Roman Villas in Central Italy
CSCT-30-marzano.indd i 5-6-2007 16:11:48 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
CSCT-30-marzano.indd ii 5-6-2007 16:11:48 Roman Villas in Central Italy
A Social and Economic History
By Annalisa Marzano
LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007
CSCT-30-marzano.indd iii 5-6-2007 16:11:48 Cover illustration: Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: lararium (photo: A. Marzano).
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ISSN 0166-1302 ISBN 978 90 04 16037 8
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CSCT-30-marzano.indd iv 5-6-2007 16:11:48 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
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd v 6/8/2007 11:00:00 AM MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd vi 6/8/2007 11:00:00 AM CONTENTS
Preface ...... ix Abbreviations ...... xi List of Illustrations ...... xiii
Introduction ...... 1
Chapter One. Villae Maritimae ...... 13 The Villa Maritima in Ancient Literary Sources ...... 15 The Archaeological Evidence ...... 33
Chapter Two. Villae Maritimae as Economic Enterprises ...... 47 Fish-breeding and salinae ...... 47 Figlinae and Agriculture ...... 63 Real-Estate Speculation ...... 75
Chapter Three. Villae Rusticae and the Ideological Realm ...... 82 The Villa Rustica in Ancient Literary Sources ...... 85
Chapter Four. The Archaeology of Rural Villas ...... 102 Wool and Textile Production ...... 121
Chapter Five. The “Villa Schiavistica” Model ...... 125 Reinterpreting the Archaeological Data ...... 129 “Ergastula” in Country Villas ...... 148
Chapter Six. Villa Topography: Infrastructure and Imperial Villas ...... 154 Villas and Infrastructure ...... 156 Villas and Imperial Properties ...... 171
Chapter Seven. Villa Topography and Involvement with Neighbors ...... 176
Chapter Eight. The Chronology of Villas and the Second-century “Crisis” ...... 199
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd vii 6/8/2007 11:00:00 AM viii contents
Conclusions ...... 223
Catalogue ...... 235 Introduction to the Catalogue ...... 237 Latium ...... 247 Tuscany ...... 649 Umbria ...... 709 Index of Villa Sites ...... 741 List of Villa Plans ...... 755
Appendix A. Chronology of Villa Sites ...... 759 Appendix B. Data for Villa Sites in Latium ...... 770 Appendix C. Data for Villa Sites in Tuscany ...... 779 Appendix D. Data for Villa Sites in Umbria ...... 788
Bibliography ...... 797
General Index ...... 817
Index Locorum ...... 821
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd viii 6/8/2007 11:00:00 AM 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 eco- nomic 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 privi- leged 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 dis- sertation 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 super- visor of the thesis, and I am also very grateful for his continued sup- port 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.
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd ix 6/8/2007 11:00:01 AM x preface
Since the time of the defense, I have bene ted 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 interac- tion 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 com- ments 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
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd x 6/8/2007 11:00:01 AM ABBREVIATIONS
AE L’Année Épigraphique AJA American Journal of Archaeology AnalRom Analecta Romana Instituti Danici AnnÉconSocCiv Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations AnnPerugia Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filoso a, Università degli studi di Perugia ANRW H. Temporini (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Berlin 1972– ArchCl Archeologia Classica ArchLaz Archeologia laziale. Incontri di Studio del Comitato per l’Archeologia laziale ATTA Atlante Tematico di Topogra a dell’Italia Antica, series directed and edited by L. Quilici and S. Quilci Gigli. Rome ATTASup Atlante Tematico di Topogra a dell’Italia Antica. Supplementi. Rome BABesch Bulletin antieke beschaving. Annual Papers on Classical Archaeology BAR British Archaeological Reports BÉFAR Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome BollArch Bollettino di Archeologia BullCom Bullettino della Commissione archeologica Comunale di Roma CÉFR Collection de l’École française de Rome CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum CPhS Cambridge Philological Society DA Dialoghi di archeologia EchCl Echos du monde classique. Classical Views Epigraphica Epigraphica. Rivista italiana di epigra a I.I. Inscriptiones Italiae. Academiae Italicae Consociatae ILS H. Dessau (ed.), Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae JRS Journal of Roman Studies LTUR Lexicon Topographicum Urbius Romae. Edited by E.M. Steinby. Rome 1993–1999 MAAR Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome MBAH Münstersche Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte MÉFRA Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Antiquité NSc Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità OJA Oxford Journal of Archaeology PBSR Papers of the British School at Rome Prospettiva Prospettiva. Rivista d’arte antica e moderna QuadAEI Quaderni del Centro di studio per l’archeologia etrusco-italica RANarb Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd xi 6/8/2007 11:00:01 AM xii abbreviations
RassArch Rassegna di Archeologia RdA Rivista di archeologia RendLinc Atti dell’Accademia nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti RendPontAcc Rendiconti della Ponti cia Accademia romana di Archeologia RIA Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte RicognArch Ricognizioni Archeologiche. Gruppo Archeologico Romano RM Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung StEtr Studi Etruschi StClOr Studi classici e orientali TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd xii 6/8/2007 11:00:01 AM LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1 Prima Porta, Villa “Ad Gallinas Albas”, drawing showing a detail of the mosaic from the atrium (A. Wilkins) ...... 24 Figure 2 Fresco depicting a maritime villa. From Pompeii, House of M. Lucretius Fronto, now in Naples National Museum (Fototeca Unione-AAR) ...... 28 Figure 3 Examples of shpond design ...... 39 Figure 4 Circeo, axonometric drawing of the so-called Fishpond of Lucullus (after Schmiedt 1972) ...... 42 Figure 5 Torre Astura with harbor (after Schmiedt 1972) ... 49 Figure 6 Distribution map of maritime villas equipped with shponds (A. Marzano) ...... 57 Figure 7 Torre Astura region, distribution of villas and farms (after Piccarreta 1977) ...... 69 Figure 8 S. Marinella, distribution of villas (after Gianfrotta 1972) ...... 71 Figure 9 Villa dei Centroni, axonometric reconstruction of the natatio (after Cozza 1952) ...... 96 Figure 10 Granaraccio, olive presses and olive mill (after Faccenna 1957) ...... 105 Figure 11 Orbetello, Via della Fattoria: wine presses (after Brun 2004) ...... 105 Figure 12 Viterbo, Asinello (after Broise and Jolivet 1995) .... 117 Figure 13 Trino, Le Verne (after Robino 1999) ...... 132 Figure 14 Ansedonia, Sette nestre: detail (after Carandini 1985a) ...... 134 Figure 15 Castellammare di Stabia, plan of Villa Arianna and detail of the stables (Miniero 1987) ...... 135 Figure 16 Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: detail (Sgubini Moretti 1998) ...... 140 Figure 17 Fiano Romano, Volusii Saturnini Villa: lararium (photo: A. Marzano) ...... 141 Figure 18 Alba Docilia, mansio (after Grassigli 1995) ...... 147 Figure 19 Number of villas and attested chronology of occupation ...... 200
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd xiii 6/8/2007 11:00:01 AM xiv list of illustrations
Figure 20 Start and end date of villa occupation ...... 202 Figure 21 Length of villa occupation ...... 203 Figure 22 “Dominus Iulius” mosaic. Late 4th century mosaic depicting villa life. Bardo Museum, Tunis (Koppermann, Neg. D-DAI Rome 1961.0532) ...... 233
Figures and Maps in Catalogue & Appendices
Figure 23 Number of Villa Sites by Region ...... 241 Figure 24 Villa-occupation in the three regions ...... 242 Figure 25 Villa-occupation in the three regions (in percentages) ...... 243 Figure 26 Number of villas and attested beginning of occupation for Latium, Tuscany and Umbria ...... 244 Figure 27 Number of villas and attested end of occupation for Latium, Tuscany and Umbria ...... 245
Map 1 Central Italy: The Augustan regions with superimposition of modern borders (A. Marzano) ...... 240 Map 2a Villa sites in Latium (A. Marzano) ...... 248 Map 2b Overview of detailed maps for Latium (A. Marzano) ...... 249 Map 3 Albano (A. Marzano) ...... 252 Map 4 Astura (A. Marzano) ...... 273 Map 5 Bassano di Sutri and Capranica (A. Marzano) ...... 284 Map 6 Blera (A. Marzano) ...... 286 Map 7 Castelporziano (Ager Laurentinus) (A. Marzano) ...... 312 Map 8 Circeo (A. Marzano) ...... 332 Map 9 Civitavecchia and S. Marinella (A. Marzano) ...... 352 Map 10 Fiano Romano (A. Marzano) ...... 364 Map 11 Ladispoli (A. Marzano) ...... 388 Map 12 The Licenza Valley (A. Marzano) ...... 390 Map 13 Pontine Islands (A. Marzano) ...... 428 Map 14 Suburbium (A. Marzano) ...... 464 Map 15 Tivoli (A. Marzano) ...... 566 Map 16 Tusculum (A. Marzano) ...... 590 Map 17 Via Cassia (A. Marzano) ...... 636 Map 18 Viterbo (A. Marzano) ...... 644
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd xiv 6/8/2007 11:00:01 AM list of illustrations xv
Map 19 Villa sites in Tuscany (A. Marzano) ...... 648 Map 20 Monte Argentario and Ansedonia (A. Marzano) ...... 686 Map 21 Populonia area (A. Marzano) ...... 694 Map 22 Villa sites in Umbria (A. Marzano) ...... 708 Map 23 Umbria: distribution of villas (from Ville e Insediamenti 1983) ...... 710 Map 24 Villa sites of Latium by centuries (A. Marzano) ...... 775–778 Map 25 Villa sites in Tuscany by centuries (A. Marzano) ...... 784–787 Map 26 Villa sites in Umbria by centuries (A. Marzano) ...... 793–796
MARZANO_f1_v-xv.indd xv 6/8/2007 11:00:01 AM
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; vil- las were emblematic of membership to the upper class, or else of the aspiration to it. Roman villas, therefore, have been the focus of scholar- ship 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.
MARZANO_f2_1-12.indd 1 6/5/2007 2:35:45 PM 2 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 re ected in the variety of formulations offered by scholars to de ne the word “villa”. These de nitions range from Percival’s culturally determined assertion that the villa is a speci cally Roman phenomenon,4 to Leveau’s proposition, that “la villa est un mode chronologiquement dé nissable 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 rede nition.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. 4 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.
MARZANO_f2_1-12.indd 2 6/5/2007 2:35:46 PM introduction 3
according to the type of study.9 If, indeed, social and economic histo- rians use the term mostly to refer to establishments outside the urban context, engaged in a speci c type of land management and market- oriented 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, signi cantly 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 vari- ous 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 Nar- bonnaise”, 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.
MARZANO_f2_1-12.indd 3 6/5/2007 2:35:46 PM 4 introduction
sized farmstead, described in Cato’s work, which shows no concessions whatsoever to comfort and luxury, has no concrete archeological paral- lel 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 identi ed 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 intensi cation 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 re ect 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 Sette nestre. 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 reevalu- ation of the interpretation of the evidence offered by Sette nestre 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 intensi cation 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 de nitions 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 struc- ture, 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
MARZANO_f2_1-12.indd 5 6/5/2007 2:35:46 PM 6 introduction
In antiquity activities such as agriculture or trade were complex and multilayered, going beyond the purely economic dimension, compris- ing 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 ideo- logical value that they have in respect to the economic mentality of the elite. The rst four chapters are built around the dialectic appar- ent 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-suf- ciency, apparently at odds with the pursuit of agricultural pro t 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. Duncan- Jones, 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 mental- ity 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 charac- terization of villas treated herein rests on several premises, which it is important to de ne 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 pro t—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 stand- ing 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 obli- gations (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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suf cient 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 pro t 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 invest- ment, 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 expendi- tures 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 “pro t” 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 “pro table” when an activity carried out, or a natural resource exploited, on the estate promoted a monetary bene t to the proprietor once the expenses
25 M. I. Finley in The Ancient Economy, argued that Roman landowners did not pos- sess suf cient 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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were deducted, but not necessarily a considerable annual return on the capital invested. Other important points need a clari cation. 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 occupa- tion of the villa can be, however, clearly related to the exploitation of the natural resource. Such cases of villas re ect 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 intensi cation has been expressed, reminding us that in many instances villas were the expres- sion of a certain fashion adopted by a moneyed elite that had acquired wealth elsewhere, a way of af rming 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 intensi cation 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.
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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 af uent.”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 clari cation. With these terms, I do not intend to refer exclusively to proprietors of senatorial or equestrian status, but to indicate all those who had promi- nent status in society, either because of their social position—like sena- tors, 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 identi ed 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 arti cial 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 identi- ed as the privileged area for the development and diffusion of the villa
31 Terrenato, ibidem.
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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 narra- tive 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 particu- larly 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 quan- tity 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 scienti c 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 quarry- ing and wine-making. In my view, these properties were much sought after not only for their recreational use and symbolic value, which was
32 Lafon 1981 and Lafon 2001. 33 D’Arms 1970.
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undoubtedly a strong component of the appeal these properties had, but also for their potential pro tability. The sites included in the Catalogue constitute the basis of the discus- sion drawn in the following chapters. This discussion has been enriched and clari ed 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 avail- able. 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.
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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 numer- ous 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 extrava- gance, 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 pro ts 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 sup- ports 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 speci c typology for maritime villas in different areas of Italy can be identi ed. 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 possibili- ties 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 speci es 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.
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(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, har- bors, or pavilions. It is this de nition that is followed, for example, by F. Piccarreta, in the volume of Forma Italiae devoted to Astura: De nisco 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. 10 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 P ster 1946: 41: “La villa Iovis invece esula da questo tipo perché situata troppo in alto per potersi considerare marittima”.
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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 con- demnation of excessive display deviating from proper social behavior. Valerius Maximus recounts an episode in which the censor Lucius Cas- sius 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. 14 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).
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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 inci- dent 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 bene t 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 expolitis- simae extructae, follows this same trend. Indeed, the contrast between what, in the private sphere, is called luxuria, and in the public sphere, magni centia,20 is a recurring theme in Roman political and moralizing writings in general. The works of Cicero, and in particular his letters, offer precious infor- mation 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 aedi catis 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 re ect 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 speci c place as a status symbol could result in overcrowding, as well as in heavy social obliga- tions, 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 de nes 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 invi- tations 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 magni centia villae Tusculanae, duo se habere vicinos, superiorem equitem Romanum, inferiorem libertinum; quorum cum essent magni cae 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” func- tion of Lucullus’ villa, see also Cic. Sest. 93. 23 See Edwards 1993, Chapter 4. The animosity towards the rich and powerful freed- men 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.
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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 pan- oramic 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 (aedi co 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 ambigu- ous, 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 pro tability, 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.
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goods came, were very probably fundi maritimi,38 and the early appear- ance 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 pre- vails 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 identi ed 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 arti cial 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 signi cance 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 magni cent 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 arti cial 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 signi cant. 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 normaliza- tion 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 dif- culties 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 Sette nestre, 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 castel- lum 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, forti ed 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 paci cation of the sea, therefore, had an important place in the politi- cal 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. 55 Cic., De imp. Cn. Pompei 33; on pirate attacks, P. De Souza, Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge 1999: 133–145.
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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 paci cation 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 danger- ously 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 paci cation of the sea by Pompey (re publica pulcerrume administrata imperio ampli cato 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 Mas- silia.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 Argen- tario 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 speci c case, the villas on Giglio and Giannu- tri 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 proper- ties con scated 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 Penin- sula, 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 pro uens 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 codi ed 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 Aheno- barbus. 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 stag- ing 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 evok- ing his taming power over wild nature. This concept is connected, in my opinion, to the idea of the maritime villa as symbol of the paci cation 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 depict- ing 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.
MARZANO_f3_13-46.indd 27 6/5/2007 2:39:25 PM 28 chapter one (Fototeca Unione- AAR). (Fototeca Figure 2. Fresco depicting a maritime villa. From Pompeii, House of 2. Figure Museum in Naples National now Pompeii, depicting a maritime villa. From Fronto, M. Lucretius Fresco
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signi ed a paci ed world by means of the representation of a particu- larly 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 environ- ment 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 identi cation 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 power- ful symbolic meaning. It may be possible that this ideological dimen- sion 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 land- holders, 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 intensi cation 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 Sette nestre 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 landown- ers 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 de ance of the laws of nature, it suggested tyrannical behavior. Velleius Paterculus
72 Coarelli 1983a. 73 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.
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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 con ned various members of his family to islands, most notably Agrippa Postumus and the two Iulias (Augustus’ daughter and granddaughter). Suetonius, when refer- ring to these events, does not explicitly say that they were con ned 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, archaeol- ogy 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, con ne- ment 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 curtail- ment of one’s social life. Visits were not regularly permitted, and the island location was sought speci cally 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 con nement, 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 monumen- tal 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 Sur- rentum: 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 un nished 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 epi- taphs 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 dif cultas 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: muta- menti 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 diversi ed 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 modi cation 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 frag- mentary, 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 concentra- tion 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 cur- rent 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 arti cial 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 dif cult 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 sub- structures, 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 vil- las, 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 arche- types 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 in uence 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 appear- ance 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 dif cult, 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 forti ed 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 dif cult 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 aedi cia 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 Epitaf o 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) incor- porating 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 dif cult and sediment could accumulate, and it was undoubtedly more decorative.106 Great care was put into the construc- tion of such ponds, in order to allow proper circulation of water, result- ing 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 arti cially recreate the natural
102 For a study on piscinae in Italy see Higginbotham 1997, with previous bib- liography. 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.
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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. 109 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 commer- cially 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.
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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 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. 113 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.
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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 con- nected 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 identi ed 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 Por- ziano, 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. 118 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 privately- nanced 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.
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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 consump- tion 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. 122 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 identi ed traces of a pars rustica. If the millstone recovered and mentioned by Gianfrotta is the same
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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, speci cally the law concerning private ownership of sacred areas.127 The phenom- enon 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, simul- taneously, 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 con ned 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-suf cient, 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” (Cata- logue: 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 (restora- tions 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, neces- sary 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 pro t-oriented mentality of the (elite) owner, where every property was used to produce a surplus for the market (i.e. not just self- suf ciency). 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 pro t.
130 Cato Agr. 2.3.7: patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet; Mart. 3.58, contrast- ing Faustinus’ productive, self-suf cient 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.
MARZANO_f3_13-46.indd 46 6/5/2007 2:39:28 PM 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 pro table 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 dif cult 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 “pro t- able” 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 associ- ated 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 market- able. 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 arti cial 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 pavil- ion built on the arti cial 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.
MARZANO_f4_47-81.indd 48 6/5/2007 2:41:48 PM VILLAE MARITIMAE as economic enterprises 49 Figure 5. Figure 1972). Astura with harbor (after Schmiedt Torre
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