1. REBECCA MCKIE, SESSION 4 2012
Roman Villa’s and Estates
Villa of Oplontis, Italy

2. What were they?
 Large estates in the country- traditionally with a
strong focus on agriculture and farming.
 Luxury retreats for elite citizens- with many luxury
villas across the empire with a focus on leisure and
displays of wealth and power.
 Many slave-run estates with huge productive
capacities.
 Villas of the late empire focused most on production,
providing the organizational centre of the large
holdings called latifundia, that produced and
exported agricultural produce.

3. Functions
 Varied functions can be seen through archaeology.
Remains of buildings show three areas mentioned by
writers of agricultural manuals:
 Pars urbana- residential quarter, often very
luxurious with features of the Domus or Roman town
house.
 Pars rustica- working and productive quarters, could
have wine presses, stables etc.
 Pars fructaria- storage areas.

4. Villa at Settefinestre, Italy

5. Functions: Agricultural
 Subsistence farming (to support inhabitants)
 Mass production for profit- often of key cash crops
such as oil and wine.
 Wine and oil vats and presses discovered in many
villas of the early empire, such as at Settefinestre
which could produce many thousands of litres of
wine a year.
 profit-oriented latifundia of late empire probably
grew enough of all the basic foodstuffs to provide for
their own consumption.

6. Balaeric islands- agricultural villas
 Villas specializing in the sea-going export of olive
oil to Roman legions in Germany were a feature of
the southern Iberian province of Hispania Baetica.
 Olive oil was a key cash crop which was produced in
vast quantities in villa estates and exported for
profit.

7. Function: Leisure
 Villa itself also a place for
the pursuit of Otium-
Roman idea of time for
recreational and academic
activities.
 Villas began to include
greater spaces for
relaxation and luxury with
the pars urbana having lots
Villa of oplontis of decoration and spaces
for relaxation and
entertainment.

8. Leisure- early empire
 Luxury villas of the late
republic and early empire
had very luxurious
residential quarters.
 Villa of the mysteries in
Pompeii (built end of the
republic, refurbished 1st
Century AD) had a very
decorated pars urbana with
many fresco’s and mosaics.

9. Luxury Villas
 Some estates were purely
luxurious such as Hadrian's
villa at Tivoli
 Very ostentatious with
different building complexes
spread over different terraces,
palatial in style.
 Many entertaining spaces and
fantastic architecture, as well
as many sculptures, water
features etc.

10. Villas- late empire
 This dual aspect of villas continued into the late empire.
 Luxuries in late villas such as hypocaust-heated rooms and mosaics.
 This can be seen in the late roman villa at La Olmeda in the province of
Palencia (now Castile and Leon, Spain)

11. Development of the villa
 The ideology behind the villa and many key elements
remained into the late empire, but there were also
various changes.
 The increasing manumittence of slaves led to a shift
from large slave-run estates to estates run by lords
with the land worked by peasant farmers dependant
on them.

12. Development of the villa
 Even during the collapse of the roman empire in the
fourth and fifth centuries the villa system continued.
 The villa systems of late antiquity survived into the
middle ages as many working villas were donated to
famous monks becoming nuclei of monasteries.
 Despite the changes that underwent the basic
concept still remained- of the villa as a place
primarily for large scale production, but also as a
luxurious retreat and place of display.