprintendenza Archeologica della Toscana partially investigated the Roman structures along the rampart S. Francesco. The rise in sea level made impossible the investigation of the oldest strata, currently below sea level. The position occupied by the villa was panoramic, built on a narrow promontory, which has on one side the entrance to the gulf of Portoferraio, on the other a cove used as a harbor. Along the gulf of Portoferraio were the Roman harbor and a settlement. Unlike the villa delle Grotte, (T16) abandoned after the early 1st century phase, and the villa di Capo Castello (T17), also probably abandoned in the early Empire, the villa della Linguella had a long life. Material nds consisted of common ware dated from the 1st to the 5th centuries a.d. At least four different phases were identied on the basis of building techniques. The rst phase is dated to the late 1st century b.c. To this phase some residential rooms with opus sectile oor, marble slabs on the walls, and frescoed ceilings are ascribable, plus the bath quarters. The bath area included an ambulacrum and a round room with four apses, probably a laconicum. The technique used in this phase is opus quasireticulatum in local limestone. A second phase, dated in the rst half of the 1st century, presents walls built in opus reticulatum. Between the 2nd century a.d. and the beginning of the 3rd century, major restorations and changes occurred, distinguished in two phases. The third phase is dated to the rst half of the 2nd century. A small rectangular pond, revetted in marble and surrounded by a narrow channel, with molding decoration and lesenae was maybe a “water triclinium”, like the one described by Pliny (Ep. 5.6.36–37). The fourth one, the best documented, dates to the end of the 2nd-beginning of the 3rd century. The ambulacrum of Phase 1 received a new polychrome mosaic oor, while new spaces were added. A large hall with opus sectile, a second ambulacrum with polychrome mosaic, and another room with opus sectile (pink and gray marble creating a star pattern) were all added in this phase. The laconicum was still in use at this time, so the new rooms were probably in relation to an enlargement of the bath quarters. Maybe this restoration is to be related to the ownership by P. Acilius Attianus, praefectus praetorii under Hadrian. A stula with his name was found (CIL, XI.2607), and also a dedicatory inscription to Hercules on an ara found at Seccheto (CIL, XI.2.7248), indication that he had some properties and interests on the island. Sometime after Phase 4 and before the 5th century, since the pottery recovered does not date later than this, huts were built in the villa on a collapsed level of debris (in the debris, holes for wooden posts were found). Thus, the villa appears to have been in ruin in late antiquity. It was probably during this time that the precious building material, such as marble, was taken away from the villa. In Area 2 the removal of the collapsed ceiling (with

tuscany: elba island

671

painted plaster and stucco decoration) and roof (with pan tiles) showed oors stripped of their precious marbles, indication that the ceiling of the rooms was still intact while the rooms were stripped of the precious construction material. It has been suggested that the settlement at Portoferraio started in the late 1st century b.c. in relation to the establishment of this villa. A demographic increase in this settlement is possibly indicated by numerous nds dated to the 1st–2nd centuries and the creation of a necropolis with funerary inscriptions of slaves and freedmen. It is also possible that the granite quarries on the island were commercially exploited, since granite from Elba seems to be present in Rome (Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996: 20–23). Shipwrecks and other nds for Portoferraio indicate trade of goods, like wine, oil, and garum, down to the 3rd century. After this date, the nds are fewer, although the site is still used in the 4th–5th century. Noteworthy in the context of the port’s importance is also an inscription bearing the name of the classarius L. Valerius Maximus. Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996

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Figure T16. Elba, Villa delle Grotte (after Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996).

tuscany: elba island

673

Elba Island T16 – “Villa delle Grotte” This villa had an occupation going from the late 1st century b.c. to the 1st century a.d. Apparently, a small portion of the villa was later restored with re-used material and inhabited; this phase is dated by pottery to the 5th century. The villa is located on the promontory delineating the southeast end of the gulf of Portoferraio, where a Roman settlement was located around the port, 50 m above sea level, in a very panoramic position. The rst phase of the villa is dated to the time of Augustus. In this phase the villa complex presents a square plan, similar to the layout of the Villa Iovis in Capri or the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii. The residential quarters rested on a podium, in part articially built by means of substructures and terracing walls. The substructures housed a cistern, some service rooms, and two cryptoporticoes (along the south and west sides). Other rooms in the substructures were inaccessible, having only static purpose. The axis of the plan distribution is a long rectangular pool [A] (24 m), ending in a curvilinear exedra on one side. On the sea side (north) of the pool, and in line with it, there was a large room overlooking the sea. On each side of this pool-end, there were several rooms, symmetrically placed [B]. On the three remaining sides, the pool was surrounded by a garden, enclosed by a peristyle with brick columns plastered with stucco. From this portico also come small Corinthian capitals in white marble belonging to lesenae. The back walls of the portico were decorated with frescoes depicting a hortus conclusus, thus amplifying the extent of the real garden, an illusory device well attested in Pompeian houses. “Campana” plaques enriched the decoration of the peristyle, probably under Tiberius (see below; central gure of winged Psyche, anked by two gures playing musical instruments. The type of clay used appears similar to one of the bricks from the glinae urbanae, probable indication that the slabs were also produced near Rome). At one end of the rectangular garden and on an upper level was a cistern, which fed the pool. Possibly, the water fell into the pool creating an articial waterfall. A pipe running in the middle of the pool would bring the water to a nymphaeum on a lower terrace on the north side. The whole of this terrace was occupied by a garden [C]. Two types of ollae perforatae have been recovered, one with only a central hole at the bottom, the other presenting the central hole plus three more on the walls of the vase. After the rst phase, dated to the time of Augustus, a second phase is identiable in restoration works in the southwest corner of the villa at the level of the substructures. This phase, using opus reticulatum and also latericium, is dated to the late Augustan-Tiberian period. The bessales used have stamps of glinae near Rome. These works created bath quarters in the substructure rooms, connected to the upper level by a staircase.

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catalogue: tuscany The small cove formed by the promontory had a dock in granite, allowing access to the villa from the sea. The maritime façade of this villa was very spectacular for someone approaching by sea. The terracing wall on the sea side had a series of vaults on a vertical axis; a grand staircase in three ramps on the west side had scenographic and buttressing purposes. Furthermore, the terracing wall on the south side had polychrome effects, alternating stripes of cubilia in gray limestone and green stone with stripes of bright red tiles. Pottery nds include Arretine sigillata and thin wall ware; amphorae types include Dressel 2/4 (Italian wine) Dressel 2/4 Terraconensis and Haltern 70 (Spanish wine), Gauloise 3 (wine from Gallia Narbonensis), Camolodunum 184 (from the Aegean islands?), Dressel 7/11 ( garum from Spain), and Dressel 20 (oil from Spain). The abandonment of this villa (and possibly also of the villa T17 at Capo Castello) seems to be related to the cessation or reduction of mining activity. Strabo (5.2.6) wrote that vessels would arrive in Populonia carrying the mineral that could no longer be processed on the island, probably because of the lack of fuel.

Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996; Di Gennaro and Griesbach 2003

tuscany: elba island

675

Elba Island T17 – Villa di Capo Castello or del Cavo This villa was located on the northeast end of the island on a promontory south of Capo della Vita. It was not far from the iron mining area. The ruins were already known in the 18th century and were often described by travelers in the 19th century. Ruins were identied in three areas: on the promontory of Capo Castello, covering an area of 1 hectare, on Capo Mattea (but nothing is visible nowadays), located 150 m to the south, and on Colle del Lentisco (450 m to the west). The villa was organized on six different terraces, oriented east-west. Terraces 2 and 3 were probably occupied by gardens, whereas on terrace 4 were different structures of which seven rooms were explored. Three of these rooms had traces of mosaic oors, and another sign of a staircase. The no longer existing remains of Capo Mattea consisted of a central, rectangular room anked by two others. Staircases led to the beaches of Alga and Bolbaia. On Colle del Lentisco was a cistern, collecting water coming from the sources of Vignola and della Chiusa. The walls were built in opus reticulatum. Finds are scanty because of the destruction experienced by the site. Fragments of mosaic oors in white tesserae and of opus sectile (white marble and green cipollino) are known. These data give a date of the late 1st century a.d. A later phase is attested by some restorations in opus latericium. Very close to the villa, in a spot offering a landing point to boats, many kilns and scoria were found in association with 1st century b.c.–1st century a.d. pottery and amphorae, signs of the iron working process. Some scattered coin nds dated to the 2nd century indicate some kind of use of the area at that time, to be seen in relation with the opus latericium phase of the villa. Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996 GAIOLE IN CHIANTI

T18 – Pieve di S. Marcellino The probable site of a villa was identied in eld survey. Tiles, pottery fragments, different types of marble, and a small bronze discobolos were recovered. The pottery gives for the occupation a time span that goes from the 1st century b.c. to the 5th century a.d. After this time, probably, the structure was used as a cemetery for the church. Valenti 1995; Torelli 1992

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Figure T19. Giannutri, “Villa Domitia” (after Rosati 1992).

tuscany: giannutri island – giglio island

677

GIANNUTRI ISLAND (Dianium)

T19 – Giannutri The Roman villa commonly known as “villa Domitia” was built on different terraces in a very panoramic position and was partially excavated in the 1930s. The features clearly visible today belong to the pars urbana [D] and are the impluvium with six columns and the bath suite. There are remains of Third Style frescoes, marble revetment, and mosaics. The building technique of the walls is opus reticulatum and opus mixtum. A late Republican phase is attested by architectural terracottas (“Campana” plaques). During the 2nd century a.d., restorations and enlargements took place. Large cisterns and other structures are visible in the woods around the exposed structures. The villa had two harbors, one on each side of the island. From the harbor at Cala Maestra [A] where vestiges of sh salting vats have been found, two staircases led to a terrace with some rooms [B]. A path climbing up the hill led to the residential sectors [C; D], spread on different terraces. In the residential part the bath complex had opus sectile oors. Two black and white mosaics have gurative schemes: one depicts Ariadne and Theseus and the labyrinth of Knossos, and the other has a marine scene. Many brick stamps have been recovered, attesting three major building phases. The rst dates to the end of the 1st century a.d. (in this group the predominant stamp is Cn. Domit. Arignot.); the second group dates to the early 2nd century a.d., while the third dates to the reign of Hadrian. To the southeast of the baths and at a higher elevation is a courtyard with modular room [E], which has been interpreted as slave-quarter. Pellegrino 1900; Galli 1927; Vaccarino 1935; Bronson and Uggeri 1970; Rosati 1992; Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996; Rendini 2003 GIGLIO ISLAND (Igilium) (See Map 19, p. 648)

T20 – Giglio The villa, provided with a harbor, was located near the area of the modern harbor of Giglio Porto. The buildings belonging to the villa extended from Giglio Porto to the coast below “Castellare” and from Torre del Saraceno to “Le Scole”. Only the shpond is currently visible. Ancient remains, including mosaics, were located in modern constructions. The remains show mainly the use of opus reticulatum, but vittatum and latericium are also found. The bricks used for the opus latericium bear the following stamps: Cn. Domitius Arignotus (late 1st century a.d.); Cla(udi) Gob(athi), Trajanic in date; Q. Asini Marcelli, Hadrianic (ca. 123 a.d.). In the past, columns of gray granite, architectural elements, and crustae in different marbles have been recovered. The types of marble found include white Carraro marble, Egyptian gray and white, Numidian giallo antico, green and red porphyry. Mosaic oors in black and white tesserae date the construction of the villa to the second half of the 1st century b.c. Sometime between the end of the 1st century a.d. and the beginning of the 2nd century a.d., new oors in opus sectile covered the

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catalogue: tuscany Republican mosaic oors. The brick stamps and building technique indicate a time span for the villa from the late Republic to the 2nd century a.d. Shipwrecks discovered in the harbor carried artifacts dated to the late Empire (African red slip ware and African amphorae). In the small cove called “Bagno del Saraceno”, the remains of the shpond are visible. The piscina had a central, square pond measuring 15 u 15 m, partly dug in the rock bed and partly built in opus caementicium.

Torelli 1992; Bronson and Uggeri 1970; Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996 GORGONA ISLAND

T21 – Gorgona Gorgona, the smallest of the islands of the Tuscan archipelago, is still occupied exclusively by the state prison. Investigations led by the Soprintendenza della Toscana started in 1993 and unearthed part of the rooms of an ancient villa, built in the only small valley of the island, facing a cove used as a harbor. Some ancient structures right below modern sea level probably belonged to the docks of the villa. Of the excavated rooms, the larger one has a rectangular shape with walls built in opus mixtum and cocciopesto ooring. The ceiling was vaulted and built in opus caementicium. The shape of the room and the lack of openings on at least three sides led the excavators to the identication of the space as a horreum. Adjacent to the horreum is a corridor, an L-shaped cubiculum, and a small vestibule, all with black and white mosaic oors and monochrome frescoes. The cubiculum, with vaulted ceiling, had a more elaborate painted decoration, featuring delicate polychrome vegetal motifs against an ivory background. According to the style of the mosaics and frescoes, a late Republican or early Imperial date has been proposed. Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996

tuscany: guardistallo – livorno

679

GUARDISTALLO

T22 – Ricrio This villa located near Casalmarittimo is known only from surface nds dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries a.d. The location in antiquity was within the boundaries of the ager Volaterranus. Torelli 1992 LIVORNO

T23 – Rosignano Marittimo At Casa Nuova Conte Millo remains of a villa with opus spicatum oors were identied. Fragments of wall paintings are now in the Museo Civico of Rosignano. Near the villa site a kiln was also identied. De Agostino 1952; Monaco 1967

Figure T24. Livorno, S. Vincenzino (after Bejor 1985).

680 catalogue: tuscany

tuscany: livorno

681

Livorno T24 – S. Vincenzino (Cecina) This coastal villa is located on a low hill not far from the modern town of Cecina and the mouth of the River Cecina, which runs to the north of the complex. Next to the villa was also the coastal Via Aurelia. The archaeological complex was known already in the 18th century, and since then, it has been related to the gure of Albinus Caecina, member of the noble Caecina family from Volterra and praefectus Urbi in 415 a.d. Rutilius Namatianus in his poem mentions the hospitality he found in Albinus’ maritime villa. The geographic location of the site may correspond to Rutilius’ indications, but it is impossible to conrm with certainty ownership by Albinus. Regardless of the question of ownership, this was a large, elegant villa, which had different phases. The rst phase is dated to the 1st century b.c. The plan arranged the different rooms around gardens and colonnaded areas. Worthy of note is the hydraulic system consisting of a large underground cistern [A], perfectly preserved, and several tunnels with sophisticated devices to lter the water. In a second phase, sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century a.d., the bath quarters [B] were added to the complex. The baths, completely excavated, consisted of seven rooms. The largest rooms had polychrome mosaic oors with geometric patterns; the others presented oors in opus sectile. Abundant traces of architectural and sculptural decoration were found. To the east of the baths, a structure already excavated in past years was uncovered again in recent excavations. It features a series of ponds and channels and presents two phases with a transformation in its usage. The rst phase dates before the 2nd century a.d.; the date of the second phase is uncertain, but since part of the structures cover some of the residential rooms of the villa, a 3rd century date has been proposed. The recovery of a mola olearia and of part of a torcular indicates that it was a facility for the production of oil. Material nds in this area include fragments of black gaze pottery and mostly African sigillata A (3rd century) and D (4th–5th centuries), African cooking ware, elements of marble decoration, and two stamps of Italic sigillata (C. Nonius and Sex. M. F.). Iron slag was found in the destruction layer in association with late Imperial objects. Nonetheless, the hypothesis of metal working in loco was dropped after discovering an 18th century map indicating that a road connecting the “Magazzino del Ferracchio” with the “Ferriere” in Cecina ran through the area of the villa. From the baths comes a notable object: a ne alabaster statuette depicting Isis. Bejor 1984; Bejor 1985; Donati 1986–1987; 1989; 2001; archeo4.arch.unipi. it/riceci.html, consulted on 12/2003

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Manciano – Marsiliana (See Map 19, p. 648)

T25 – Banditella On the hill of the Banditella, in proximity of the famous Etruscan necropolis, considerable remains pertaining to a Roman villa were described by Minto. He reported the presence of rooms with reticulate walls, fragments of black and white tesserae mosaics, opus spicatum oors, travertine and bricks. Separate from this unit a bath complex was also identied on the basis of suspensurae, and a water conduit covered with large tiles. An ancient road was visible, leading from the villa towards the river Albegna. The Albegna valley survey identied part of the reticulate substructure of the villa, incorporated in modern farmhouse as a cellar; the substructures measured at least 63 u 37 m. The attested occupation recorded by the eld survey goes from 200 b.c. to 300 a.d. Minto 1921; Carandini and Cambi 2002, #Mar4

Manciano – Marsiliana T26 – Casale Vittorio Veneto The basis villae and cryptoportico are visible on the side of a hill, in part incorporated in a modern farm. The basis measures ca. 60 from north to south and has a frontal portico in opus incertum. A small portion of the façade of this portico presents an unusual building technique consisting in placing small limestone blocks in a herringbone pattern. In proximity (30 m to the east) of a wall possibly delimiting a garden area remains of opus spicatum were seen. The material collected in the Albegna Valley survey gives an occupation for the site from 200 b.c. to 200 a.d. Carandini and Cambi 2002, #Man10

tuscany: manciano – marsiliana

683

Manciano – Marsiliana T27 – Poggio del Ginestraio Minto reported the presence of considerable remains ascribable to a Roman villa on the hill Poggio del Ginestraio, located on the right bank of the River Albegna. He does not give a detail account of the nature of the remains, but mentions the presence of travertine columns belonging to the peristyle of the villa, which are shown in a photograph he published. The eld survey carried out in more recent years has recovered pottery indicating an occupation from 300 b.c. to 300 a.d. Minto 1921; Carandini and Cambi 2002, #Mar 40.1

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Figure T28. Massaciuccoli, Venulei Villa (after Ciampoltrini 1994).

tuscany: massaciuccoli

685

MASSACIUCCOLI

T28 – Venulei Villa This villa was probably built in the early 1st century a.d. From an 18th century painting we know that it had a oor in opus sectile similar to one from Tiberius’ villa in Capri. The villa must have been on at least two articial terraces that present the same building technique: courses of broken tiles alternating with sandstone. A semicircular element jutting out from the substructures of the lower terrace (possibly the garden in the rst phase), discovered in a probe trench in 1991, may have been a tower, thus indicating a villa type already known in the Ager Cosanus (see Settenestre and other nearby villas). In the Flavian era, the construction or the restoration of a bath complex [A] took place. The archaeological evidence is very fragmentary, so it is also possible that at this time the space was a summer triclinium-nymphaeum with thermae on the north side, later transformed into the frigidarium. However, the baths are built in opus latericium similar to that used in Pisae for the “thermae of Nero” and in buildings in Rome of Neronian and Flavian age. The baths in Pisae were very likely a gift of the Venulei family to the town, celebrating the careers of two members, Montanus and Apronianus. In the 18th century, a stula stamped Venuleius Apronianus (cos. 92) and Venuleius Montanus (who also owned glinae) was found. The stula is dated to 70 a.d. The second phase in the “thermae” of the villa may be ascribable to L. Venuleius Apronianus Octavius Priscus (cos. 123 a.d.), who restored the baths in Pisae. During this phase the substructure’s wall [B] was embellished by niches for statues. The Venuleius consul in 168 a.d. was patronus of Lucca (CIL, XI.1525). This family seems to be regarded as having its origin in Pisae by Papi (2000: 149), but Sangineto (in Lo Cascio and Storchi Marino 2001: 206) mentions the origin of the Venulei from the Brutian center of Copia (see CIL, X.103 on L. Venuleius Brocchus quattuorvir of Copia). The family would have reached senatorial status in the rst half of the 1st century b.c. Ciampoltrini 1994; Papi 2000

Map 20. Monte Argentario and Ansedonia (A. Marzano).

686 catalogue: tuscany

tuscany: monte argentario

687

MONTE ARGENTARIO (Argentarius)

Monte Argentario T29 – Grotte di Port’Ercole Only scanty remains of a villa are known in the area around the harbor of Porto Ercole. Bronson and Uggeri 1970

Monte Argentario T30 – Porto S. Stefano, Muracci The ruins of the villa are located in the east part of Porto S. Stefano. The main core of the complex was on a little hill; the rest was distributed on different terraces and elevations descending towards the sea. Unfortunately, no traces of these terraces are visible today but were recorded in 1700 and 1800 in literary descriptions and drawings. The large shponds, the harbor installations, and a bath complex seen in the late 19th century along the coast were probably part of this same villa. It is dated on the basis of building technique from the 1st century b.c. to the late 1st century a.d. Pasquinucci 1982; Romanizzazione 1985

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Figure T31. Monte Argentario, Porto S. Stefano: S. Liberata (after Pasquinucci 1982).

tuscany: monte argentario

689

Monte Argentario T31 – Porto S. Stefano, S. Liberata A Roman villa is located on the coast between the east promontory of Cala dei Due Pini and the promontory occupied by the Hotel Villa Domizia. The villa was never excavated. It extended inland up to about 45 m above sea level. At sea level, the remains of a big rectangular shpond [A], of the harbor (in opus caementicium), and of the cryptoportico [B] are visible. A large, panoramic terrace was located on the roof of the cryptoportico, as a mosaic oor seen in the past indicates. On an upper terrace above the panoramic terrace were the bath complex and a cistern [C]. The pars rustica of the villa was located most probably to the east of the Promontory of S. Liberata. Material nds from the villa structures date between the 1st century b.c. and the 1st century a.d.; nds from the stretch of sea in front of the villa date between the 2nd century b.c. and the 3rd a.d. Bronson and Uggeri 1970; Schmiedt 1972; Pasquinucci 1982; Romanizzazione 1985

Monte Argentario T32 – Tombolo della Giannella At km 6.6 of the road Delle Saline, going from the Argentario towards the mouth of the Albegna, there were surface traces of a Roman villa consisting of tiles, large bricks, black and white mosaic tesserae, amphorae, black glaze, Arretine pottery (in planta pedis, Sex. M. Cal.?), late sigillata, and Byzantine pottery. Bronson and Uggeri labeled another nearby site a “Roman villa”, but the nds seem to be poorer and with a narrower chronological span, so that the label “farm” seems preferable. Bronson and Uggeri 1970, #74–75

Monte Argentario T33 – Torre Calvello Roman structures were identied in the Hotel Filippo II. Bronson and Uggeri related them to a villa and noted the presence of many 1st century b.c. amphorae, with stamps D and DD, and black glaze pottery. The presence of amphorae of the 1st century a.d. was noted also on Poggio Calvello. Bronson and Uggeri 1970, #52

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Monte Argentario T34 – Torre delle Saline Roman ruins, probably pertaining to a villa, are located in the area between the mouth of the Albegna and Torre delle Saline. Surface nds recovered in this area include marble fragments, mosaic tesserae, bricks, tiles, Arretine and south-Gallic stamped pottery (in a rectangle: Xan(thi); in planta pedis: Sex.M Cal; L R IS), amphorae, and glass. Possibly, large salinae were attached to the villa, like the ones mentioned by Rutilius for Albinius’ villa at Vada Volterrana, but secure indication of salt production in the area dates to the medieval period, and continued until the beginning of the 16th century. A kiln for the production of Dressel 1 is reported near this site. Torre Saline had a small port, still in function in the late Imperial period, since from there comes a statue of the emperor Gallienus. Bronson and Uggeri 1970: #80; Ciampoltrini 1985; Hesnard et al. 1989; Carandini and Cambi 2002

tuscany: montelupo

691

MONTELUPO

T35 – Montelupo On the banks of the River Arno in the area of Montelupo, a villa was partially investigated. It featured a 52 m long portico, bath quarters, two kilns for the production of amphorae (wasters found) and common ware, and a production area for wine-making; traces of an upper story were also detected. All the objects recovered, including an incomplete inscription of a certain Pretextatus, are in Montelupo. Ciampoltrini 1990; www.archeogate.org/classica/article/431/1/, consulted on 5/2006

692

catalogue: tuscany

Figure T36. Pianosa (after Schmiedt 1972).

tuscany: pianosa island

693

PIANOSA ISLAND (Planasia)

T36 – Pianosa Northwest of the port of Teglia are the remains of a villa maritima, built just on the shore and provided with two shponds in the sea. The remains are commonly known as the “Bagni di Agrippa” and were excavated in 1874. It is believed that the villa housed Agrippa Postumus, who was exiled on the island in 7 a.d. The construction of the penal colony in 1955 and the action of the sea have seriously damaged the ancient remains. The known part of the villa, which must have been larger, includes a peristyle [A] with a large oecus on the north side and a bath suite on the south side. In the center of the peristyle was a pool, perhaps lled by sea water. A round hall with niches, paved in cocciopesto, and two ponds with small pillars, paved in opus spicatum, are part of the baths. To the west of the peristyle are a small theater [B] and an atrium. The theater had ve or six rows of seats, and the cavea had a diameter of 13 m. In the center of the cavea was a platform with an apse (5 u 2.50 m). The architectural decoration was rich, including white marble in the cavea and scaenae frons and polychrome marbles in the platform with an apse, which has been variously interpreted as pulvinar or sacellum. The villa stands about 3 m above the level of the shponds [C]. The shponds have a circular plan and lie side by side. They were cut into a rocky shelf, which protrudes into the sea. Walls and internal barriers are in opus caementicium. The larger pond measures 17 m in diameter, the smaller, ca. 10 m and is 1 m deep. Channels cut into the bedrock permitted the circulation of seawater. Fresh water was also conveyed into these shponds from a large cistern just to the west of the ponds. An exedra is aligned with the small pond, facing the sea. The remains of the villa have been dated to pre-Augustan times on the basis of Varro’s testimony. In Rust. 3.6.2, he mentions M. Pupius Piso who raised peacocks on this island. A major rebuilding phase occurred in the mid-1st century a.d., since the layout of the plan and architectural characteristics point to the Flavian age (Mielsch 1987). Late Antique pottery fragments and signs of re-use of some of the villa’s structures seem to indicate that, as for other islands in Tuscany, the villa was later used by a monastic community. Schmiedt 1972; Mielsch 1987; Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996; Higginbotham 1997; Tosi 2003

Map 21. Populonia area (A. Marzano).

694 catalogue: tuscany

tuscany: populonia

695

POPULONIA (Populonium)

Populonia T37 – Poggio Grattalocchio Remains of ancient structures are visible not far from the coastal villas T35 and T36, but inland, on the northwest side of the hill. According to Minto (1943: 339), it was a villa rustica. Minto 1943; Fedeli 1983, #73

Figure T38. Populonia, Poggio Molino (after Saladino 1984).

696 catalogue: tuscany

tuscany: populonia

697

Populonia T38 – Poggio Molino (not to be confused with T40 – Villa Le Logge) Also known as the “Villa del Barone”. This late Republican maritime villa was built on a plateau 20 m above sea level. To the north of the villa was the ancient mouth of an emissary of Lake Rimigliano. The rst archaeological campaign in 1984 uncovered at least four rooms of the pars urbana on the sea side of the plateau. Only one room was fully excavated; for the others, just the perimetral walls were excavated. Three rooms have been identied as a summer triclinium anked by two cubicula. In the triclinium several fragments of glass for windows were recovered. It has been thought that there was a window on the west side overlooking the sea. The area appeared to have been disturbed by clandestine excavations. A terracing wall with blind arches supported the structures of the villa. The walls are made in irregularly cut sandstone and brick fragments with mortar. Pottery datable between the late 1st century b.c. and the 1st century a.d. gives a chronological indication for the rst phase of the villa. One of the rooms anking the triclinium, possibly a cubiculum, measures 5.30 u 3.10 m; its north and west walls are by the steep hillside descending towards the sea. The room had a mosaic oor with geometric pattern in gray and white tesserae. The center of the mosaic, very likely an emblema, is missing, possibly removed already in antiquity. The mosaic is dated to the second half of the 2nd century a.d. Another indication of a 2nd century phase comes from a brick stamp of Calvius Crescens, dated to 161–176 a.d., from the glinae Domitianae Novae, property of Faustina the Younger. The triclinium also had a geometric mosaic oor with a square-shaped central emblema with gorgoneion made in glass tesserae (0.68 u 0.68 m). The archaeologists found signs of clandestine excavation activity in this room. The room opened onto an enclosed open space and had windows and an opening overlooking the sea. The iconography of the mosaic ts with the hypothesis of the triclinium, since gorgoneia are often used in triclinium oors.. In the second possible cubiculum (5.50 u 2.90 m), a tomb was dug in late antiquity in the collapsed debris covering the oor. A small portion of the black and white mosaic oor is preserved, as well as the bottom part of the wall decoration, a red band. A much worn coin recovered from the tomb can be generically attributed (for its size) to the 4th or 5th century. In the unexcavated part of Room III there could be other tombs. At the north end of the plateau, a semi-underground room, barrel vaulted and built in opus caementicium, was initially interpreted as a cistern. But the plaster in the interior is not impermeable, and the north wall does not seem thick enough to resist the water pressure. Several tombs were discovered in this room. A second trench, opened on the east part of the plateau occupied by the villa, revealed a possible elevated cistern (see the thickness of cocciopesto oor and walls, plus the presence of a buttressing wall). Next to the north wall, part of a room with a plain white mosaic oor was detected. Arretine pottery indicates the rst part of the 1st century a.d. for Phase 1, but the stratigraphy was very

698

catalogue: tuscany disturbed. Another trench, next to the previous one, revealed a small room (2.10 u 1.80 m), with cocciopesto oor and walls, possibly another cistern. Outside the room were many tiles and nails, indication of a collapsed roof structure in wood. The stratigraphy was disturbed by agricultural work, but pottery nds date from the 1st century a.d. to the 5th century a.d. Also, several coins of the mid-3rd century were recovered. In the west part of the trench, as in the hillside next to the villa, much iron slag was found. To the east of this site, in the elds in front of the Alba farm, there are the remains of a structure, built on the spot of a previous Hellenistic settlement. Surface nds include Arretine sigillata, Italic sigillata, 2nd century sigillata chiara, fragments of small pitchers of gray sigillata, dated to the 4th or 5th century a.d. Attested chronological phases in the villa after the rst Republican phase include the Antonine phase shown by the mosaic and the brick stamp of Crescens. The terminus ante quem for the abandonment of the site is given by the tomb in the debris levels of Room III, dated on the basis of a coin to the 4th–5th century.

Fedeli 1983, # 295; Saladino 1984; Shepherd 1986–1987

Populonia T39 – Poggio S. Leonardo This maritime villa was tentatively dated to the late Republic. The ancient structures are poorly preserved and covered by vegetation. On the spot of the villa itself the Convent of S. Leonardo was built. According to Minto, black and white mosaics were visible at this site, but Fedeli could not nd any traces of them. Fedeli 1983, #286

Populonia T40 – “Villa Le Logge”, Gulf of Baratti The remains of the so-called Villa Le Logge are located on the Poggio del Telegrafo (also called Poggio del Molino). The visible remains of the maritime villa consist of the substructures, with six blind arches on the front, forming a terrace. In the interior of the terrace there is a large vaulted cistern. In 1842, in a vineyard above the terrace, a mosaic with marine fauna was found, dated by P. G. Meyboom to 80–70 b.c., on the basis of comparison with mosaics in Pompeii. But the different technique in the preparation of the mosaic could also indicate a later date, like the 2nd century a.d. (see Shepherd in Saladino 1984: 327). The mosaic, for a long time property of the Crastan family from Pontedera, was later sold on the antiquities market, and now is in a private collection in England. The villa seems to have been used from the late Republic to the late Empire, but no secure dating elements are available. Fedeli 1983, #201a; Saladino 1984

tuscany: populonia – venturina plain

699

POPULONIA – VENTURINA PLAIN Several rural villas occupied the Plain of Venturina. The Aquae Populoniae mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana should be located to the northwest of Venturina along the modern road that follows an ancient route between modern Caldana and Lumiere.

Populonia – Venturina Plain T41 – Cafaggio, comune of Campiglia Marittima A cistern and other structures, possibly pertaining to a villa, were accidentally discovered in the territory to the northeast of Venturina. In 1980, an area with pottery surface nds dating to the the 2nd century a.d. was detected at Casa Franca, possibly pertaining to a villa rustica. Fedeli 1983, #325; #332

Populonia – Venturina Plain T42 – Casalpiano, Podere Macchialta A residential complex was built over a previous Etruscan settlement. Surface nds span from the 1st century a.d. to the 3rd century a.d. and include Arretine pottery, late Italic sigillata, and sigillata chiara A. The latest date for frequentation of the site is given by a coin of Probus. Fedeli 1983, #327

Populonia – Venturina Plain T43 – Vignale A large villa probably stood at Vignale, not far from the banks of the coastal lake, judging from the area of distribution of surface nds. The site elevation is 12 m above sea level. Structures of this villa were excavated in 1832. Surface nds, following agricultural work, were spread over an area of 5 hectares and included pottery and glass fragments. Oral testimonies collected by Fedeli reported the discoveries of mosaics, but no other data are available on this site. Fedeli 1983, #338

700

catalogue: tuscany

Figure T44. Scansano, Campo della Chiesa (after Del Chiaro 1990).

tuscany: scansano

701

SCANSANO

T44 – Campo della Chiesa The villa is located in the territory of Scansano, north of the Albegna River. The rst phase is dated to the late Republican period. The complex was not completely excavated, and only part of the residential quarters was investigated. The site was abandoned after a violent destruction by conagration as early as the second half of the 1st century a.d. At a later time the structure was used again, divided into smaller living quarters: makeshift walls blocked several doorways, changing the space distribution. In the rst phase it seems that the villa plan unfolded around a court with an impluvium built in travertine [A]. The complex also featured a bath suite in the east corner, of which the caldarium and a round laconicum have been identied, an upper story, as indicated by signs of a staircase, and a cryptoportico. Many roof tiles found during the excavation bear a stamp depicting an eagle with outstretched wings and a serpent in its talons; around it are the letters: P. Anili P f. Del Chiaro suggests that P. Anilius may have been the owner of the villa. Bodel in his appendix-note on the brick stamp in JRA 1990 stresses that the stamp only states the production of the tiles in glinae owned by the Anilii family. The excavator also notes that this must have been an “otium villa”, since no traces of agricultural production were found. This hypothesis, however, seems unlikely in consideration of the position of the villa on the fertile hills between the Albegna and the Ombrone Rivers, an area exploited in antiquity and modern times for the cultivation of olive trees and vineyards. Only a portion of the residential part was excavated and it is possible that the production area was not located yet (note that Carandini and Cambi 2002, Tabulation, FP 303 report for this site the presence of press beds). Pottery nds during excavation include black glaze, Arretine and late Italic sigillata fragments. The investigation of the Albegna Valley survey recovered pottery dating from 200 b.c. to 500 a.d. Del Chiaro 1989; 1990; Carandini and Cambi 2002, #FP 303

702

catalogue: tuscany

Scansano T45 – Fattoria Pomonte The villa identied by the Albegna valley survey occupied an area of ca. 30,000 m². The area currently occupied by a modern farm was the pars urbana of the villa; column drums and marble blocks were seen here. To the east of this nucleus was an area of intense surface scatter, especially dolia fragments, probably the pars rustica of the villa. At the edge of the hill, in the direction of Fosso del Vivaio, illegal excavations had revealed fragments of cocciopesto and opus spicatum oor. The material nds recovered in the survey indicate an occupation from 200 b.c. to 600 a.d. Carandini and Cambi 2002, # FP 18.1

tuscany: scansano

703

Scansano T46 – Fattoria Pomonte The presence of a Roman villa at this site was indicated by various column drums and marble blocks visible in the modern farms of the area. An area measuring 60 u 80 m was covered by pottery scatter, which indicated as occupation span from 200 b.c. to 500 a.d. Carandini and Cambi 2002, # FP 34.1

Figure T47. Talamone, Madonna delle Grazie (after Carandini and Cambi 2002).

704 catalogue: tuscany

tuscany: talamone

705

TALAMONE (Telamon) (See Map 19, p. 648)

T47 – Madonna delle Grazie (also referred to as S. Francesca or Le Tombe) Several ancient structures in opus reticulatum, visible in the Madonna delle Grazie locality, about 1 km from Talamone, were probably part of a maritime villa that extended inland from the coast. The structures, commonly called “baths”, in reality are cisterns. In 1915, during works in this area, mosaic fragments, coins, pottery, and a stamped stula bearing the name of Trajan’s freedman Hebrus were recovered. Roman bricks re-used in a modern rural construction in the area bear several stamps of the early 2nd century a.d. This estate was certainly the property of Trajan, as shown by the stula, but it is not clear whether he built it ex novo or restored an existing building that came into the Imperial scus. Possibly, the property belonged to the Domitii Ahenobarbi, who, according to D. Manacorda, had extensive possessions on the Argentario peninsula. In connection with this villa complex one may see the construction of portus Telamonis under Trajan and of a diverticulum of the Aurelia. The villa was still occupied in the 5th century a.d. Campanile 1919; La romanizzazione 1985; Ciampoltrini 1994b; Carandini and Cambi 2002

Talamone T48 – Podere Civitella An area of surface scatter measuring 250 u 200 m was investigated by the Albegna valley survey; the site corresponds to the remains described by Sommella for Poggio Civitella, where beside pottery he saw a travertine capital as well. The survey investigations recovered material dating from 200 b.c. to 400 a.d. Sommella 1967, #13; Carandini and Cambi 2002, #TAL 207.1

Talamone T49 – Poggio Mulinaccio Remains of a villa greatly damaged by agricultural works were reported by Sommella on the hill Poggio Mulinaccio, on the right bank of the River Osa. The remains were not described in detail, but the presence of travertine column capitals and of a column base, indication of the décor of the residential part, was recorded. Other surface material reported consisted of very numerous bricks and one intact dolium. Sommella 1967, #22

706

catalogue: tuscany

VOLTERRA (Volaterrae)

T50 – Pieve Vecchia di Casale Marittimo The site is located on the left side of the Bassa Val di Cecina. The villa was partially excavated in the 1930s by Paribeni and classied as an otium villa. In fact, too little of the complex was excavated to make this statement. The villa is located on the rst hill inland from coastal villas like T24 – S. Vincenzino, along the Roman road that connected Montescudaio, Guardistallo, and Casale up to Bolgheri. We know that the Bassa Val di Cecina had many kilns producing dolia, Dressel 1, and Dressel 2–4 amphorae, an indication of agricultural production in the area (see also infra for fragments of press kept in the nearby church. An oecus (measuring 5.73 u 5.66 m), paved in opus sectile, seems to have been the center of the residential quarters. Next to the oecus was a room (5.73 u 5.75 m) paved in opus signinum with marble scutulae. The presence of a threshold on the south wall of this room indicates that there was another, unexcavated room. On one side of these two rooms, on a higher level, there were four rooms forming the bath complex with sub-oors in cover tiles and traces of suspensurae. On the other side was a peristyle, 4.24 m wide and excavated for about 13 m in length. The portico did not have its original ooring at the moment of discovery. Traces of some later modication using bricks were visible. At this time the portico was decorated with late Third Style frescoes. A fragment depicting Silenus was recovered. The second phase of the building shows changes in the layout. The disposition of the bath quarter was changed with the addition of service rooms ( praefurnia, etc.); the portico disappeared, maybe replaced by an open area, perhaps a garden. At a different time, the baths were changed again. Two rooms were provided with apses, while two heated rooms may have been transformed into a frigidarium, since the openings communicating with the hypocaustum were closed. At an unknown time, the villa was abandoned or, maybe, was just undergoing restorations; the oor of the portico was removed, while in the rooms large blocks were placed on the oors (compare with T6 – La Befa). The abandonment of the villa is testied by a 1.50 m stratum of deposits and debris found in the triclinium and portico. Fragments of tiles, mosaics oor, and under this level, traces of charred material should indicate the collapse of an upper story. Only a generic terminus post quem is available for the nal destruction of the site, i.e. a coin of Fl. Valerius Severus (306–307 a.d.). On the site of the villa a church ( pieve) and a cemetery were founded. About the chronology, only general comments are possible. The villa was probably built in the Augustan age and restored under the Julio-Claudians. Later, maybe in the 2nd century a.d., the residential quarters were moved and the bath area enlarged. It was abandoned around the 4th or 5th century. During the excavation, no record was made of pottery fragments (visible in old photos of the dig) and whatever was considered unimportant at the time. In the area of the Pieve, some large fragments of dolia and the stone of a torcular are visible.

tuscany: volterra

707

The construction of the villa must be related to the history of the colonia of Volaterrae. The Ager Volaterranus seems to have had a low concentration of villas. The villas should be related to members of the local elite (like Albinus Caecina) or maybe coloni and small landowners. It seems that after 27 b.c., the privileges of a colony were granted to Volaterrae again, maybe followed also by new settlements of coloni. Shepherd 1998

Map 22. Villa sites in Umbria (A. Marzano).

UMBRIA

710

catalogue: umbria

Map 23. Umbria: distribution of villas (from Ville e Insediamenti 1983).

umbria

711

Umbria The smaller number of villa sites registered for Umbria, compared to the other two regions in this catalogue, does not have to be misleading about the presence of villas in this region. This picture is due in part to the status of archaeological research, comprising a small number of excavation projects. Many sites were identied only by means of surface nds, and it is difcult to determine size (villa or farm?) or chronology. Indeed, the map showing the distribution of villas published in the book Ville ed insediamenti rustici di età romana in Umbria, and reproduced here, shows ca. 50 sites, mostly concentrated in southern Umbria in the areas of Narni and Otricoli, but the survey data have not been fully published. I have reported in this section the sites for which some kind of documentation was available, allowing a description. However, epigraphic and topographical evidence, as reected by place names, indicate a large number of villas and fundi in this region. For instance, the inscription CIL, XI.4127, from Bulgaria, near Narni, mentions fundi Barbani belonging to a certain Aurelia, while a Masonia owned the ager Tresianus Masonianus at Lugnano (CIL, XI.4488). Even a quick look at IGM maps of the region will easily spot many place names of Roman origin in relation to praedia, like Arnano, Cassiano, Cignano, Corciano, Pitigliano, Popigliano, Raggiano, etc. For Corciano, preliminary topographical surveys seem to indicate the presence of villas every 500–700 m (but precise chronological data are not available), as reected also in the organization of the territory in elds of the same size depending on one farm, which was in use until the 1950s (see Ville e insediamenti 1983: 87). The areas with the highest concentration of villas were the territories of Narni, Terni, Otricoli, and Ameria, crossed by the rivers Tiber and Nera and by the important roads Via Flaminia and Via Amerina. This area was also the seat of several glinae producing bricks and tiles.

712

catalogue: umbria

Figure U1. Alviano Scalo, Popigliano (after Ville e inseidamenti 1983).

umbria: alviano scalo – assisi

713

ALVIANO SCALO

U1 – Popigliano The villa was built in the mid-1st century b.c., as inferred from brick stamps of C. Accaeius Molcanus. Another brick stamp indicates a new construction phase between the late 1st century a.d. and the early 2nd century a.d. This stamp, circular in shape, bears the name C. Ummidius Felix. The villa was used at least down to the 4th century a.d., but it is possible that there was a phase of demise in the 3rd century. The place name Popigliano may be related to the gens Popilia. It is assumed that about 2 km away from Popigliano, at Madonna del Porto, there was a uvial harbor on the Tiber. The villa was accidentally discovered during work for the planting of a vineyard, and the structures were greatly damaged. Traces of nicely done oors in opus signinum decorated with tesserae, opus spicatum, and walls in opus reticulatum were recorded. The villa had an atrium with impluvium [A], excavated for an extension of 36 m², and frescoes. In the atrium, a column base was found in situ, next to a channel for collecting rain water, connected to a well/cistern [B]. In one of the rooms [C], traces of hearths over a stratum of soil and plaster fragments were seen, a sign that the villa was abandoned and in ruin when this sporadic frequentation occurred. Material culture recovered includes black glaze, Italian sigillata, Spanish amphorae for oil and garum (Dressel 7/11; Dressel 14; Dressel 20; Haltern 70; Longarina II), and Italic wine amphorae, (Dressel 1 and 2/4), dated between the 1st and the 2nd centuries a.d. The pottery belonging to the 2nd–4th centuries a.d. is smaller in number than the rst group, but it includes different pottery types which reect the same variety and composition in commercial exchange as that observed in Ostia in the same period. The same pattern in pottery nds is observable at U23—S. Giustino, Colle Plinio. Local place names attested in this area and alluding to the presence of ancient remains are: villa, vasca, fornace, cappuccina. The terracing and retaining walls identied in the valley of Fosso Marutana may relate to this villa. Ville ed insediamenti 1983; Quilici and Quilici Gigli 1999 ASSISI (Asisium)

U2 – Torchiagina A room 8 u 6.5 m was uncovered as part of a villa discovered in 1970. In the surrounding eld, many mosaic tesserae were found with fragments of capitals of columns. A small necropolis was identied with urns dated to the 1st century a.d. The recovery of a late Imperial sarcophagus may indicate an occupation of the site down to the 4th–5th centuries a.d. Ville ed insediamenti 1983

714

catalogue: umbria

CASTIGLION DEL LAGO (Ager Clusinus)

U3 – Le Buccacce Remains of a Roman building, probably a villa, were noted in the past during agricultural work. Manconi et al. 1981

Castiglion del Lago U4 – Poggio S. Maria On the hill of S. Maria, fragments of cover tiles, bricks, and amphorae can be noted on the surface, plus the remains of a water cistern. The area is locally known by the signicant place name of “La Villa”. Manconi et al. 1981 FOLIGNO (Fulginiae)

U5 – Piani di Ricciano The partially excavated villa had walls in opus incertum and a probable portico, as indicated by three column bases. In the rooms, the collapse of the roof due to re was discovered. In this layer, Republican pottery and coins were found. In a subsequent phase, the villa was rebuilt using preexisting structures. Finds loosely date this phase between the late 1st century b.c. and the 3rd century a.d. Ville ed insediamenti 1983

umbria: guardea

715

GUARDEA

U6 – Cocciano, Pian del Ceraso In 1925, remains of an ancient building and two mosaic oors (identied since 1913) were excavated in a deep valley, hardly accessible, located at the foot of the Castellari Mountains. The site is far from the modern road Guardea-Amelia, but it seems that traces of an ancient road, a possible diverticulum of the Via Amerina, were seen. According to the farmers in the area, many coins, sarcophagi, and other ancient artifacts were found in the zone. Four possible rooms of the villa were excavated. In the same area, during agricultural work, opus spicatum oors and travertine blocks were found. The walls of the unearthed structures are built in irregularly cut limestone, alternated with courses of tiles. In the southeast room there are possible traces of suspensurae. The mosaics, depicting subjects typical of bath suites, were found in the rooms on the north side. They are made in black and white tesserae. Both mosaics have a rectangular double frame enclosing gures. One mosaic (2.55 u 1.48 m) depicts a sea-centaur, the other, (2.55 u 1.68 m) a man holding a whip and riding a sea-horse. A date of the 2nd century a.d. has been proposed, based on the similarities in the representation of the gures with a mosaic from Castelporziano (Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome). The earliest pottery recovered in surface nds dates to the Republican age, suggesting as a possible date for the construction of the villa the 2nd century b.c. The latest pottery types found date to the 3rd century a.d. Romanelli 1926; Manconi et al. 1981

716

catalogue: umbria

Figure U7. Lugnano in Teverina, Poggio Gramignano, axonometric reconstruction (after Soren 1999).

umbria: lugnano in teverina – massa martana

717

LUGNANO IN TEVERINA

U7 – Poggio Gramignano This large villa stood on a hill on the left bank of the Tiber, ca. 2 km away from the river and 7 km from the town of Amelia (Ameria). It was built sometime around the mid-1st century b.c. and, according to the excavators, ceased to be an aristocratic residence around 200 a.d. Immediately after this phase, squatters would have used the structure of the villa as living quarters. The structure was not completely excavated, but ca. 250 a.d. seems a more likely date for the “abandonment” of the villa, rather than 200 a.d. The considerations of the excavators are based on the recovery of brick stamps of the glinae Publilianae dated to ca. 200 a.d. Based on the use of the bricks in a new building phase at the villa (which shows that the villa was still used as an elite residence), one should allow for at least 50 years between the production date of the bricks and the date for the abandonment of the villa. The plan shows the layout common in Italian atrium villas. The most elaborate and elegant room was a vaulted and colonnaded Corinthian oecus [A]. Material culture recovered includes black glaze, sigillata, Italian sigillata chiara, African red slip, and glass fragments. Concerning the types of amphorae recovered, the wine amphorae are all of Italian production, whereas for olive oil and garum imported types were discovered, together with some Italian types. In the mid-5th century, part of the villa was used as an infant cemetery. Soren 1999 MASSA MARTANA

U8 – Mausoleo A large concentration of surface material related to a villa was spotted along the eastern side of the Via Flaminia. Pottery evidence indicates as a possible date for the construction of the villa the 2nd century b.c. with phases in the late Republican period and in the mid-Empire. The latest nding at this site is an antoninianus of Emperor Tacitus, dated to 275/276 a.d. Manconi et al. 1981

718

catalogue: umbria

NARNI (Narnia)

U9 – Molino del Passatore The site is located 5.5 km southwest of the little town of Narni and was not excavated. The visible structures belonging to a villa consist of two decantation ponds and a cistern. Local farmers remember the discovery of mosaic oors and opus reticulatum walls. The complex was completely destroyed by a quarry. Ceramic nds, including the at-bottomed Spello amphorae and a coin recovered in one of the ponds, give as terminus ante quem the Flavian Age. Monacchi 1990

umbria: penna in teverina

719

PENNA IN TEVERINA

U10 – Muralto On the slope of a hill overlooking the valley of the Rio Grande and 1 km from the Tiber, remains of a villa were discovered during agricultural work. Structures in opus caementicium and brick came to light, together with mosaic tesserae and fragments of painted plaster. At a higher elevation, covered by medieval structures, mosaic oors and Roman walls are visible. A generic date to the Augustan age was proposed on the basis of settlement patterns identied in the area. Along the Rio Grande, less than 1 km away from the villa, traces of a Roman paved road and tombs were discovered. Ville ed insediamenti 1983

720

catalogue: umbria

Figure U11. Penna in Teverina, Pennavecchia (after Ville e insediamenti 1983).

umbria: penna in taverina

721

Penna in Taverina U11 – Pennavecchia The villa is located in a very panoramic position on a hill only 500 m east of the Tiber. The villa was very conveniently located in regard to communication routes. The ancient Via Amerina was close by, and the river harbor of Castiglioni-Seripola was just 1 km southwest of the villa. The harbor was located at the juncture of the Rio Grande with the Tiber and at the intersection of the Via Amerina and the Via Tiberina. A bridge, which was a crossing point on the Rio Grande, was also not far from the villa. The villa was excavated in 1978–79, 1981, and 1985. Seven rooms of the pars urbana have been uncovered of which four are preserved only at the foundations level, while three had also part of the walls and mosaic oors preserved. Different building techniques are used, showing several phases difcult to rmly place chronologically. The paving of the rooms goes from simple types, like a white signinum regularly dotted with tesserae or a mosaic with black background with a network in white tesserae, to more elaborate types. The probable triclinium had a very elegant mosaic in black and white tesserae, bordered by a braid, with lozenges and stars, lled by other motifs in polychrome tesserae: Solomon’s knots, owers, little roses, an oil lamp, and a kantharos. This mosaic presents the same iconography as one of the mosaics from the Volusii’s villa (L106). The identication with a triclinium rests on the fact that the kantharos in the mosaic is placed in such a way as to be in the middle of the hypothetical couches. It is difcult to reconstruct the detailed layout of the oor plan. It is not clear whether the rooms were all at the same elevation or not. The central area most probably had a courtyard [B], but the limits of it are not detectable. A probe trench in a corner showed that the court must have had an opus spicatum oor. The construction of the villa was dated to the Augustan period on the basis of the mosaics’ style. Phase 2, which remains undated, consisted of restorations that did not alter the original layout: many walls were reconstructed following the foundation lines of the walls of Phase 1. The pars rustica was in the eastern part of the villa and presented a kiln with a decantation pond for clay and a cella vinaria [C] with nine sunken dolia placed in two parallel rows. Kiln and pond were related to the rst phase of the villa. In the mid-1st century a.d., the dolia were removed; the space was leveled by ll, and a colonnade was erected, as shown by two columns found in situ. Excavators interpreted this remodeling as a sign of the crisis of viticulture in the region and in Italy in general. It seems that the villa was abandoned during the 2nd century a.d. and sporadically re-used later, in the 3rd century. In the 4th–6th centuries, the occupation of the site appears to have been more consistent, including restorations of the complex. In this phase (Phase 3), Room B was divided into two by the construction of a wall re-using different building elements from the villa, and the missing portions of the mosaic were

722

catalogue: umbria patched up. The walls in the larger of the new rooms were decorated with painted plaster (a lower, red band and a yellow, upper one). At the end of this phase, the villa was abandoned and in ruin (traces of various hearths on debris level), and after the 6th century it was used as a cemetery. Six tombs with multiple depositions were detected, all in the residential quarters. Pottery nds consist of amphorae fragments, which span from the 2nd to the 4th century a.d., not local production but imported from the provinces. They include the Hispanic Dressel 14 (for garum), the African XL Mau and Tripolitana II (for oil), and, dated to the 3rd–4th centuries, Africana I and Africana II A amphorae (for oil and garum). Only very few fragments of African red slip D were unearthed. In the same strata dated to the 3rd–4th centuries, different forms of Italian sigillata chiara were recovered, sometimes in association with the African pottery. Also, some spatheia were recovered, dated to the 4th–6th centuries.

Ville e insediamenti 1983; Monacchi 1991

umbria: perugia

723

PERUGIA (Perusia)

U12 – Civitella d’Arno Agricultural activities uncovered wall structures and fragments of tiles and amphorae. Field survey reported the presence of numerous mosaic tesserae, marble tiles, and fragments of opus signinum and opus caementicium. Ville e insediamenti 1983

724

catalogue: umbria

Figure U13. Perugia, Deruta (after Ville e insediamenti 1983).

umbria: perugia

725

Perugia U13 – Deruta (Perugia Vecchia) This villa stood on a hill overlooking the Tiber valley, 600 m above sea level. The site is about 4 km away from the river. Illegal excavators compromised much of the stratigraphic data, seriously damaging also part of the structures. The villa had at least two phases. The rst one, dated to the time of Augustus on the basis of fragments of Italian sigillata, lasted for a short time (no nds dated to the 2nd century were recovered) and ended with the collapsed of the structures, maybe due to some natural cause (earthquake?). On the ruins of this villa, a new one was built in the early 3rd century and was used at least until the late 4th century. Eleven rooms of the residential part were investigated by the Soprintendenza Archeologica dell’Umbria, all provided with heating systems. One room [C] had a mosaic oor over suspensurae and measured ca. 7.40 u 7 m. Finds from the ll of this room dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries a.d. Next to this room a rectangular pond was discovered, and a second room [B], untouched by the illegal excavators. This room had a pavement made of large terracotta slabs, which substituted an earlier mosaic oor; there were traces of re in a layer right above the oor and the debris of the collapsed roof. Another room [D] had a white mosaic and hypocaustum, plus tubuli in the walls. Many pieces of marble were recovered, either wall crustae or from an opus sectile emblema. A group of smaller rooms discovered on the east side [A] were probably service rooms and part of the pars rustica: dolia were identied, as well as a pond faced in cocciopesto just outside the villa on the southeast side. Also this sector seems to date to the second phase of the villa. All the nds (coins, lamps, sigillata D) date to the 3rd and 4th centuries. Ville e insediamenti 1983

Perugia U14 – Montone Scanty remains of a villa were located in S. Maria di Sette during the construction of the highway. Three rooms were identied; one had a cocciopesto oor, while the other two presented only the preparation layer for the paving. A wall, preserved to ca. 10 m in height and abutting the side of the hill, was built in opus latericium, thus indicating an Imperial date (late 1st–early 2nd century a.d.). Mosaic glass paste tesserae were found, indicating that the structure had a certain level of decoration, but nothing else was preserved. Ville e insediamenti 1983

726

catalogue: umbria

Figure U15. Perugia, Ripa (after Ville e insediamenti 1983).

umbria: perugia

727

Perugia U15 – Ripa In 1903, ancient structures were excavated on the hill of Ripa in vocabolo Fornace. A building measuring at least 18 u 15 m came to light. The only reference to the building technique in the documents of the time mentions an opus reticulatum wall. On the southwest side, a room [B] with opus signinum oor and suspensurae was discovered (5.30 u 4.80 m). The presence, at a lower elevation, of a pond (2 u 1.20 m) could indicate that the room was part of a bath area. A series of vats [A] (a larger one, 2.20 u 1.40 m, communicating with a small, circular one with a terracotta container in the middle, ø 1.15 m) was possibly part of the service rooms in conjunction with the baths, maybe a fullonica. Nothing more can be inferred from the plan and the notes of the excavation. The owner of the eld demolished the structures, judging them to be of no relevance. Pottery fragments can still be seen in the eld after plowing, and they include Republican black glaze and late Imperial pottery. It is, however, worth remembering that in antiquity in this area was the municipium of Arna (modern Civitella d’Arno, part of Ripa, only 9 km east of Perugia). Arna stood in an advantageous position for the control of communication routes to the Apennine range and to the Adriatic coast, both by land and by river. Epigraphic evidence from the area of Arna shows the presence of Imperial praedia (CIL, XI.5609–5610, mentioning a dispensator of Poppea). Not far from the site described above, at Tirchiagina (vocabolo Casalino), evidence for another villa was noted during agricultural work. In this case the nds clearly indicated a villa of medium-high décor, including mosaic tesserae, capitals, columns shafts, and ashlar blocks. Near this site was a necropolis with 1st century burials. Possibly, both of these villas were part of the Imperial praedia. Ville e insediamenti 1983

Perugia U16 – S. Lucia In 1893, both G. Sacconi and G. F. Gamurrini reported the discovery and excavation, by the owner of the land, of the remains of a villa, 3 km from Perugia. According to Gamurrini, the villa dated to the 1st century a.d. The closeness to the urban center of Perusia makes this a suburban villa, of which nothing more is known. Ville e insediamenti 1983

728

catalogue: umbria

Perugia U17 – Valcaprara The structures of the villa, partially excavated, were intersected by a modern road. In antiquity, the site was probably along the road connecting Iguvium to Perusia. The structures discovered have been dated to the Imperial age, and two phases were identied. Two rooms belong to the rst phase. The walls had traces of painted plaster: a lower, red band and a white background in the upper part. One of the rooms had a oor in opus signinum decorated with black and white tesserae following a geometric pattern; the other room was poorly preserved due to agricultural activity. This rst phase ended with a re. Over the debris level of this phase, at a later time, an opus signinum oor was laid down. Another room, which was impossible to relate to one phase or the other, had no traces of ooring and must have been the pars rustica, since traces of a sunken dolium were recovered. Pottery recovered during the excavation does not offer good dating elements, since it consists mostly of very common types, difcult to date. The only exception is one fragment of sigillata and one fragment of thin wall gray ware (1st century a.d.) and fragments of plates dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries. Ville e insediamenti 1983

umbria: pietralunga

729

PIETRALUNGA Pietralunga, once in the territory either of Tifernum Tiberinum or of Iguvium, was connected to the Via Flaminia by a road following the route Monte Castellaccio-Pianello-Secchiano, following the river Certano and joining the Via Flaminia at Cagli (Marche). Part of the road, paved with large stones, was discovered 2 km north of Pietralunga. Another route leading to Città di Castello through Terzi-Ripetta-Ronchi was probably ancient as well, since several known Roman sites are in alignment with it. In the 1800s, Pietralunga was identied with the town of the Foroiulienses cognomine Concupienses mentioned by Pliny the Elder, but no secure evidence can conrm this attribution. Ville e insediamenti 1983

730

catalogue: umbria

Figure U18. Pietralunga, Colle Preiano (after Ville e insediamenti 1983).

umbria: pietralunga

731

Pietralunga U18 – Colle Preiano During work for the construction of a new aqueduct, ancient ruins were accidentally discovered and then partially investigated by the Soprintendenza. A series of rooms, aligned north-south, was brought to light. One of the rooms, presenting a stratum of debris from the collapsed roof, was a caldarium [A] (presence of tubuli and hypocaustum). North of this room, there was one with traces of a mosaic oor, followed by another room, poorly preserved, paved in opus signinum [B]. Traces of a pond [C] may suggest that this room was the frigidarium. In the area of the caldarium, at least three building phases were detected, but it was not possible to date them with the exception of the last phase, dated between the 3rd and 4th century a.d. on the basis of the mosaic style. Considering the extent of surface material in the surrounding eld, the villa must have measured at least 500 m². The pars rustica was probably in the area north of these structures, where the bottom parts of sunken dolia were noted. Ville e insediamenti 1983

Pietralunga U19 – Fossalto Abundant surface evidence of a villa is known in two properties: campo Valsinara and podere Capatella. The nds consist of roof tiles, small ashlar blocks, bricks, fragments of dolia and amphorae, and common ware. A stamped stula may indicate as owner of the estate a member of the Pedii. The stamp reads: Phosphorus Cn(aei)/Pedi(i) Karii. Ser(vus) fec(it), (see also CIL, XV.7654, another stula in a private collection in Gubbio, attesting the name of the same plumbarius, but now of freedman status: Cn(aeus) Pedius Phosporus fec(it)). The inscription is dated to the 1st century a.d. The only other known mention of the gens Pedia in Regio VI comes from Forum Sempronii (CIL, XI.6137: funerary inscription of a freedman). A fundus of the gens Pedia attested by funerary inscriptions was in Latium in the ager Ficulensis. Ville e insediamenti 1983; Monacchi 1981/82; Calci and Sorella 1995

732

catalogue: umbria

Figure U20. Spello, Orticello (after Ville e insediamenti 1983).

umbria: spello

733

SPELLO (Hispellum)

U20 – Orticello This villa was a suburban mansion just outside Hispellum (1.5 km). It stood in a at area at the foot of Mount Subasio, close to the road connecting the Flaminia with Asisium and Perusia. The villa was not the only building in this area but stood close to an ancient sanctuary, which remained important until late antiquity. The sanctuary was monumentalized between the 1st century b.c. and the 1st century a.d. with a series of terraces at the foot of the Subasio and the addition of a bath complex, an amphitheater, and a theater. The villa was located immediately behind the building of the scaenae frons. Four rooms of the residential quarters were excavated. In Room [A] two phases were detected. In the rst phase, dated to the mid-1st century a.d. on the basis of the style of fragments of wall paintings, there was just a wall, dening the peristyle on the east side. Later, a room was constructed in opus vittatum with an opus signinum oor decorated with square, gray tesserae. Two communicating ponds indicate that the space was transformed into a torcular room (for wine). The east portico of the peristyle was also transformed, probably during the same later phase. It was divided into several rooms, keeping the initial cocciopesto oor. It seems that the new space was used as storage rooms, probably for foodstuffs. Room [B] had a hypocaustum, a mosaic oor using white and pink tesserae, and marble crustae on the walls. In Room [C], next to Room B and, in an early phase, to one of the rooms behind one side of the peristyle, a bathtub was built (2.60 u 1.80 m), indication that these rooms were part of a bath suite. Signs of damage visible in the walls of every room and the oors indicate an earthquake. It is difcult to determine when the baths were created in the villa. Probably, the construction of the villa should be dated to the late 1st century b.c., when a colony of veterans was sent to Hispellum, while the baths were added in the mid-Imperial phase. The transformation of one portico into storerooms and the addition of the torcular post-date the earthquake, maybe the one of 242 or 346 a.d. The building was, in any case, used until late antiquity, as shown by the great quantity of late Imperial pottery recovered. The location “in” the sanctuary complex had certain economic implications (see also an edict of Constantine specically regarding this sanctuary, CIL, XI.5265). Ville e insediamenti 1983

Spello U21 – Portonaccio The suburban villa was partially investigated during emergency excavations by the Soprintendenza. Three rooms belonging to bath quarters were identied. One presenting an apse was a large, heated natatio. In another area, presumably the pars rustica, a decantation pond for clay and a small kiln were discovered. Material nds offer a general chronological span from the 1st century to the 2nd century a.d. Ville e insediamenti 1983

734

catalogue: umbria

Figure U22. Spoleto, Villa Redenta (after Ville e insediamenti 1983).

umbria: spoleto

735

SPOLETO (Spoletium)

U22 – Villa Redenta This was a suburban villa outside the town of Spoletium. A pars rustica was identied, a sign that, as with the suburban villas around Rome, this one also produced goods for the local urban market. Three trenches were excavated. In Area 1, some rooms with walls in opus vittatum were identied, among which was probably the kitchen [A] (concentration of ashes, many fragments of common ware and cooking pots). In Area 2, a cistern [B] was excavated (2.40 u 3.60 m), while another cistern came to light in Area 3 (not shown in plan). The chronology of the villa, on the basis of the pottery recovered, goes from the Augustan age to the 3rd century a.d. On a roof tile a stamp of Vibuleia Accilla (CIL, XI.6689) was found. Mosaic tesserae and marble fragments sporadically found during the excavation may indicate that the residential quarters of the villa were in the area immediately above these remains. It is possible that a mosaic oor discovered in the 1800s and now in the modern Villa Redenta belonged to this complex, and maybe also the mithraeum, dated to the 4th century, discovered nearby. When the villa was already in ruins, several tombs were placed in the area of the villa. Ville e insediamenti 1983

736

catalogue: umbria

Figure U23a. S. Giustino, Colle Plinio: early 1st century phase (after Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999).

Figure U23b. S. Giustino, Colle Plinio: Plinian phase (after Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999).

umbria: s. giustino

737

S. GIUSTINO

U23 – Colle Plinio (Pliny’s Villa

IN

TUSCIS)

The famous villa of Pliny the Younger is located 8 km away from modern Città di Castello, the ancient center of Tifernum Tiberinum. In the territory of Tifernum, whose natural boundaries must have been the Tiber to the west and the Apennine range to the east, several rural villas and farmsteads have been identied, mostly concentrated on the eastern part of the territory, on the low hills cut by the many rivers owing into the Tiber. The layout of the villa shows the canonic division in pars urbana, pars rustica, and pars fructuaria. As shown by brick stamps, it was rst built by M. Granius Marcellus between 2 b.c. and 15 a.d. In this phase, the villa has a pars urbana with Tuscan atrium [A], but no tablinum, connected with the terrace that marks the façade of the villa. To the north of the atrium, there was probably a bath suite. The same corridor that led to the residential part gave access to the working quarters, featuring two pools in cocciopesto (= lacus vinarii ), a long rectangular room with dolia [B], and a courtyard with a granary [C]. In the Julio-Claudian period, baths comprising caldarium, frigidarium, and tepidarium were added to the residential part. During this phase the villa was part of the Imperial property, as shown by brick stamps reading Caes. At the time of Pliny’s ownership, on one end of the wine storage room, a vat to tread grapes [D] (calcatorium) was added. To the southwest of the residential part a wing [E] was added, comprising long rooms which also must have had utilitarian function. To the south, two structures with different orientations were added, interpreted by the excavators as farmhouses provided with storerooms and stables [F]. After Pliny’s phase, new restorations and enlargements are attested by brick stamps, dated to the late 2nd–early 3rd century (Imp). The structures of the villa were used at least for the whole 4th century. Material culture recovered during the excavation includes 1st and 2nd century a.d. Italic amphorae for wine and Spanish amphorae for oil and garum, and various types of amphorae dated to the 2nd–4th centuries a.d. but in a smaller number than the rst group. At the nearby site of Parnacciano many terracotta fragments were recovered along with an inscription mentioning the name Plinia Chreste (CIL, XI.5930), whereas at Fondaccio parts of Roman statues were recovered in the past. Another rural site was at Passerina, where large areas of pottery fragments, opus signinum, and Italic sigillata are visible. Ville e insediamenti 1983; Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999

738

catalogue: umbria

S. Giustino U24 – Pitigliano Numerous sporadic nds are known for this area (note the place name, which is related to the name of a fundus). In the past, fragments of marbles, statues, and columns were found. Manconi et al. reported the presence, on the right bank of the Rio Valdimonte, of an area covered by cocciopesto, terracotta fragments, large dolia, loom weights, and black glaze pottery. Also, about 100 m downhill from the Pitigliano bridge, remains of a cistern are visible. Manconi et al. 1981 TODI (Tuder)

U25 – Grutti 500 m to the south of the Castle of Grutti, remains of a villa and family tomb were discovered. The only information about the villa relates to the presence of black and white tesserae mosaics and fragments of travertine columns. The family tomb was of the “small temple” type, built in travertine ashlars with pronaos in antis in the Corinthian order. An inscription found in the interior of the tomb mentions the gens Vedia. Becatti 1938

Todi U26 – Le Carceri On a hill separating the Tiber from the valley of the River Puglia, in the ancient territory of Tuder, remains of a large complex, possibly a Roman villa, were located already in 1700s. Currently, two cisterns and other remains pertaining to rooms are visible. The main cistern presents four naves, is barrel vaulted, and has an opus spicatum oor. The second cistern is located about 100 m from the rst one and is paved in cocciopesto. Between 1725 and 1739, Andrea Giovannelli excavated in the area, recovering many objects and works of art, many of which are now lost. Combining Giovannelli’s description of the ruins and the results of some probe excavations conducted in 1990, it is likely that the remains of walls and pavements discovered next to the main cistern were part of a bath complex. The residential part of the villa may have been located on the hillside overlooking the river, since Giovannelli reports seeing structures, many mosaic tesserae, and fragments of various types of marble. Of the objects discovered in the 1700s, some were tracked down in the Museo Oliveriano in Pesaro and include two marble reliefs dated to the late Republic or early Empire and part of two sarcophagi dated to the 3rd–4th centuries. Giovannelli describes nding many brick stamps; of these we know that one was from a glina of Plotina Augusta with the name of Valeria Nice as ofcinatrix. Bruschetti 1996

umbria: todi

739

Todi U27 – Scoppieto In 1925, during agricultural work, remains of a villa were discovered. They consisted of walls, opus spicatum oors, tiles, and a statue on a square base, a replica of the Apollo Palatinus type by Scopas. The villa is located only 50 m from the Tiber. Becatti 1938

Todi U28 — Vasciano Becatti reports that on the site of the Hill of Vasciano remains of a Roman villa were excavated. The villa must have had several phases, as he mentions walls in travertine blocks with signs of restorations and multiple sequences of oors, but we do not have enough data to determine the exact chronology. The villa had a pars urbana, as indicated by the recovery of polychrome marble slabs, mosaic tesserae, and fragments of an archaizing marble statue, Augustan in date. A pars rustica is attested by kiln wasters. A coin of Vespasian and one of Antoninus Pius were also found. Near the villa were mineral water springs. Becatti 1938

INDEX OF VILLA SITES LATIUM ACILIA (Acilia) ...................................................................... L1 – Malafede-Fralana ................................................................................

251 251

ALBANO (Albanum) ............................................................... L2 – Cavallacci ............................................................................................ L3 – Ercolano .............................................................................................. L4 – Imperial Villa, also “Villa Comunale” ............................................... L5 – Palazzolo ............................................................................................. L6 – Train Station area ............................................................................... L7 – “Villa on the Lake” ............................................................................

253 253 255 257 259 259 259

ALBANO – ARICCIA .............................................................. L8 – Poggio Ameno ..................................................................................... L9 – Via Cipressetti .....................................................................................

261 261 261

ANGUILLARA SABAZIA (Angularia) ......................................... L10 – Albuccetto-Tragliatella ........................................................................ L11 – “Mura di S. Stefano” .......................................................................... L12 – Villa dell’Acqua Claudia ....................................................................

263 263 265 267

ANZIO (Antium) ..................................................................... L13 – “Villa di Nerone” ................................................................................ L14 – Villa Mastrella .....................................................................................

269 269 269

AQUINO ............................................................................... L15 – S. Pietro a Campea ............................................................................

271 271

ARTENA ................................................................................ L16 – Pian della Civita .................................................................................

271 271

ASTURA ................................................................................ L17 – La Banca, Villa ................................................................................... L18 – La Banca, Villa ................................................................................... L19 – Colle Falcone ...................................................................................... L20 – Le Grottacce ....................................................................................... L21 – Pantano dei Frati ................................................................................ L22 – La Saracca, also La Chiesola ............................................................. L23 – La Saracca, Villa ................................................................................ L24 – Torre Astura, also “Cicero’s Villa” .................................................... L25 – Valle di Foglino ...................................................................................

273 275 275 276 276 277 279 281 283 283

BASSANO DI SUTRI (Vicus Matrini) ........................................ L26 – Castellina ............................................................................................. L27 – Pecugliaro ............................................................................................ L28 – Prato Casale ........................................................................................ L29 – S. Pietro ...............................................................................................

285 285 285 285 287

742 BLERA L30 – L31 – L32 – L33 – L34 – L35 – L36 – L37 – L38 – L39 – L40 – L41 –

index of villa sites .................................................................................. Casale Valle Falsetta ........................................................................... Conserva ............................................................................................. Fornaci ................................................................................................ Marchionato ........................................................................................ Pian della Creta .................................................................................. Pian della Noce ................................................................................... Piscina ................................................................................................. Poggio delle Cerquete ......................................................................... Poggio di Formello .............................................................................. S. Giovanni in Tuscia ......................................................................... S. Mariano .......................................................................................... Selvasecca ............................................................................................

287 289 289 290 290 291 291 291 292 292 293 293 295

BOVILLE (Bovillae) ................................................................ L42 – Casal Morena ..................................................................................... L43 – Centroni Villa .....................................................................................

297 297 299

CANTALUPO (Ager Foronovanus) ............................................. L44 – Colle Tulliano ..................................................................................... L45 – Oppitola .............................................................................................. L46 – S. Adamo ............................................................................................ L47 – S. Stefano ............................................................................................ L48 – S. Vito .................................................................................................

300 300 300 300 301 301

CAPENA (Ager Capenas) ......................................................... L49 – Giardino .............................................................................................. L50 – Monte Canino ....................................................................................

303 303 303

CAPRANICA (Vicus Matrini) .................................................. L51 – Fonte del Lupo .................................................................................... L52 – Muracciolo .......................................................................................... L53 – Oriano ................................................................................................. L54 – Poggio Cavaliere ................................................................................. L55 – Vico Lake ............................................................................................

303 304 304 304 304 304

CASPERIA ............................................................................. L56 – Paranzano ........................................................................................... L57 – S. Maria in Legarano .........................................................................

305 305 305

CASTEL FUSANO (Ager Laurentinus) ....................................... L58 – La Chiesola, also “Villa del conne” ................................................. L59 – Villa Plinio, also Palombara ...............................................................

307 307 309

CASTEL DI GUIDO (Lorium?) ................................................. L60 – Colonnacce .........................................................................................

311 311

CASTEL GIULIANO (Cerveteri) ............................................... L61 – Quarticcioli .........................................................................................

313 313

CASTELPORZIANO (Ager Laurentinus) .................................... L62 – Fosso del Pantanello ............................................................................ L63 – Grotte di Piastra, also Villa Magna ................................................... L64 – Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa ................................................................

313 313 315 319

index of villa sites

743

Tor Paterno, Villa and Nymphaeum ..................................................... Villa ..................................................................................................... Villa ..................................................................................................... Villa ..................................................................................................... Villa ..................................................................................................... Villa .....................................................................................................

323 323 324 324 325 325

CASTELPORZIANO-CAPOCOTTA ........................................... L71 – Villa ..................................................................................................... L72 – Villa of the Discobolos .......................................................................

327 327 329

CASTRO DEI VOLSCI ............................................................ L73 – Casale di Madonna del Piano ............................................................

331 331

CIRCEO (Circeii) ................................................................... L74 – Casarina .............................................................................................. L75 – Grotta dei Banditi ............................................................................... L76 – Grotta della Carella ............................................................................ L77 – Grotta della Sibilla .............................................................................. L78 – Imperial Villa ...................................................................................... L79 – Monte Circeo ...................................................................................... L80 – Monte di Leano .................................................................................. L81 – Murone ............................................................................................... L82 – Peretto ................................................................................................. L83 – S. Maria della Sorresca ...................................................................... L84 – S. Vito ................................................................................................. L85 – Torre del Fico ..................................................................................... L86 – Torre Moresca .................................................................................... L87 – Torre Vittoria ...................................................................................... L88 – Villa ..................................................................................................... L89 – Villa ..................................................................................................... L90 – Villetta, also I Quattro Venti ..............................................................

333 335 335 335 337 339 339 341 341 342 342 343 345 347 349 349 349 351

CIVITAVECCHIA (Centumcellae) ............................................. L91 – La Mattonara ...................................................................................... L92 – Punta del Pecoraro ............................................................................. L93 – Punta S. Paolo .................................................................................... L94 – Torre S. Agostino ................................................................................ L95 – Torre Valdaliga ...................................................................................

353 355 355 355 356 357

COTTANELLO (Ager Foronovanus) .......................................... L96 – Cottanello ............................................................................................

359 359

CROCICCHIE ....................................................................... L97 – Crocicchie ...........................................................................................

361 361

FARA IN SABINA .................................................................... L98 – Cures, Monte Elci ............................................................................... L99 – Cures, Zara Madonna ........................................................................ L100 – Passo Corese .....................................................................................

362 362 362 362

FIANELLO ............................................................................. L101 – Fianello ..............................................................................................

363 363

L65 L66 L67 L68 L69 L70

– – – – – –

744

index of villa sites

FIANO ROMANO (Lucus Feroniae) .......................................... L102 – Baciletti ............................................................................................. L103 – Prato la Corte ................................................................................... L104 – Villa “Della Standa” ......................................................................... L105 – Villa Nocioni – Gigliotti ................................................................... L106 – Volusii Saturnini villa .......................................................................

365 365 367 369 371 371

FONDI (Fundi) .......................................................................

372

FORANO ............................................................................... L107 -Gaviniano, Colli Rotti ........................................................................ L108 – Gaviniano, S. Maria Assunta ........................................................... L109 – Gelsetta ............................................................................................. L110 – Le Fornaci, also Colle dei Gradini ...................................................

372 372 372 373 373

FORMIA (Formiae) ................................................................. L111 – Torre Gianola ................................................................................... L112 – Torre Mola ........................................................................................ L113 – Villa Comunale ................................................................................. L114 – Villa Rubino ......................................................................................

373 373 376 377 381

FRASCATI (see also Tusculum) ................................................ L115 – Frascati ..............................................................................................

381 381

FREGENE ............................................................................. L116 – Campo delle Corse ...........................................................................

383 383

GAETA .................................................................................. L117 – Villa della Nave also Villa di Serapo ...............................................

383 383

GENZANO ............................................................................ L118 – Villa of the Antonini ........................................................................

385 385

GROTTAFERRATA ................................................................. L119 – Grottaferrata ....................................................................................

386 386

ISCHIA DI CASTRO ............................................................... L120 – La Selvicciola ....................................................................................

387 387

LADISPOLI (Alsium) .............................................................. L121 – Fosso Sanguisuga .............................................................................. L122 – Marina di Palo .................................................................................. L123 – Torre Flavia ......................................................................................

389 389 389 389

LICENZA (Ager Tiburtinus) ..................................................... L124 – Capo Le Volte ................................................................................... L125 – Catino Hill, also della Villetta Hill .................................................. L126 – Cerri hill ............................................................................................ L127 – Horace villa ....................................................................................... L128 – Mandela ............................................................................................ L129 – La Muraccia ...................................................................................... L130 – Prato La Corte .................................................................................. L131 – Roccagiovine ..................................................................................... L132 – S. Cosimato .......................................................................................

391 391 391 391 393 393 393 395 395 395

index of villa sites

745

L133 – S. Vito Hill ........................................................................................ L134 – Spineto .............................................................................................. L135 – Via Licinese .......................................................................................

396 396 396

MAGLIANO SABINA ............................................................... L136 – Colle Manno ..................................................................................... L137 – Foglia ................................................................................................. L138 – S. Sebastiano .....................................................................................

397 397 397 397

MARINA DI S. NICOLA (Alsium) ............................................. L139 – Marina di S. Nicola ..........................................................................

399 399

MARINO (Castrimoenium) ..................................................... L140 – “Valerii Villa” ................................................................................... L141 – “Voconius Pollio Villa” .....................................................................

401 401 401

MONTEBUONO .................................................................... L142 – Grignano ...........................................................................................

403 403

MONTE CALVO ..................................................................... L143 – Monte Calvo .....................................................................................

403 403

MONTOPOLI ........................................................................ L144 – Bocchignano, Caravilla ..................................................................... L145 – Bocchignano, I Casoni ..................................................................... L146 – Bocchignano, Sala ............................................................................

405 405 407 407

NEMI .................................................................................... L147 – S. Maria ............................................................................................

409 409

NETTUNO ............................................................................ L148 – Castle ................................................................................................. L149 – River “del Mulino” ........................................................................... L150 – “Villa Nesi” .......................................................................................

411 411 413 415

OSTIA (Ostia) ........................................................................ L151 – Dragoncello, Villa ............................................................................. L152 – Dragoncello, Villa .............................................................................

417 417 419

PALO (Alsium) ....................................................................... L153 – Palo ....................................................................................................

419 419

PALOMBARA SABINA ............................................................. L154 – Villa S. Lucia ....................................................................................

421 421

POGGIO CATINO .................................................................. L155 – Casa-Bella ......................................................................................... L156 – Colle Stazi-Caioli .............................................................................. L157 – S. Maria di Constantinopoli ............................................................. L158 – Vigna Paleani ....................................................................................

421 421 422 422 422

POGGIO MIRTETO ............................................................... L159 – Murelle .............................................................................................. L160 – S. Maria in Turano ...........................................................................

423 423 425

746

index of villa sites

L161 – S. Savino ........................................................................................... L162 – S. Valentino, Fornaci ........................................................................

427 427

PONTINE ISLANDS ............................................................... L163 – Ponza (Pontiae), Promontorio della Madonna ................................. L164 – Ponza (Pontiae), S. Antonio Padula ................................................. L165 – Ponza (Pontiae), S. Maria ................................................................. L166 – Santo Stefano .................................................................................... L167 – Ventotene (Pandataria), Punta Eolo ................................................. L168 – Ventotene (Pandataria), Polveriera ................................................... L169 – Zannone ............................................................................................

429 431 431 431 431 433 435 435

PRIVERNO (Privernum) ......................................................... L170 – Priverno .............................................................................................

435 435

PROCOIO DI PIANABELLA .................................................... L171 – Procoio di Pianabella ........................................................................

437 437

PROCOIO NUOVO ................................................................. L172 – Procoio Nuovo ..................................................................................

439 439

QUARTO CAPPELLO DEL PRETE ........................................... L173 – Quarto Cappello del Prete ...............................................................

441 441

RIETI (Reate) ........................................................................ L174 – Grotte di S. Nicolò ........................................................................... L175 – Ponte Capo D’Acqua .......................................................................

441 441 441

ROCCA DI PAPA .................................................................... L176 – Prato Fabio ........................................................................................

442 442

SABINA .................................................................................

443

S. MARINELLA (near Castrum Novum) ................................... L177 – Castello Odescalchi ........................................................................... L178 – Fosso delle Guardiole ........................................................................ L179 – Grottacce ........................................................................................... L180 – Grottini .............................................................................................. L181 – Prato Rotatore .................................................................................. L182 – Punta della Vipera ............................................................................ L183 – Punton di Mare ................................................................................ L184 – Villa Lessona .....................................................................................

443 443 445 447 449 449 449 450 451

S. PALOMBA .......................................................................... L185 – S. Palomba ........................................................................................ L186 – Palazzo ..............................................................................................

453 453 455

SCAURI (Pyrae) ..................................................................... L187 – Scauri ................................................................................................

455 455

SEZZE (Setia) ........................................................................ L188 – Sezze .................................................................................................

455 455

index of villa sites

747

SPERLONGA (Speluncae) ........................................................ L189 – Tiberius’ villa .................................................................................... L190 – “Villa della Rampa” ......................................................................... L191 – Villa delle Acque Salse ..................................................................... L192 – Villa Prato .........................................................................................

457 457 459 461 463

SUBURBIUM OF ROME .......................................................... L193 – Acqua Traversa, also “Villa of Lucius Verus” ................................. L194 – Acquatraversa Springs, also Villa of the Via Cassia ....................... L195 – Auditorium ........................................................................................ L196 – Barbarano Romano .......................................................................... L197 – Borgata Ottavia ................................................................................ L198 – Casal Bianco ..................................................................................... L199 – Casal Bianco, Settecamini ................................................................ L200 – Casal Bruciato ................................................................................... L201 – Casale di Aguzzano .......................................................................... L202 – Casale Ghella .................................................................................... L203 – Casale Monfalcone ........................................................................... L204 – Casalone dell’Osa ............................................................................. L205 – Castel Giubileo ................................................................................. L206 – Castel Giubileo ................................................................................. L207 – Cecchignola ....................................................................................... L208 – Centocelle, ad duas lauros ................................................................... L209 – Centocelle, therma ad duas lauros ........................................................ L210 – Centocelle, villa of the piscina ........................................................... L211 – Cinecittà, Quaietta ........................................................................... L212 – Cinecittà, Subaugusta ....................................................................... L213 – Cinquina ........................................................................................... L214 – Colle Tasso ........................................................................................ L215 – Fortezza Tiburtina ............................................................................ L216 – Fosso dell’Osa ................................................................................... L217 – Fosso di Montegiardino .................................................................... L218 – Fosso Lombardo ................................................................................ L219 – Fosso Santa Maura, Tor Vergata ..................................................... L220 – Grottarossa (Saxa Rubra) ................................................................. L221 – Grotte Celoni .................................................................................... L222 – Grotte di Cervara ............................................................................. L223 – Infernaccio ........................................................................................ L224 – Macchia Piana di S. Vittorino ......................................................... L225 – Marcigliana ....................................................................................... L226 – Maxentius’ Villa ................................................................................ L227 – Muracciola ........................................................................................ L228 – Ospedaletto Annunziata ................................................................... L229 – Podere Anna, also Podere Rosa ....................................................... L230 – Prima Porta, “ad gallinas albas” ......................................................... L231 – Prima Porta, Cimitero Flaminio ...................................................... L232 – Prima Porta, Quarto di Montebello ................................................. L233 – Prima Porta, Valle Lunga ................................................................. L234 – Prima Porta, Via Tiberina ................................................................ L235 – Prima Porta, Villa della Terma ........................................................ L236 – Quintilii Villa .................................................................................... L237 – S. Alessandro ..................................................................................... L238 – S. Anastasio .......................................................................................

465 465 467 469 470 471 473 473 475 475 477 479 479 481 483 485 487 487 489 491 491 493 493 495 497 499 501 503 505 507 507 507 509 509 511 513 515 517 519 521 523 525 527 529 531 533 535

748 L239 L240 L241 L242 L243 L244 L245 L246 L247 L248 L249 L250 L251 L252 L253 L254 L255 L256 L257 L258 L259 L260 L261

index of villa sites – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

S. Basilio ............................................................................................ Settebassi Villa .................................................................................. Tenuta Serpentara ............................................................................ Tomba di Nerone ............................................................................. Tor Carbone, “Domus Marmeniae” ................................................... Tor de’ Schiavi or Gordiani ............................................................. Tor Marancia .................................................................................... Torre Maura ..................................................................................... Torre S. Eusebio ............................................................................... Torre Spaccata .................................................................................. Torrino .............................................................................................. Via Ardeatina .................................................................................... Via Capobianco ................................................................................ Via Carciano ..................................................................................... Via Casalotti ..................................................................................... Via Lucrezia Romana ....................................................................... Via Pollenza ...................................................................................... Via Quadraro .................................................................................... Via Ripa Mammea ........................................................................... Via Togliatti ...................................................................................... Via Vigne Nuove, “Faon’s” Villa ...................................................... Via Vigne Nuove, Val Melaina ........................................................ Villa delle Vignacce ..........................................................................

535 537 539 539 541 541 543 545 545 546 547 549 549 551 552 553 555 557 557 559 559 561 561

SUPINO (Supinum) ................................................................ L262 – Supino ...............................................................................................

562 562

SUTRI (Sutrium) .................................................................... L263 – S. Giovanni a Pollo ...........................................................................

562 562

TARQUINIA (Tarquinii) .......................................................... L264 – Martanum ......................................................................................... L265 – Portaccia ............................................................................................ L266 – Vigna Grande ...................................................................................

562 562 562 563

TERRACINA (Tarracina) ......................................................... L267 – “Villa of the Sulpicii Galbae” ..........................................................

565 565

TIVOLI (Tibur) ...................................................................... L268 – Acquoria ............................................................................................ L269 – Acquoria ............................................................................................ L270 – Casale Rosa ....................................................................................... L271 – Casale S. Angelo ............................................................................... L272 – “Cassius’ Villa” ................................................................................. L273 – Colle Lecinone .................................................................................. L274 – Colle Nocello, northwest side ........................................................... L275 – Colle Nocello, southeast side ............................................................ L276 – Colle Nocello, west side .................................................................... L277 – Colle Ripoli, Troianello .................................................................... L278 – Colle S. Antonio (or Colle Rosa) ..................................................... L279 – Colle Vitriano ................................................................................... L280 – Colle Vitriano, east side ................................................................... L281 – Colle Vitriano, north side ................................................................. L282 – Colle Vitriano, west side ...................................................................

567 567 567 567 568 568 568 569 569 569 569 570 570 570 571 571

index of villa sites L283 L284 L285 L286 L287 L288 L289 L290 L291 L292 L293 L294 L295 L296 L297 L298 L299

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

749

Colli di S. Stefano ............................................................................. Due Macere ...................................................................................... Galli ................................................................................................... Granaraccio ...................................................................................... Grotta Papale .................................................................................... Guidonia ........................................................................................... Guidonia, Inviolata ........................................................................... Lecinone, Scalzacane ........................................................................ Lecinone, Scalzacane ........................................................................ Monte Giorgio/Colle Piano ............................................................. Pianelle dei Signori Reali ................................................................. Quintiliolo ......................................................................................... Via Colli di S. Stefano ...................................................................... Via delle Piagge ................................................................................ Villa ................................................................................................... Villa ................................................................................................... Villa Gregoriana ...............................................................................

573 573 574 574 575 577 578 578 579 579 579 581 581 581 581 582 582

“Villa of the Pisones” ............................................................ L300 – “Villa of the Pisones” #70 ............................................................... L301 – “Villa of the Pisones” #72 ............................................................... L302 – “Villa of the Pisones” #73 ...............................................................

583 583 585 587

TOR BELLA MONACA ............................................................

588

TOR CALDARA ...................................................................... L303 – Tor Caldara ......................................................................................

588 588

TUSCULUM .......................................................................... L304 – Abbazia di S. Nilo ............................................................................ L305 – Bel Poggio ......................................................................................... L306 – Camaldoli .......................................................................................... L307 – Cappellette ........................................................................................ L308 – Cappuccini ........................................................................................ L309 – Casaccia ............................................................................................ L310 – Casalaccio ......................................................................................... L311 – Casale Bevilacqua ............................................................................. L312 – Casale Brandolini-Casale Mazzini ................................................... L313 – Casale Celli ....................................................................................... L314 – Casale Celli ....................................................................................... L315 – Casale Fiorano .................................................................................. L316 – Casale Grande .................................................................................. L317 – Casale Segni ...................................................................................... L318 – Casale Sonnino ................................................................................. L319 – Casale Venturini ............................................................................... L320 – Castel de Paolis ................................................................................. L321 – Castel Savelli ..................................................................................... L322 – Castel Savelli – Borghetto ................................................................ L323 – Cipriana ............................................................................................ L324 – Cocciano ........................................................................................... L325 – Colle delle Ginestre .......................................................................... L326 – Colle Giudice .................................................................................... L327 – Colle Pisano ...................................................................................... L328 – Colle Pisano ......................................................................................

591 592 592 593 593 594 594 594 595 595 595 595 596 596 597 597 597 599 599 599 600 601 601 602 602 603

750 L329 L330 L331 L332 L333 L334 L335 L336 L337 L338 L339 L340 L341 L342 L343 L344 L345 L346 L347 L348 L349 L350 L351 L352 L353 L354 L355 L356 L357 L358 L359

index of villa sites – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Convento delle Monache ................................................................. Cornufelle ......................................................................................... Fontana Candida .............................................................................. Fontana del Piscaro ........................................................................... Monte Porzio Catone ....................................................................... Monte Porzio Catone ....................................................................... Monte Salomone .............................................................................. Monti Tuscolani ................................................................................ Montione ........................................................................................... Pallotta .............................................................................................. Parco ................................................................................................. Petroccetto ......................................................................................... Quarto Montione ............................................................................. La Rufnella ...................................................................................... Selva di Mondragone ....................................................................... Spinetta ............................................................................................. Sterpara ............................................................................................. Ventidue Rubbia ............................................................................... Vermicino .......................................................................................... Vigna Ferri ........................................................................................ Villa Campovecchio .......................................................................... “Villa dei Furii”, so-called ................................................................ Villa Domitilla .................................................................................. Villa Falconieri .................................................................................. Villa Gammarelli .............................................................................. Villa la Torretta ................................................................................ Villa Lucidi ....................................................................................... Villa Mondragone ............................................................................. Villa Muti .......................................................................................... Villa Rasponi .................................................................................... Villa Torlonia ....................................................................................

605 606 607 609 611 613 613 614 614 614 615 615 616 616 617 617 617 618 618 618 619 621 622 622 622 623 625 625 626 626 627

VACONE ............................................................................... L360 – Sassogrosso ........................................................................................

629 629

VEIO (Veii) ............................................................................ L361 – Villa Campetti ...................................................................................

631 631

VELLETRI (Velitrae) .............................................................. L362 – S. Cesareo .........................................................................................

633 633

VESCOVIO (Forum Novum) .................................................... L363 – Vescovio .............................................................................................

634 634

VIA CASSIA ........................................................................... L364 – Campana ........................................................................................... L365 – Casale Sili ......................................................................................... L366 – Costa del Follettino ........................................................................... L367 – Monte Lupoli #20 ............................................................................ L368 – Monte Lupoli #31 ............................................................................ L369 – Osteria dell’Ellera ............................................................................. L370 – Ponte S. Silvestro .............................................................................. L371 – Via Cassia, km 27 .............................................................................

637 637 637 637 637 638 638 639 639

index of villa sites

751

VIA GABINA .......................................................................... L372 – Site 10 ............................................................................................... L373 – Site 11: villa with small hortus ...........................................................

641 641 643

VIA PALOMBARESE (Ager Ficulensis) ...................................... L374 – Via Marco Simone ...........................................................................

643 643

VITERBO .............................................................................. L375 – Asinello .............................................................................................. L376 – Bagnaccio .......................................................................................... L377 – Faggianello ........................................................................................ L378 – Ficoncella .......................................................................................... L379 – Fonti .................................................................................................. L380 – La Mattonara .................................................................................... L381 – Paliano ............................................................................................... L382 – Panatta .............................................................................................. L383 – Strada del Diavolo ............................................................................ L384 – Tobia .................................................................................................

645 645 646 646 646 646 647 647 647 647 647

TUSCANY ANSEDONIA (Cosa) ................................................................ T1 – Le Colonne ........................................................................................... T2 – La Provinca (sic!) .................................................................................. T3 – Settenestre ........................................................................................... T4 – La Tagliata or Torre Tagliata (also known as Torre S. Biagio) ..........

651 651 653 655 659

ASCIANO .............................................................................. T5 – Asciano .................................................................................................

661 661

LA BEFA ................................................................................ T6 – Carcerelle ..............................................................................................

663 663

CAPRAIA ISLAND (Caprasia) .................................................. T7 – Capraia .................................................................................................

664 664

CASTELNUOVO BERARDENGA .............................................. T8 – Fontealpino ...........................................................................................

665 665

CASTIGLIONCELLO .............................................................. T9 – Castinglioncello ....................................................................................

665 665

CHIANCIANO TERME (Ager Clusinus) .................................... T10 – Le Camerelle ...................................................................................... T11 – Mezzomiglio ....................................................................................... T12 – Montauto ............................................................................................ T13 – Palazzo Bandino .................................................................................

665 665 666 667 667

CORTONA (Cortona) .............................................................. T14 – Ossaia .................................................................................................

667 667

752

index of villa sites

ELBA ISLAND (Ilva) ............................................................... T15 – Villa della Linguella ........................................................................... T16 – “Villa delle Grotte” ............................................................................ T17 – Villa di Capo Castello or del Cavo ...................................................

670 670 673 675

GAIOLE IN CHIANTI ............................................................. T18 – Pieve di S. Marcellino ........................................................................

675 675

GIANNUTRI ISLAND (Dianium) .............................................. T19 – Giannutri ............................................................................................

677 677

GIGLIO ISLAND (Igilium) ....................................................... T20 – Giglio ..................................................................................................

677 677

GORGONA ISLAND ................................................................ T21 – Gorgona ..............................................................................................

678 678

GUARDISTALLO .................................................................... T22 – Ricrio ..................................................................................................

679 679

LIVORNO ............................................................................. T23 – Rosignano Marittimo ......................................................................... T24 – S. Vincenzino .....................................................................................

679 679 681

MANCIANO – MARSILIANA .................................................... T25 – Banditella ............................................................................................ T26 – Casale Vittorio Veneto ....................................................................... T27 – Poggio del Ginestraio .........................................................................

682 682 682 683

MASSACIUCCOLI .................................................................. T28 – Venulei Villa .......................................................................................

685 685

MONTE ARGENTARIO (Argentarius) ....................................... T29 – Grotte di Port’Ercole .......................................................................... T30 – Porto S. Stefano, Muracci .................................................................. T31 – Porto S. Stefano, S. Liberata ............................................................. T32 – Tombolo della Giannella .................................................................... T33 – Torre Calvello ..................................................................................... T34 – Torre delle Saline ...............................................................................

687 687 687 689 689 689 690

MONTELUPO ........................................................................ T35 – Montelupo ..........................................................................................

691 691

PIANOSA ISLAND (Planasia) ................................................... T36 – Pianosa ................................................................................................

693 693

POPULONIA (Populonium) ..................................................... T37 – Poggio Grattalocchio .......................................................................... T38 – Poggio Molino .................................................................................... T39 – Poggio S. Leonardo ............................................................................ T40 – Villa Le Logge ....................................................................................

695 695 697 698 698

index of villa sites

753

POPULONIA – VENTURINA PLAIN ......................................... T41 – Cafaggio .............................................................................................. T42 – Casalpiano, Podere Macchialta .......................................................... T43 – Vignale ................................................................................................

699 699 699 699

SCANSANO ........................................................................... T44 – Campo della Chiesa ........................................................................... T45 – Fattoria Pomonte ................................................................................ T46 – Fattoria Pomonte ................................................................................

701 701 702 703

TALAMONE (Telamon) ........................................................... T47 – Madonna delle Grazie (also S. Francesca or Le Tombe) .................. T48 – Podere Civitella .................................................................................. T49 – Poggio Mulinaccio ..............................................................................

705 705 705 705

VOLTERRA (Volaterrae) ......................................................... T50 – Pieve Vecchia di Casale Marittimo ....................................................

706 706

UMBRIA ALVIANO SCALO ................................................................... U1 – Popigliano .............................................................................................

713 713

ASSISI (Asisium) .................................................................... U2 – Torchiagina ...........................................................................................

713 713

CASTIGLION DEL LAGO (Ager Clusinus) ................................. U3 – Le Buccacce ......................................................................................... U4 – Poggio S. Maria ...................................................................................

714 714 714

FOLIGNO (Fulginiae) ............................................................. U5 – Piani di Ricciano ..................................................................................

714 714

GUARDEA ............................................................................. U6 – Cocciano, Pian del Ceraso ..................................................................

715 715

LUGNANO IN TEVERINA ....................................................... U7 – Poggio Gramignano .............................................................................

717 717

MASSA MARTANA .................................................................. U8 – Mausoleo ..............................................................................................

717 717

NARNI (Narnia) ..................................................................... U9 – Molino del Passatore ............................................................................

718 718

PENNA IN TEVERINA ............................................................ U10 – Muralto ............................................................................................... U11 – Pennavecchia ......................................................................................

719 719 721

PERUGIA (Perusia) ................................................................ U12 – Civitella d’Arno .................................................................................. U13 – Deruta ................................................................................................ U14 – Montone .............................................................................................

723 723 725 725

754

index of villa sites

U15 – Ripa .................................................................................................... U16 – S. Lucia .............................................................................................. U17 – Valcaprara ..........................................................................................

727 727 728

PIETRALUNGA ...................................................................... U18 – Colle Preiano ...................................................................................... U19 – Fossalto ...............................................................................................

731 731 731

SPELLO (Hispellum) .............................................................. U20 – Orticello .............................................................................................. U21 – Portonaccio .........................................................................................

733 733 733

SPOLETO (Spoletium) ............................................................ U22 – Villa Redenta ......................................................................................

735 735

S. GIUSTINO ......................................................................... U23 – Colle Plinio ......................................................................................... U24 – Pitigliano .............................................................................................

737 737 738

TODI (Tuder) ........................................................................ U25 – Grutti .................................................................................................. U26 – Le Carceri .......................................................................................... U27 – Scoppieto ............................................................................................ U28 – Vasciano ............................................................................................. .

738 738 738 739 739

LIST OF VILLA PLANS

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

L1 L2 L3 L4 L7 L10

Figure L11 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

L12 L14 L16 L18 L22 L23 L24 L31 L41 L42 L43 L49 L58 L59 L60 L63 L64a L64b L64c L64d L71 L72 L73 L74 L77 L78 L81 L85 L86 L87 L90a L90b L91 L95 L96 L102 L103

Acilia, Malafede-Fralana (after Chiarucci 2000) Albano, Cavallacci (after Chiarucci 2000) Albano, Ercolano (after Lugli 1915) Albano, Imperial Villa (after Lugli 1915) Albano, Villa on the Lake (after Chiarucci 1985) Anguillara Sabazia, Albucetto-Tragliatella (after Soprintendenza per l’Etruria Meridionale) Anguillara Sabazia, Mura di S. Stefano, plan and elevation of inner S wall (after Painter 1980) Anguillara Sabazia, Villa dell’Acqua Claudia (after Vighi 1940) Anzio, Villa Mastrella (after De Meis 1986) Artena, Pian della Civita (after Brouillard and Gadeyne 2003) Astura, La Banca: shpond (after Piccarreta 1977) Astura, La Saracca: shpond (after Higginbotham 1997) Astura, La Saracca (after Piccarreta 1977) Astura, Torre Astura (after Piccarreta 1977) Blera, Conserva (after Quilici Gigli 1976) Blera, Selvasecca (after Terrenato 2001b) Boville, Casal Morena (after Coarelli 1981) Boville, Centroni (after Cozza 1952) Capena, Giardino (after Potter 1979) Castel Fusano, La Chiesola (after Lauro 1998) Castel Fusano, Villa Plinio (after Ramieri 1995) Castel Di Guido, Colonnacce (after De Franceschini 2005) Castelporziano, Grotte di Piastra (after Castelporziano 1985) Castelporziano, Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa, E4-5 (Castelporziano 1988) Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa, E6 (after Lauro 1998) Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa, F3–4 (after Lauro 1998) Tor Paterno, Imperial Villa, F12 (after Lauro 1998) Castelporziano-Capocotta, G2 (after Lauro 1998) Castelporziano-Capocotta, Villa of the Discobolos (after Lauro 1998) Castro dei Volsci, Casale di Madonna del Piano (after Laurenti 1990) Circeo, Casarina (after Lugli 1928) Circeo, Grotta Sibilla (after Lugli 1928) Circeo, Imperial Villa (after Lugli 1928) Circeo, Murone (after Lugli 1928) Circeo, Torre del Fico (after Lafon 2001) Circeo, Torre Moresca (after Lugli 1928) Circeo, Torre Vittoria (after Lugli 1928) Circeo, Villetta: 1st terrace (after Lugli 1928) Circeo, Villetta: 2nd terrace (after Lugli 1928) Civitavecchia, La Mattonara (after Lafon 2001) Civitavecchia, Torre Valdaliga: shpond (after Schmiedt 1972) Cottanello (after Sternini 2000) Fiano Romano, Baciletti (after Fontana 1995) Fiano Romano, Prato la Corte (after Fontana 1995)

756

list of villa plans

Figure Figure Figure Figure

L104 L106 L111 L113

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

L114 L116 L118 L127 L130 L139 L141 L142 L145 L147 L148 L149 L150 L151 L152 L154 L160 L161 L163 L167 L168 L171 L172 L173 L178a

Figure L178b Figure L179 Figure L185 Figure L186 Figure L189 Figure L191 Figure L192a Figure L192b Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

L194 L195 L198 L200 L202 L203 L205 L206 L207 L208 L210

Fiano Romano, Villa “della Standa” (after Gazzetti 1992) Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini (after Sgubini-Moretti 1998) Formia, Torre Gianola (after Ciccone 1990) Formia, Villa Comunale: shpond (after Aurigemma and de Santis 1955) Formia, Villa Rubino (after Coarelli 1982) Fregene, Campo della Corse (after De Franceschini 2005) Genzano, Villa of the Antonini (after Cassieri and Ghini 1990) Licenza, Horace Villa (after Lugli 1966) Licenza, Prato La Corte (after Mari 1994) Marina di S. Nicola (after Caruso 1995) Marino, s.c. villa of Voconius Pollio (after Mielsch 1987) Montebuono, Grignano (after Sternini 2004) Montopoli, Bocchignano: I Casoni (after Sternini 2004) Nemi, S. Maria (after Guldager Bilde 2003) Nettuno, shpond (after Jacono 1924) Nettuno, shpond (after Jacono 1924) Nettuno, shpond (after Jacono 1924) Ostia, Dragoncello (L151) (after De Franceschini 2005) Ostia, Dragoncello (L152) (after De Franceschini 2005) Palombara Sabina, Villa S. Lucia (after Alvino 1990) Poggio Mirteto, S. Maria in Turano (after Sternini 2004) Poggio Mirteto, S. Savino (after Sternini 2004) Ponza, Promontorio della Madonna (after Mielsch 1987) Pontine Islands, Ventotene: Punta Eolo (after Lafon 2001) Ventotene, Polveriera (after Lafon 2001) Procoio di Pianabella (after Lauro 1984) Procoio Nuovo (after De Franceschini 2005) Quarto Cappello del Prete (after De Franceschini 2005) S. Marinella, Fosso delle Guardiole: overview of villa and shponds (after Gianfrotta 1972) S. Marinella, Fosso delle Guardiole: detail of villa remains (after Gianfrotta 1972) S. Marinella, Grottacce (after De Rossi 1968) S. Palomba (after De Franceschini 2005) S. Palomba, Palazzo (after De Franceschini 2005) Sperlonga, Tiberius’ Villa (after Saguì 1980) Sperlonga, Villa Delle Acque Salse (after De Rossi 1980) Sperlonga, Villa Prato (after Broise and Lafon 2001) Sperlonga, Villa Prato: detail of pars urbana and bath suite (after Broise and Lafon 2001) Suburbium, Acquatraversa Springs (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Auditorium (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Casal Bianco (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Casal Bruciato (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Casale Ghella (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Casale Monfalcone (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Castel Giubileo (L205) (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Castel Giubileo (L206) (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Cecchignola (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Centocelle: Ad Duas Lauros (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Centocelle, Villa of the Piscina (after Gioia and Volpe 2004)

list of villa plans Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

L212 L213 L215 L216 L217 L218 L219 L220 L222 L225 L226 L227 L228 L229 L230 L231

Figure L232 Figure L233 Figure L234 Figure L235 Figure L236a Figure L236b Figure L237 Figure L239 Figure L240a Figure L240b Figure L241 Figure L243 Figure L245 Figure L246 Figure L250 Figure L252 Figure L255 Figure L256 Figure L258 Figure L261 Figure L267 Figure L283 Figure L288 Figure L294 Figure L301 Figure L302 Figure L320 Figure L329 Figure L332 Figure L334 Figure L350 Figure L355 Figure L360 Figure L361

757

Suburbium, Cinecittà: Subaugusta (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Cinquina (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Fortezza Tiburtina (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Fosso dell’Osa (after Carandini 1985b) Suburbium, Fosso di Montegiardino (after Carandini 1985b) Suburbium, Fosso Lombardo (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Fosso S. Maura (after Carandini 1985b) Suburbium, Grottarossa (after Stefani 1944) Suburbium, Grotte di Cervara (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Marcigliana (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Maxentius’ villa (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Muracciola (after Carandini 1985b) Suburbium, Ospedaletto Annunziata (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Podere Anna (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Prima Porta: Ad Gallinas Albas (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Prima Porta: Cimitero Flaminio (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Prima Porta: Quarto di Montebello (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Prima Porta: Valle Lunga (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Prima Porta: Via Tiberina (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Prima Porta: Villa della Terma (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Quintilii Villa: overview (after Paris 2000) Suburbium, Quintilii Villa: detail (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, S. Alessandro (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, S. Basilio (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Settebassi Villa: overview (after Coarelli 1981) Suburbium, Settebassi Villa: detail (after Coarelli 1981) Suburbium, Tenuta Sepentara (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Tor Carbone (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Tor Marancia (after Mielsch 1987) Suburbium, Torre Maura (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Via Ardeatina (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Via Carciano (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Via Pollenza (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Via Quadraro (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Via Togliatti (after De Franceschini 2005) Suburbium, Vignacce (after Coarelli 1981) Terracina, “Villa of the Sulpicii Galbae” (after Coarelli 1982) Tivoli, Colli S. Stefano (after Coarelli 1982) Tivoli, Guidonia (after Caprino 1944–45) Tivoli, Quitiliolo (after Mari and Boanelli 1991) Tivoli, “Villa of the Pisones” (L301) (after Coarelli 1982) Tivoli, “Villa of the Pisones” (L302) (after Coarelli 1982) Tusculum, Castel de Paolis (after Egidi 1981) Tusculum, Convento delle Monache (after Valenti 2003) Tusculum, Fontana del Piscaro (after Valenti 2003) Tusculum, Monte Porzio Catone (L334) (Valenti 2003) Tusculum, “Villa Dei Furii” (after Valenti 2003) Tusculum, Villa Lucidi (after Valenti 2003) Vacone, Sassogrosso (after Stermini 2004) Veio, Villa Campetti (after De Franceschini 2005)

758 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

list of villa plans L362 L372 L373 T1 T2 T3 T4a

Velletri, S Cesareo (after Vighi 1941b) Via Gabina Site 10 (after Painter 1980) Via Gabina Site 11 (after Painter 1980) Ansedonia, Le Colonne (after Dyson 2002) Ansedonia, La Provinca (sic! ) (after Carandini and Cambi 2002) Ansedonia, Settenestre (after Carandini 1985a) Ansedonia, La Tagliata: overview (after Ciampoltrini and Rendini 1990) T4b Ansedonia, La Tagliata: Area B (after Ciampoltrini and Rendini 1990) T6 La Befa, Carcerelle (after Dobbins 1983) T16 Elba, Villa Delle Grotte (after Pancrazzi and Ducci 1996) T19 Giannutri (after Rosati 1992) T24 Livorno, S. Vincenzino (after Bejor 1985) T28 Massaciuccoli, Venulei Villa (after Ciampoltrini 1994) T31 Monte Argentario, Porto S. Stefano: S. Liberata (after Pasquinucci 1982) T36 Pianosa (after Schmiedt 1972) T38 Populonia, Poggio Molino (after Saladino 1984) T44 Scansano, Campo della Chiesa (after Del Chiaro 1990) T47 Talamone, Madonna delle Grazie (after Carandini and Cambi 2002) U1 Alviano Scalo, Popigliano (after Ville e insediamenti 1983) U7 Lugnano in Teverina, Poggio Gramignano (Soren 1999) U11 Penna in Teverina, Pennavecchia (after Ville e insediamenti 1983) U13 Perugia, Deruta (after Ville e insediamenti 1983) U15 Perugia, Ripa (after Ville e insediamenti 1983) U18 Pietralunga, Colle Preiano (after Ville e insediamenti 1983) U20 Spello, Orticello (after Ville e insediamenti 1983) U22 Spoleto, Villa Redenta (after Ville e insediamenti 1983) U23a S. Giustino, Colle Plinio: early 1st century phase (after Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999) U23b S. Giustino, Colle Plinio: Plinian phase (after Braconi and Uroz Sáez 1999)

APPENDIX A

CHRONOLOGY OF VILLA SITES

The use of this list should be paired with consultation of the correspondent entry in the catalogue, where it is explained what the available dating elements are in each case (i.e., building activity dated to a certain era or material nds, such as pottery, etc.). If excavators detected a building phase in, say, the rst century a.d. and recovered artifacts dating to the third century a.d., the time span of villa occupation that is assumed below covers the period from the rst to the third century, unless the excavations specically detected that a site was abandoned and then occupied again at a later time. In this case, the box referring to the century between the two attested phases is left blank. In the case of eld survey, the chronological span indicated by the objects recovered is reported as being the lifespan of the villa, but this picture may very well change if excavations should occur in the future. Finally, the data used to elaborate the charts are what is available in publications, but they do not necessarily offer the complete picture about a given site.

Chronology of Villa Sites in Latium Villa #

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Name

Malafede-Fralana Cavalacci Ercolano Imperial Villa Palazzolo Train Station Area Villa on the Lake Poggio Ameno Via Cipressetti Albucetto-Tragliatella Mura di S. Stefano V. Acqua Claudia Anzio Villa Mastrella S. Pietro a Campea Pian della Civita La Banca La Banca Colle Falcone Le Grottacce Pantano dei Frati

Location

Acilia Albano

Albano – Ariccia Ang. Sabazia

Anzio Aquino Artena Astura

2nd c. b.c.

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

760

appendix a Villa

#

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

Name

La Saracca La Saracca Torre Astura Valle di Foglino Castellina Pecugliaro Prato Casale S. Pietro Csl. Valle Falsetta Conserva Fornaci Marchionato Pian della Creta Pian della Noce Piscina Poggio delle Cerquete Poggio di Formello S.Giovanni in Tuscia S. Mariano Selvasecca Casal Morena Centroni Villa Colle Tulliano Oppitola S. Adamo S. Stefano S. Vito Giardino Monte Canino Fonte del Lupo Muracciolo Oriano Poggio Cavaliere Vico Lake Paranzano S. Maria in Legarano La Chiesola Villa Plinio Colonnacce Quarticcioli Fosso del Pantanello Grotte di Piastra Tor Paterno Tor Paterno Villa Villa Villa Villa Villa Villa

Location

Bassano di Sutri

Blera

Boville Cantalupo

Capena Capranica

Casperia Castel Fusano Castel di Guido Castel Giuliano Castelporziano

Cstlprz. – Capocotta

2nd c. b.c.

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

chronology of villa sites Villa #

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

Name

Villa of the Discobolos Csl. Madonna del Piano Casarina Grotta dei Banditi Grotta della Carella Grotta della Sibilla Imperial Villa Monte Circeo Monte di Leano Al Murone Peretto S. Maria della Sorresca S. Vito Torre del Fico Torre Moresca Torre Vittoria Villa Villa Villetta La Mattonara Punta del Pecoraro Punta S. Paolo Torre S. Agostino Torre Valdaliga Cottanello Crocicchie Cures, Monte Elci Cures, Zara Madonna Passo Corese Fianello Baciletti Prato La Corte Villa “Della Standa” Villa Nocioni-Gigliotti Volusii Saturnini Villa Gaviniano, Colli Rotti Gaviniano, S. Maria Ass. Gelsetta Le Fornaci Torre Gianola Torre Mola Villa Comunale Villa Rubino Frascati Campo delle Corse Villa della Nave Villa degli Antonini Grottaferrata La Selvicciola

Location

Castro dei Volsci Circeo

Civitavecchia

Cottanello Crocicchie Fara in Sabina

Fianello Fiano Romano

Forano

Formia

Frascati Fregene Gaeta Genzano Grottaferrata Ischia di Castro

2nd c. b.c.

761

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

762

appendix a Villa

#

121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168

Name

Fosso Sanguisuga Marina di Palo Torre Flavia Capo le Volte Catino Hill Cerri Hill Horace Villa Mandela La Muraccia Prato La Corte Roccagiovine S. Cosimato S. Vito Hill Spineto Via Licinese Colle Manno Foglia S. Sebastiano Marina di S. Nicola Valerii Villa Voconius Pollio’s Villa Grignano Monte Calvo Bocchignano, Caravilla Bocchignano, I Casoni Bocchignano, Sala S. Maria Castle of Sangallo River del Mulino Villa Nesi Dragoncello, Villa Dragoncello, Villa Palo Villa S. Lucia Casa-Bella Colle Stazi-Caioli S. Maria di Const. Vigna Paleani Murelle S. Maria in Turano S. Savino S. Valentino, Fornaci Ponza, P. Madonna Ponza, S. Antonio Padula Ponza, S. Maria Santo Stefano Isl Ventotene Isl, P. Eolo Ventotene Isl, Polveriera

Location

Ladispoli

Licenza

Magliano Sabina

Marina di S. Nicola Marino Montebuono Monte Calvo Montopoli

Nemi Nettuno

Ostia Palo Palombara Sabina Poggio Catino

Poggio Mirteto

Pontine Islands

2nd c. b.c.

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

chronology of villa sites Villa #

169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216

Name

Zannone Priverno Procoio di Pianabella Procoio Nuovo Quarto Cappello del Prete Grotte di S. Nicolò Ponte Capo d’Acqua Prato Fabio Castello Odescalchi Fosso delle Guardiole Grottacce Grottini Prato Rotatore Punta della Vipera Punton di Mare Villa Lessona S. Palomba Palazzo Scauri Sezze Tiberius’ Villa Villa della Rampa Villa delle Acque Salse Villa Prato Acqua Traversa Acquatraversa Springs Auditorium Barbarano Romano Borgata Ottavia Casal Bianco Csl. Bianco, Settecamini Casal Bruciato Casale di Aguzzano Casale Ghella Casale Monfalcone Casalone dell’Osa Castel Giubileo, Villa Castel Giubileo, Villa Cecchignola Cntcelle. Ad Duas Lauros Centocelle, Therma Centocelle, V. Piscina Cinecittà, Quaietta Cinecittà, Subaugusta Cinquina Colle Tasso Fortezza Tiburtina Fosso dell’Osa

Location

Priverno Pr.di Pianabella Procoio Nuovo Q. Cappello del Prete Rieti Rocca di Papa S. Marinella

S. Palomba Scauri Sezze Sperlonga

Suburbium

2nd c. b.c.

763

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

764

appendix a Villa

#

217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264

Name

Fosso di Montegiardino Fosso Lombardo Fosso S. Maura Grottarossa Grotte Celoni Grotte di Cervara Infernaccio Macchia Piana Marcigliana Maxentius’ Villa Muracciola Ospedaletto Annunziata Podere Anna P.P., “Ad Gallinas Albas” P.P., Cimitero Flaminio P.P., Qrto di Montebello P.P., Valle Lunga P.P., Via Tiberina P.P., Villa Terma Quintilii Villa S. Alessandro S. Anastasio S. Basilio Settebassi Villa Tenuta Serpentara Tomba di Nerone Tor Carbone Tor De’ Schiavi Tor Marancia Torre Maura Torre S. Eusebio Torre Spaccata Torrino Via Ardeatina Via Capobianco Via Carciano Via Casalotti Via Lucrezia Romana Via Pollenza Via Quadraro Via Ripa Mammea Via Togliatti “Faon’s” Villa Val Melaina Villa della Vignacce Supino S. Giovanni a Pollo Martanum

Location

Supino Sutri Tarquinia

2nd c. b.c.

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

chronology of villa sites Villa #

265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312

Name

Portaccia Vigna Grande Villa Sulpicii Galbae Acquoria, Villa Acquoria, Villa Casale Rosa Casale S. Angelo Cassius’ Villa Colle Lecinone Colle Nocello, NW Colle Nocello, SE Colle Nocello, W Colle Ripoli, Troianello Colle S. Antonio Colle Vitriano Colle Vitriano, E Colle Vitriano, N Colle Vitriano, W Colli di S. Stefano Due Macere Galli Granaraccio Grotta Papale Guidonia Guidonia, Inviolata Lecinone, Scalzacane Lecinone, Scalzacane Monte Giorgio Pianelle dei Signori Reali Quintiliolo Via Colli di S. Stefano Via Delle Piagge Villa Villa Villa Gregoriana Villa of the Pisones #70 Villa of the Pisones #72 Villa of the Pisones #73 Tor Caldara Abbazia di S. Nilo Bel Poggio Camaldoli Cappellette I Cappuccini Casaccia Casalaccio Casale Bevilacqua Casale Brandolini

Location

Terracina Tivoli

Tor Caldara Tusculum

2nd c. b.c.

765

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

766

appendix a Villa

#

313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362

Name

Casale Celli Casale Celli Casale Fiorano Casale Grande Casale Segni Casale Sonnino Casale Venturini Castel de Paolis Castel Savelli Cstl. Savelli – Borghetto Cipriana Cocciano Colle delle Ginestre Colle Giudice Colle Pisano Colle Pisano Convento delle Monache Cornufelle Fontana Candida Fontana del Piscaro Monte Porzio Catone Monte Porzio Catone Monte Salomone Monti Tuscolani Montione Pallotta Parco Petroccetto Quarto Montione La Rufnella Selva di Mondragone Spinetta Sterpara Ventidue Rubbia Vermicino Vigna Ferri Villa Campovecchio Villa dei Furii Villa Domitilla Villa Falconieri Villa Gammarelli Villa la Torretta Villa Lucidi Villa Mondragone Villa Muti Villa Rasponi Villa Torlonia Sassogrosso Villa di Campetti S. Cesareo

Location

Vacone Veio Velletri

2nd c. b.c.

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

chronology of villa sites Villa #

363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384

Name

Vescovio Campana Casale Sili Costa del Follettino Monte Lupoli 20 Monte Lupoli 31 Osteria dell’Ellera Ponte S. Silvestro Via Cassia, km 27 Site 10 Site 11 Via Marco Simone Asinello Bagnaccio Faggianello Ficoncella Fonti La Mattonara Paliano Panatta Strada del Diavolo Tobia

Location

Vescovio Via Cassia

Via Gabina Via Palombarese Viterbo

2nd c. b.c.

767

Attested Phases 1st c. 1st c. 2nd c. 3rd c. b.c. a.d. a.d. a.d.

4th c. a.d.

5th c. a.d.

768

appendix a Chronology of Villa Sites in Tuscany

# 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Villa NAME Le Colonne La Provinca Settenestre La Tagliata Asciano Carcerelle Capraia Island Fontealpino Castiglioncello Le Camarelle Mezzomiglio Montauto Palazzo Bandino Ossaia Villa della Linguella Villa delle Grotte V. di Capo Castello P. di S. Marcellino Giannutri Island Giglio Island Gorgona Island Ricrio R. Marittimo S. Vincenzino Banditella C. Vittorio Veneto P. del Ginestraio Venulei Villa Grotte di Port’Ercole Muracci S. Liberata Tomb.della Giannella Torre Calvello Torre delle Saline Montelupo Pianosa Island P. Grattalocchio Poggio Molino Poggio S. Leonardo Villa le Logge Cafaggio Casalpiano Vignale Campo della Chiesa Fattoria Pomonte Fattoria Pomonte Mdn. della Grazie Podere Civitella Poggio Mulinaccio P. di Casale M.

Location Ansedonia

Asciano La Befa Capraia Island Castelnuova B. Castiglioncello Chianciano Terme

Cortona Elba Island

Gaiole in Chianti Giannutri Island Giglio Island Gorgona Island Guardistallo Livorno Manciano-Mrsliana.

Massaciuccoli Monte Argentario

Montelupo Pianosa Island Populonia

Pop. – Venturina

Scansano

Talamone

Volterra

Attested Phases 2b.c. 1b.c. 1a.d. 2a.d. 3a.d. 4a.d. 5a.d.

769

chronology of villa sites Chronology of Villa Sites in Umbria Villa # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Name Popigliano Torchiagina Le Buccacce Poggio S. Maria Piani Di Ricciano Cocciano Poggio Gramignano Mausoleo Molino del Passatore Muralto Penna Vecchia Civitella d’Arno Deruta Montone Ripa S. Lucia Valcaprara Colle Preiano Fossalto Orticello Portonaccio Villa Redenta Colle Plinio Pitigliano Grutti Le Carceri Scoppieto Vasciano

Location

Attested Phases 2b.c. 1b.c. 1a.d. 2a.d. 3a.d.

Alviano Scalo Assisi Castiglion del Lago Foligno Guardea Lugnano in Teverina Massa Martana Narni Penna in Teverina

1 1

1

1 1

1

1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

4a.d.

5a.d.

1

1

1

1

1

1

Perugia 1 1 1 1 1

1

1 1

Pietralunga Spello

1

Spoleto S. Giustino

1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

1

1

1 1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1 Todi 1

1

APPENDIX B

DATA FOR VILLA SITES IN LATIUM

Total number of locations 79 Total number of villas 384 Total number of undatable villas 37 (10%) Distribution of Villas (See Map 24) Acilia 1 Marino Albano 6 Montebuono Albano – Ariccia 2 Monte Calvo Anguillara Sabazia 3 Montopoli Anzio 2 Nemi Aquino 1 Nettuno Artena 1 Ostia Astura 9 Palo Bassano di Sutri 4 Palombara Sabina Blera 12 Poggio Catino Boville 2 Poggio Mirteto Cantalupo 5 Pontine Islands Capena 2 Priverno Capranica 5 Procoio di Pianabella Casperia 2 Procoio Nuovo Castel Fusano 2 Quarto Cappello del Prete Castel di Guido 1 Rieti Castel Giuliano 1 Rocca di Papa Castelporziano 9 S. Marinella Castelporziano-Capocotta 2 S. Palomba Castro dei Volsci 1 Scauri Circeo 17 Sezze Civitavecchia 5 Sperlonga Cottanello 1 Suburbium Crocicchie 1 Supino Fara in Sabina 3 Sutri Fianello 1 Tarquinia Fiano Romano 5 Terracina Forano 4 Tivoli Formia 4 Tor Caldara Frascati 1 Tusculum Fregene 1 Vacone Gaeta 1 Veio Genzano 1 Velletri Grottaferrata 1 Vescovio Ischia di Castro 1 Via Cassia Ladispoli 3 Via Gabina Licenza 12 Via Palombarese Magliano in Sabina 3 Viterbo Marina di S. Nicola 1

2 1 1 3 1 3 2 1 1 4 4 7 1 1 1 1 2 1 8 2 1 1 4 69 1 1 3 1 35 1 56 1 1 1 1 8 2 1 10

771

data for villa sites in latium

Occupation Density is the number of villas that were occupied in each century in the region. As the occupation of a villa could span several centuries, the number of total villas shown in the diagram is higher than the actual total number of villas in the region. The percentage values with respect to the total number of villas are given below; as with the other charts, they refer only to the datable cases. 300

Number of Villas

250

200

150

100

50

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 81 218 8% 22%

1st century 290 29%

2nd century 196 20%

A.D. 3rd century 110 11%

4th century 71 7%

5th century 27 3%

772

appendix b

Length of Occupation represents how long, i.e., for one, two or more centuries, a given villa was in use. Since the calculation is rounded to the century, if a site was abandoned for a relatively short phase and then re-occupied, that break in occupation will not show in the histogram. Since a precise dating of the construction and abandonment of the villas is usually not available, the villa chronology has been arranged by centuries; this means that if an occupation of a villa started, say, ca. 50 a.d. and ended ca. 150 a.d., it would show a length of occupation of two centuries, although it was actually occupied for only 100 years. 100

Number of Villas

80

60

40

20

0 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Centuries of Occupation

1 century 92 27%

2 centuries 73 21%

3 centuries 65 19%

4 centuries 58 17%

5 centuries 34 10%

6 7 centuries centuries 17 8 5% 2%

773

data for villa sites in latium

Occupation Start shows the number of villas in which occupation started in a given century. In those cases where villa occupation started in the 3rd century b.c. or earlier, its occupation start was taken to be the 2nd century b.c. The histogram only shows the original occupation start date of the villa and does not take into consideration the start date of a re-occupation phase, if any.

Number of Villas

150

100

50

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 81 145 23% 42%

1st century 99 29%

2nd century 17 5%

A.D. 3rd century 4 1%

4th century 1 0.3%

5th century 0 0%

774

appendix b

Occupation End shows the number of villas that ceased to be in use in any given century. If a villa was abandoned in the 5th century a.d. or later, its occupation end was considered to be the 5th century a.d. The graph only shows the nal abandonment date of the villa and does not take into consideration previous breaks in occupation, if any. 120

Number of Villas

100

80

60

40

20

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 8 27 2% 8%

1st century 111 32%

2nd century 90 26%

A.D. 3rd century 40 12%

4th century 44 13%

5th century 27 8%

data for villa sites in latium

775

776

appendix b

data for villa sites in latium

777

778

appendix b

APPENDIX C

DATA FOR VILLA SITES IN TUSCANY

Total number of locations 25 Total number of villas 50 Total number of undatable villas 7 (14%) Distribution of Villas (See Map 25) Ansedonia 4 Guardistallo Asciano 1 Livorno La Befa 1 Manciano – Marsiliana Capraia Island 1 Massaciuccoli Castelnuovo Berardenga 1 Monte Argentario Castiglioncello 1 Montelupo Chianciano Terme 4 Pianosa Island Cortona 1 Populonia Elba Island 3 Polulonia – Venturina Gaiole in Chianti 1 Scansano Giannutri Island 1 Talamone Giglio Island 1 Volterra Gorgona Island 1

1 2 3 1 6 1 1 4 3 3 3 1

780

appendix c

Occupation Density is the number of villas that were occupied in each century in the region. As the occupation of a villa could span several centuries, the number of total villas shown in the diagram is higher than the actual total number of villas in the region. The percentage values with respect to the total number of villas are given below; as with the other charts, they refer only to the datable cases. 50

Number of Villas

40

30

20

10

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 9 29 6% 18%

1st century 40 25%

2nd century 33 21%

A.D. 3rd century 20 13%

4th century 14 9%

5th century 13 8%

781

data of villa sites in tuscany

Length of Occupation represents how long, i.e., for one, two or more centuries, a given villa was in use. Since the calculation is rounded to the century, if a site was abandoned for a relatively short phase and then re-occupied, that break in occupation will not show in the histogram. Since a precise dating of the construction and abandonment of the villas is usually not available, the villa chronology has been arranged by centuries; this means that if an occupation of a villa started, say, ca. 50 a.d. and ended ca. 150 a.d., it would show a length of occupation of two centuries, although it was actually occupied for only 100 years.

Number of Villas

15

10

5

0 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Centuries of Occupation

1 century 6 14%

2 centuries 6 14%

3 centuries 11 26%

4 centuries 4 9%

5 centuries 7 16%

6 7 centuries centuries 7 2 16% 5%

782

appendix c

Occupation Start shows the number of villas in which occupation started in a given century. In those cases where a villa occupation started in the 3rd century b.c. or earlier, its occupation start was taken to be the 2nd century b.c. The histogram only shows the original occupation start date of the villa and does not take into consideration the start date of a re-occupation phase, if any. 25

Number of Villas

20

15

10

5

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 9 20 21% 47%

1st century 12 28%

2nd century 2 5%

A.D. 3rd century 0 0%

4th century 0 0%

5th century 0 0%

783

data of villa sites in tuscany

Occupation End, shows the number of villas that ceased to be in use in any given century. If a villa was abandoned in the 5th century a.d. or later, its occupation end was considered to be the 5th century a.d. The graph only shows the nal abandonment date of the villa and does not take into consideration previous breaks in occupation, if any.

Number of Villas

15

10

5

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 0 1 0% 2%

1st century 7 16%

2nd century 14 33%

A.D. 3rd century 6 14%

4th century 2 5%

5th century 13 30%

784

appendix c

data of villa sites in tuscany

785

786

appendix c

data of villa sites in tuscany

787

APPENDIX D

DATA FOR VILLA SITES IN UMBRIA

Total number of locations 15 Total number of villas 28 Total number of undatable villas 5 (18% of all sites) Distribution of Villas (See Map 26) Alviano Scalo Assisi Castiglion del Lago Foligno Guardea Lugnano in Teverina Massa Martana Narni

1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1

Penna in Teverina Perugia Pietralunga Spello Spoleto S. Giustino Todi

2 6 2 2 1 2 4

789

data of villa sites in umbria

Occupation Density is the number of villas that were occupied in each century in the region. As the occupation of a villa could span several centuries, the number of total villas shown in the diagram is higher than the actual total number of villas in the region. The percentage values with respect to the total number of villas are given below; as with the other charts, they refer only to the datable cases. 25

Number of Villas

20

15

10

5

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 2 8 3% 13%

1st century 21 33%

2nd century 12 19%

A.D. 3rd century 12 19%

4th century 6 10%

5th century 2 3%

790

appendix d

Length of Occupation represents how long, i.e., for one, two or more centuries, a given villa was in use. Since the calculation is rounded to the century, if a site was abandoned for a relatively short phase and then re-occupied, that break in occupation will not show in the histogram. Since a precise dating of the construction and abandonment of the villas is usually not available, the villa chronology has been arranged by centuries; this means that if an occupation of a villa started, say, ca. 50 a.d. and ended ca. 150 a.d., it would show a length of occupation of two centuries, although it was actually occupied for only 100 years.

Number of Villas

10

5

0 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Centuries of Occupation

1 century 9 39%

2 centuries 2 9%

3 centuries 3 13%

4 centuries 5 22%

5 centuries 3 13%

6 7 centuries centuries 1 0 4% 0%

791

data of villa sites in umbria

Occupation Start, shows the number of villas in which occupation started in a given century. In those cases where a villa occupation started in the 3rd century b.c. or earlier, its occupation start was taken to be the 2nd century b.c. The histogram only shows the original occupation start date of the villa and does not take into consideration the start date of a re-occupation phase, if any.

Number of Villas

15

10

5

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 2 6 9% 26%

1st century 14 61%

2nd century 0 0%

A.D. 3rd century 0 0%

4th century 1 4%

5th century 0 0%

792

appendix d

Occupation End, shows the number of villas that ceased to be in use in any given century. If a villa was abandoned in the 5th century a.d. or later, its occupation end was considered to be the 5th century a.d. The graph only shows the nal abandonment date of the villa and does not take into consideration previous breaks in occupation, if any.

Number of Villas

10

5

0 2 BC

1 BC

1 AD

2 AD

3 AD

4 AD

5 AD

Centuries

B.C. 2nd 1st century century 0 1 0% 4%

1st century 7 30%

2nd century 2 9%

A.D. 3rd century 7 30%

4th century 4 17%

5th century 2 9%

data for villa sites in umbria

793

794

appendix d

data for villa sites in umbria

795

796

appendix d

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GENERAL INDEX

L. Abuccius 55 M. Aemilius Lepidus 162 M. Aemilius Lepidus Porcina 16–7 Ager Caeretanus 68 Ager Cosanus 22–3, 103, 125, 130, 138, 157, 208 Agriculture, idealization of 3–4, 82–8, 224 Agrippa, map of 29 Agronomists 3–4, 63, 85 Albano 27 n. 66; 212; Albani Hills 172–3 Albegna Valley 130; survey 138–9, 157 Alsium 68 Alvaria see honeybees Amalthea 98 Anguillara Sabazia 120, 165 Anilii 67 Anio Vetus 168 Antium 163; establishment of the colony 173; harbor 163, 173 Appius Claudius Pulcher 86 Aqua Crabra 75, 166–7 Aqua Iulia 168 Aqua Tepula 167 Aqua Vegetiana 170 Aqueducts 166–71 Architectural display 95–6; immorality of 16 Argentario Peninsula 26, 57, 58 Asinello 116–9 Astura 64, 68; Torre Astura 48–50, 56, 60, 205 Atticus 18, 97–8 Aurelia Faustiniana 191 Q. Axius 86 Bagni di Agrippa, villa 59 Bagni Sulfurei 73 Baiae 16, 19, 37, 77, 79 Baths 43, 189–93 Bellicius Sollers 182 Blera 157 Bovillae 91 Brick-stamps 65–7

C. Brutius Presens 195 Burials, in villas 218–9 Q. Caecilius Metellus Scipio 88 Caecina Albinus 206 Caere 44, 70 Caesar, triumphal banquet 47–8, 52; Caius and Lucius Caesar 67 Calvisius Rufus 1 Caninus Rufus 192 Capital investment 51, 92–3 Casal Morena 89 Cassiodorus 91 L. Cassius Longinus Ravilla 16 Castrum Novum 58, 70 Cato 3–4, 5, 14, 20, 46, 48, 85, 87, 94, 107, 108, 123, 125, 162 n. 29 Cella vinaria 88, 113 Centumcellae 164 Cicero 18, 19, 74, 91, 97–8, 188, 231 Cisterns 166, 169 Città di Castello 84 City-walls, mosaics with 23 Claudius 183 Cliternia 158 Cocciano 109–10 Collegia centonariorum 123 Coloni 210–11 Columella, 14, 19, 20, 40, 44, 46, 54, 85–7, 94, 149, 153, 224; his praedia 72 Como Lake 19 Compediti see fettered slaves Comum 194 Cornelia 77 Cosa 26, 30, 56, 57, 106, 127, 138, 157, 175, 217 Creticus 77 Cryptoportico(s) 150–3 Cumae 18, 36 n. 94, 73, 97, 188 Curatores civitatium 185 Cures 186 Damasippus 78 Demolitores 79–80 Domitiana positio 26

818

general index

Domitii Ahenobarbi 26, 72 Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus 99 L. Domitius Ahenobarbus 25–7 Domitius Tullus 78–9 Dormice 90 Didymus 148 Egnatii 179–80 C. Egnatius 93 Elba Isl. 72, 163 Elite mentality economic 7; attitudes towards properties 197; self-sufciency 83, 88, 218; negation of 90–1 Epigonos Volusianus 182 Ergastulum/a 137, 139–40, 142–3, 148–52, 229; see also slave quarters Fabia Agrippina 196 Fettered slaves 149, 153 Field survey 102–3, 130, 157, 214; Albegna Valley survey 138–9, 157 Fish-breeding 38–41, 47–62, 204; in country villas 89–90, 169, 204 Fish salting 53, 57–8 Fishpond/s 38–41, 89, 204; freshwater ponds 89–90, 169, 223; Lucullus’ 14; at Ponza 40; and harbors 54–5; and real estate 14 Ficella 73 n. 111 Fistulae 66 n. 82 Flowers, cultivation 73–5; 108 Fluvial transport 143 n. 64, 154–5; 159 Formiae 18, 70, 77, 163, 197 Fosso delle Guardiole 59 Q. Fulvius Lipppinus 100 Frontinus 167 Fronto 87 Fructuarius 91 Fullonica 122 Fundi 30, 36 n. 96, 44, 223 Fundus/i 14, 86, 87 n. 18, 106–7, 116, 127, 170, 177, 180, 208, 210 n. 33, 211, 213; maritime fundi 21, 44, 63, 67–8, 70, 227 A. Gabinius 98 Gardens 73–5, 98–9, 108; furnishing of 78; rare and new trees 99; vegetable gardens 108–9, 171 Garum 50–1, 53, 58, 62, 68, 112 n. 46, 115, 214 Giannutri Isl. 42, 129 Giglio Isl. 26, 72 Glass production 72–3

Gliraria 90 Granaraccio 104 M. Granius Marcellus Greenhouses 75 Gregory of Tours 3

110–11

Harbors 15, 21, 37, 42, 50, 59, 155, 158, 161–5, 174, 205; uvial 143 n. 64, 154, 159–60, 181 Heba 127 C. Herennius Caecilianus 186 Herodes Atticus 32, 78 Hirrius 14, 47–8, 68 Honeybees 90 Horace 95, 120; Horace’s villa at Licenza 121–2; “Horace’s villa” at Grotte di Vocone 151 Horrea Galbana 163 Horrea Volusiana 145 Q. Hortensius Hortalus 73 Humanius Stabilio 159 Hunting 100–1, 189 Hyginus, gromaticus 211 Instrumentum domesticum 101 Instrumentum fundi 55, 136 Irrigation 93, 109–10, 165 n. 42, 171 Iulia Minor 32 L. Iulius Marinus Caecilius Simplex 186 C. Iulius Plancius Varus Cornutus 172 Kilns 51, 65, 108, 154, 160–1; for lime 181 La Befa 80 Laberia Hostilia Crispina 195 M. Laberius Maximus 195 La Tagliata see Torre Tagliata Lago di Paola 61 Lake Bracciano 83 Lake Lucrinus 76 Lake Nemi 172, 196 Land-works 30, 74, 221, 223 Latifundium/a 87, 126–7, 228 Le Colonne, villa 23, 138, 217 Lex Claudia 20 Lex Gabinia 24 Libraries, in villas 97 L. Licinius Crassus 99 M. Licinius Crassus Frugi 120 L. Licinius Lucullus 29, 31, 38, 77, 97, 167 L. Licinius Murena 40 Lime production 181–2

819

general index Litus Laurentinum 13 Lucius Lucullus 17–8 Lucus Feroniae 129, 139, 179, 182 Lugnano in Teverina 206–7 Manilius Vopiscus 89, 168 Mansio 146 Marcus Aurelius 87 Marina di S. Nicola 45–6, 182, 206 M. Marius Gratidianus 76 Market economy 7, 218 Markets see nundinae Meadows 93 Métayage 112 Mausolea 31–2, 118, 219 Mezzomiglio 120–1 Muracciola, villa 119 Murex shell 61 Mining 72 Minturnae 154, 162 Mummius Niger Valerius Vegetus 170 Neratia, gens; Neratii 185–6, 231 Nero 163, 173 Nerva 197 Nota censoria 16 Nundinae (in villa estates) 183–4 Olive(s) 82 n. 3, 114, 117–8, 129, 144, 214; groves 75, 93 n. 48, 107, 108, 125, 127 n. 8, 144 n. 74; harvest 106; mill 103–4; oil 75, 103, 114, 214, 216; oil amphorae 51 n. 19, 65, 104, 112, 214; oil settling vat 92, 118 Oppido Lucano, villa 66 Optatus, praefectus classis 52 Ossaia, villa 66, 115–6, 122, 207–8 Ostia 24, 52, 53 n. 28, 63, 77, 90, 137, 164 n. 38, 171, 173, 175, 196 Otium 87, 95, 189 Oysters 62, 76 Pastio villatica 19–20, 56, 73, 88–9, 90, 100, 116 Patronus/a, patronage 180–2, 184, 193–8 Peacocks 73 Pennavecchia 113 Perfumes, production 75 Philostratos 15 Piana delle Cento Fattorie 177 Pian di Spille 68 Piracy 24–5, 35–6 Pisanella, villa 79 Piscina of Lucullus, s.c. 41, 61 Piscinae see shpond/s

Plantation system 137 Pliny the Younger buying estates 211; Laurentine villa 20, 37, 42, 156, 165, 189; villa in Tuscis 110–3, 124, 150–1, 183, 189, 193; see also Città di Castello and Tifernum Tiberinum Pollius Felix 21 Pompey 24–5 Portus Telamonis 174–5 Posides 77 Praedia voluptuaria 91 Prefernius Petus 159 Presses 92–3; 103–4, 116, 139 n. 55, 151, 161, 183 n. 22 Punta della Vipera 44–5, 59, 60 Pyrgi 58, 70 Quarries, granite Quintilii 224

72

Ravenna 209 Remnius Polemon 93 Renting, houses 80–1 Saepinum 185 Saturnia 127, 208 Scansano 67, 210 Scaurus 79 Scipio Aemilianus 17 Scipio Africanus 35–6 M. Seius 89 n. 25, 90 Ti. Sempronius Gracchus 29 n. 68; 130 Senatus consultum de aediciis non diruendis 80 Senatus consultum de nundinis saltus Beguensis 183 Seneca 19, 93 C. Sergius Orata 40, 76 Cn Servilius Caepio 16 S. Rocco, Francolise 158 Sestii 30, 106, 126, 138, 178 Settenestre 106, 125–38, 217, 228 Silius 77 Slave quarters 129–36, 139–45; house-servants quarters 145–6 Sperlonga 21, 36, 44, 166 Squatters 199, 207, 210, 216–8 Stables 133–4 Sulphur deposits 70 Sulpicii Galbae 163 Tabernae 182–3; t. deversoriae 146 Tabula patronatus 186–7 L. Taius Rufus 95

820

general index

Tarquinii 178 Tarracina 21; harbor 162–4 Telamon 174–5 Terentius Iunior 97 Terracina see Tarracina Thermal waters 119–20 Tibur 84, 89, 95, 106 f., 157, 168, 171, 213, 230 Tifernum Tiberinum 1, 91, 100, 110 ff., 124, 183, 193–4; see also Città di Castello Titus Umbrenus 159 Tombolo di Feniglia 58 Tor Caldara 70 Torcularia see presses Torre Gianola 22, 119 Torre Saline 62 Torre Tagliata 56–7, 62, 68 Torre Valdaliga 68 Trajan 160, 164, 174 Transhumance 158–9 Trebula Mutuesca 195 Cn. Tremellius Scrofa 86, 87 Triclinia 192–3 Trimalchio 192 P. Tullius Varro 170 Tusculum 17, 74, 76, 79, 84, 98, 107, 110, 155, 167, 213 Tyro 74 Ulpian 164 Utilitas 88 Vada Volterrana 20, 62 Varignano 106 Varro 3–4, 6, 13–4, 17, 19–20, 29, 38, 47, 51, 54, 55, 56, 68, 73, 75, 85–6, 87, 89, 90, 92, 94, 100, 125–6, 127, 146, 149, 224 Veianii brothers 90 Venulei Aproniani 193 Verginius Rufus 32 Via Gabina 110 Via della Fattoria, villa 105 Vibii Pansae 67 Vibius Varus 172 Vicii 184 Vicus Augustanus Laurentium 173 Villa(s) ancient denition 3, 83, 92; architectural typology 35; built on sanctuaries 45; and civil wars 37; and otium 87–8, 95; and theorization of agriculture 46, 82–8; furnishing of 77–9, 97;

ideological dimension 3–4, 85–6, 91–2; modern denition 1–3, 9, 10, 83; origins 125; painted views 27, 35; place of memory 31–2; public dimension of 187–9; symbolic value 9, 22–3, 185–7; retreat from city life 95–6; unusual architectural forms and utilitarian functions 116–9 Villa Arianna 133–4, 145 n. 76 Villa Calvisiana 170 Villa Magna 87 Villa maritima: denition 15–6; immoral display of luxuria 16; place for connement 31; salt production 62–3; symbol of civilization 21–4, 27–9 Villa dei Centroni 95 Villa dei Muracci 58, 68 Villa dell’Acqua Claudia see Anguillara Sabazia Villa delle Grotte 72 Villa di Capo Castello 72 Villa Prato 36–7, 48 n. 10, 104 Villa schiavistica model 4, 113, 125–7 Vineyards 44, 86, 93–4, 103, 107, 111–2, 116, 118, 127 n. 8, 128, 165 n. 42, 206; Domitian’s edict 199–200 L. Vitellius 99 Vitruvius 88 Vivaria Caesaris 50 Volusia Cornelia 196 L. Volusius Saturninus 139, 141–2, 143 n. 69, 145 n. 75, 180 Q. Volusius Saturninus 139, 141 n. 57, 148, 179, 196 Volusii Saturnini villa 129, 139 ff., 152, 179 ff., 228; Lararium 140–1, 147–8, 180–1, 206, 230 Von Thünen’ model 109 Vulci 178 Wine amphorae 55, 65, 104, 111, 114, 126, 128, 161, 166 n. 42; Apulian 112; commerce to Gaul 26, 106, 126 154 n. 2, 157, 162; gradation 166 n. 42; imported 83 n. 6, 199; Caecubum 36 n. 96; 44; Caeretanum 44, 164; from Cales 162–3; Falernum 65, 162; Fundanum 30, 36 n. 96; 44; from Sabina 211; from Tibur 107 Wine production 88, 91, 106, 111, 114, 116, 151; at Settenestre 128

INDEX LOCORUM

Literary Agennius Urbicus De Controversiis Agrorum 47 Th 29 n. 71 Caesar De Bello Civile 1.34 1.56.3

26 n. 60 26 n. 60

Cato De Agricultura 2.3.7

46 n. 130

Cicero Ad Atticum 1.8.2 1.13 5.2.2 8.13.2 12.36 Ad Familiares 16.18.2 Ad Quintum fratrem 3.1.3 De Domo sua 24.62 De Lege Agraria 2.78 3.2.9 De Legibus 3.13.30 De Ofciis 1.151 De Oratore 2.9.10 De Re Publica 2.7–10 In Verrem 2.5.46 Pro Milone 20.53 Pro Murena 76

97 18 18 30 n. 73 18 74

Columella De Re Rustica 1.4 1.5 1.6.3 1.6.6 1.7.3 8.11 8.16.5 8.17.15 16.6

87 n. 17 20 149 n. 89 136 n. 36 143 n. 69 73 n. 110 14 54 n. 35 41 n. 112

Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica 60.4

25 n. 56

Festus 502–508 L.

184, n. 26

Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 2.20.4 10.2.2

17 173 n. 73

Juvenal Satirae 3.2 14.91

18 n. 25 18 n. 23

90 n. 31 98 n. 69 14 167 n. 48 17–8 83 97 25 21 n. 38 27 17

Horace Carmina 1.7.13 Epistulae 4.13 f. Odes 3.1.25 ff Satirae 2.5.44 6.72 Hyginus Gromaticus 170 (Behrends 2000)

108 n. 31 163 n. 32 82 n. 3 53 n. 26 97

211 n. 36

822 Livy Ab Urbe Condita Libri 40.51.2 f. Macrobius Saturnalia 3.16.10 Martial Epigrammata 3.58 5.1

index locorum

162

52 n. 24

88 n. 24 19; 12.57 95

Papirius Fabianus, apud Seneca Controversiae 2.1.3 30 Pliny the Elder Naturalis Historia 1.6 3.15.3 7.98 9.49 9.168 10.52 14.49–50 18.4 18.35 18.37 32.666 36.115 Pliny the Younger Epistulae 1.3.1 1.19 1.24 2.17 3.1 3.19.1 ff 4.1.4 5.4 5.6 5.13 6.10 6.19 6.31 7.25.4 8.18.11 9.7

189 n. 41 76 n. 125 25 n. 56 53 n. 26 14, 76 n. 123 89 n. 25 94, and nn. 50 & 52, 116 3 n. 11 126 n. 7 95 62 n. 63 79 n. 157

192 194 156 13, 20, 56 n. 40, 145 n. 76, 191 n. 48 96 n. 60 1, 211 194 n. 63 182 91 n. 40 182 32 179 164 n. 39 8 78 n. 132 16, 19

9.36 9.37 9.39

195 n. 67 113 n. 50 183

Sallust De Coniuratione Catilinae 4.1 100 n. 80 12.3 22 Seneca De Beneciis 4.12.3 Epistulae 51.11 89.21

155 n. 3 37 19

Sidonius Apollinaris Epistulae 2.10 2.13

152 n. 99 145 n. 78

Statius Silvae 1.3.81 2.2

89 21

Strabo 5.2.8 5.3.6 5.4.8

58 50 n. 12 13

Suetonius De Vita Caesarum Aug. 65 31 n. 78 72 33 n. 85 Tib. 35.2 81 Claud. 12 183 n. 21 De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus 23 94 Valerius Maximus Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium 8.1 Damn. 7 16 9.1.1 76 n. 123 9.1.4 99 Varro Rerum Rusticarum Libri 1.2.10 86 n. 15 1.3.17 17 1.13.6 86 n. 16, 149 n. 90 2 praef. 47 n. 3

823

index locorum 3.2.15 3.2.15 3.2.17 3.3.2 3.12.1 3.16.10 3.17.2 3.17.4 3.17.9

86 n. 14 73 n. 111 55 n. 39 38 100 n. 76 90 n. 33 14, 68, 89 n. 29 38 29

Velleius Paterculus Historiae 2.33.4

31

Vitruvius De Architectura 6.5.1 6.6.5

190 n. 44 88 n. 22

Legal Digest 1.8.21 7.1.13.4 32.55.3 33.7.7.12 33.7.12.1 50.11.1

26 n. 65 90 181 101 55, 136 183, n. 22

Liber Coloniarum 234 L

138

Riccobono Fontes iuris romani anteiustiniani 288–89 80 Codex Theodosianum 14.6.3

181 n. 13

Epigraphic AE.1932.68 AE 1947.156 AE 1972.174 AE 1972.175 AE 1972.176 AE 1978.304

196 186 142 n. 60 141 n. 57 148 n. 83 143 n. 63

CIL I.2500 CIL V.3337 CIL VI.1261 CIL VI.8857: Cat. L236 CIL VI.37422 CIL IX.4512 CIL IX.4965 CIL IX.6078 CIL X.3947 CIL X.5909 CIL X.6428 CIL X.6431 CIL X.6645 CIL X.6667 CIL X.6675 & 6678 CIL X.6824 CIL X.1063

25 n. 56 187 n. 37 167 n. 46 531 182 195 n. 68 186 n. 32 159 n. 14 181, n. 13 174 n. 76 61 n. 60 61 n. 60 56 n. 42 56 n. 42 56 n. 42 56 n. 42 120 n. 75

CIL XI.2.2, p. 1404 n. 26: Cat. L36 CIL XI.2607: Cat. T15 CIL XI.3003 CIL XI.3676 CIL XI.3720: 205,Cat. L153 CIL XI.3816: Cat. L365 CIL XI.7505 CIL XIV.2431: Cat. L.140 CIL XIV.2627: Cat. L333 CIL XIV.2925 CIL XIV.3542: Cat. L.287 CIL XIV.4015 CIL XV.816: Cat. L178 CIL XV.836: Cat. L178 CIL XV.2277: Cat. L342 CIL XV.7272: Cat. L324 CIL XV.7654: Cat. U19 CIL XV.7849–50: Cat. L140

291 670 170 167 419 639 93 401 613 172 n. 67 575 191 n. 49 442 442 616 601 731 401

I.I.132

172 n. 67

ILS 5628 ILS 6012 = CIL IX.4171 ILS 7212

195 n. 68 159 n. 15 56 n. 41

Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition publishes monographs by members of the Columbia University faculty and by former Columbia students. Its subjects are the following: Greek and Latin literature, ancient philosophy, Greek and Roman history, classical archaeology, and the classical tradition in its medieval, Renaissance and modern manifestations. 1. MONFASANI, J. Georg of Trebizond. A Biography and a Study of his Rhetoric and Logic. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04370 5 2. COULTER, J. The Literary Microcosm. Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04489 2 3. RIGINOS, A.S. Platonica. The Anecdotes concerning the Life and Writings of Plato. ISBN 90 04 04565 1 4. BAGNALL, R.S. The Administration of the Ptolemaic Possessions outside Egypt. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04490 6 5. KEULS, E. Plato and Greek Painting. 1978. ISBN 90 04 05395 6 6. SCHEIN, S.L. The Iambic Trimeter in Aeschylus and Sophocles. A Study in Metrical Form. 1979. ISBN 90 04 05949 0 7. O’SULLIVAN, T.D. The De Excidio of Gildas: Its Authenticity and Date. 1978. ISBN 90 04 05793 5 8. COHEN, S.J.D. Josephus in Galilee and Rome. His Vita and Development as a Historian. 1979. ISBN 90 04 05922 9 9. TARÁN, S.L. The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram. 1979. ISBN 90 04 05957 1 10. CAMERON, A.V. & J. HERRIN (eds.). Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai. Introduction, Translation and Commentary. In conjunction with Al. Cameron, R. Cormack and Ch. Roueché. 1984. ISBN 90 04 07010 9 11. BRUNO, V.J. Hellenistic Painting Techniques. The Evidence of the Delos Fragments. 1985. ISBN 90 04 07159 8 12. WOOD, S. Roman Portrait Sculpture 217-260 A.D. The Transformation of an Artistic Tradition. 1986. ISBN 90 04 07282 9 13. BAGNALL, R.S. & W.V. HARRIS (eds.). Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A. Arthur Schiller. 1986. ISBN 90 04 07568 2 14. SACKS, R. The Traditional Phrase in Homer. Two Studies in Form, Meaning and Interpretation. 1987. ISBN 90 04 07862 2 15. BROWN, R.D. (ed.). Lucretius on Love and Sex. A Commentary on De Rerum Natura IV, 1030-1287 with Prolegomena, Text and Translation. 1987. ISBN 90 04 08512 2 16. KNOX, D. Ironia. Medieval and Renaissance Ideas about Irony. 1990. ISBN 90 04 08965 9 17. HANKINS, J. Plato in the Italian Renaissance. Reprint 1994. ISBN 90 04 10095 4 18. SCHWARTZ, S. Josephus and Judaean Politics. 1990. ISBN 90 04 09230 7 19. BARTMAN, E. Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09532 2 20. DORCEY, P.F. The Cult of Silvanus. A Study in Roman Folk Religion. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09601 9 21. AUBERT, J.-J. Business Managers in Ancient Rome. A Social and Economic Study of Institores, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10038 5 22. BILLOWS, R.A. Kings and Colonists. Aspects of Macedonian Imperialism. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10177 2 23. ROTH, J.P. The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C. - A.D. 235). 1999. ISBN 90 04 11275 1 24. PHANG, S.E. The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 B.C. - A.D. 235). Law and Family in the Imperial Army. 2001 ISBN 90 04 12155 2

25. MARCONI, C. (ed.). Greek Vases: Images, Contexts and Controversies. Proceedings of the Conference sponsored by The Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia University, 23–24 March 2002. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13802 1 26. HARRIS, W.V. & G. RUFFINI (eds.). Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14105 7 27. HARRIS, W.V. (ed.). The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries. Essays in Explanation. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14717 9 28. VOLK, K. & G.D. WILLIAMS (eds.). Seeing Seneca Whole. Perspectives on Philosophy, Poetry and Politics. 2006. ISBN-10: 90 04 15078 1, ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15078 2 29. HOLLANDER, D.B. Money in the Late Roman Republic. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15649 4 30. MARZANO, A. Roman Villas in Central Italy. A Social and Economic History. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16037 8

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