Roman Villa

• Roman villas are typically a farmhouse or country house occupied by the upper class or wealthy freedmen. They were used to convey wealth and grandeur.
• They were often decorated with marble decorations, columns, paintings, painted walls and mosaics and may have had hypocaust in public rooms for comfort of guests. They contained multiple conjoined rooms, courtyards and gardens.
• Archaeological finds include glassware, pottery, agricultural tools and elaborate decorations like statues, paintings and mosaics
• Peristylium


  The courtyard or small garden at the entrance of the house, surrounded by columns
• Atrium


  Open central court with enclosed rooms on all sides, normally at the entrance or gathering area for guests and friends or business partners, surrounded by high ceilings and porticoes
• Triclinium


  The dining room, often directly next to the atrium, guest would recline on U-shaped sofas (klinai) while slaves brought food and drinks
• Cubicula


  Bedrooms, sometimes next to the atrium or across the Peristylium, not as lavishly decorated as it was a private room
• Other rooms

  • Private audience chamber
  • Toilets
  • Slave chambers
  • Kitchen (culina)
  • private bath house
  • estate office
• The peristylium and atrium were at the entrance to impress guests and show off the wealth of the owner, followed by the triclinium to keep the grandeur imagine during dinner parties and social events
• The triclinium may be overlooking the estate with doors or windows to view the land in the summer season and face the atrium in the orientation of the klinai (U-shaped sofa)
• The Klinai has an open end, presumably for ease of service and the slaves work in the culina next to the dining room
• The bedrooms may have been off the atrium or upstairs and the private audience chamber could only be accessed from outside to allow for secrecy
• The owners were likely of Belgic Iron Age descent, e.g. leaders and aristocrats, due to the presence of Roman villas over pre-existing Iron Age roundhouses and farming estates
• Others may have been associated with Roman power, e.g. ex-military or administrators of the roman empire. Either option is likely that the villas were a reward for their service
• Public duties:

  • local forms of jurisdiction
  • settlement of disputes between family dependants and tenants
  • punishment of misdemeanours
  • decisions of tenancies and inheritance
• Private duties:

  • family life
  • management of the farm
  • entertainment of social superiors and officials
• Winged corridor villa:

  • most commonly found
  • a corridor with two wings protruding either side to house the rooms, service quarters, kitchen, baths etc

  
• Courtyard villa:

  • large and ornamental gardens
  • added rooms for workers or even farm animals
  • likely for the upper class due to the extension of the building and the farm animals
  • Centre of the agricultural estate

  
• Cottage Villa:

  • The simplest form of villa, purely a corridor with no wings, rooms were created by the sub-division of the interior
  • Could be converted into a winged or courtyard villa

  
• Tripartite house:

  multiple houses in one, composed of three sectors

  
• Palaces:

  • much larger than villas
  • has residential wings and a formal courtyard
  • e.g. Fishbourne palace, believed to belong to Celtic Chieftain, Togodumnus after the conquest, or more likely the Roman governor Lucullus - son of Adminius.

  
• Park St Villa:

  • started as an Iron Age roundhouse dated to 43 AD, made of timber, wattle, daub and clay
  • The first stage of the Roman villa is the erection of a rectangular building of 5 rooms and a cellar, dated to 65 - 150 AD
  • The next phase is a hypocaust, corridor and tessellated floors, dated to 150-250 AD