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Roman Villas explores the social structures of the Roman world by analysing the plans of buildings of all sizes from slightly Romanized farms to palaces. The ways in which the rooms are grouped together; how they intercommunicate; and the ways in which individual rooms and the house are approached, reveal various social patterns, which question traditional ideas about the Roman family and household. J. T. Smith argues that virtually all houses were occupied by groups of varying composition, challenging the received wisdom that they were single family houses whose size reflected only the owner's wealth and number of servants. Roman Villas provides a meticulously documented and scholarly examination of the relationship between the living quarters of the Roman and their social and economic development which introduces a new area in Roman studies and a corpus of material for further analysis. The inclusion of almost 500 ground plans, drawn to a uniform scale, allows the reader to compare the similarities and differences between house structure as well as effectively illustrating the arguments.
Drawing on documentary sources and archaeological evidence this book offers a socio-economic history of elite villas in Roman Central Italy and brings a new perspective to the debate on the slave-based villa system and the crisis of Italian villas in the imperial period.
This volume offers a comprehensive survey of Roman villas in Italy and the Mediterranean provinces of the Roman Empire, from their origins to the collapse of the Empire. The architecture of villas could be humble or grand, and sometimes luxurious. Villas were most often farms where wine, olive oil, cereals, and manufactured goods, among other products, were produced. They were also venues for hospitality, conversation, and thinking on pagan, and ultimately Christian, themes. Villas spread as the Empire grew. Like towns and cities, they became the means of power and assimilation, just as infrastructure, such as aqueducts and bridges, was transforming the Mediterranean into a Roman sea. The distinctive Roman/Italian villa type was transferred to the provinces, resulting in Mediterranean-wide culture of rural dwelling and work that further unified the Empire.