Roman Republican Villas. Architecture, context, and ideology 2011011852, 9780472117703

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PAPERS AND MONOGRAPHS OF THE

AMERICAN ACADEMY in ROME

VOLUME XXXII

a®

£

Roman Republican Villas ARCHITECTURE, CONTEXT, AND IDEOLOGY

Jeffrey A. Becker

and

Nicola Terrenato, Editors

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS

• ANN ARBOR

Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2012 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in pan, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper

2015

2014

2013

2012

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A ClP catalog recordfor this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dara Roman republican villas : architecture, context, and ideology / Jeffrey A. Becker and Nicola Terrenato, editors. p. cm. — (Papers and monographs of the American Academy in Rome) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-472-11770-3 (cloth : acid-free paper) 1. Rome—Antiquities. 2. Dwellings—Rome—History. 3. Architecture, Domestic—Rome—History. 4. Landscape architecture—Rome—History. 5. Rome (Italy)—Antiquities, Roman. 6. Rome (Italy)—Buildings, structures, etc. 7. Rome—Social life and customs. 8. Rome (Italy)—Social life and customs. 9. Rome—History—Republic, 265-30 B.C. 10. Cato, Marcus Porcius, 234-149 B.C. De agri cultura. I. Becker, Jeffrey A., 1976- II. Terrenato, Nicola. DG97.R646

728.80937—dc22

2011

2011011852

Contents Introduction

1

i. The Early Villa: Roman Contributions to the Development of a Greek Prototype 8 MARIO TORELLI

2. The Shepherd of the People: Varro on Herding for the Villa Publica in De re rustica 2 32 CARIN M. C. GREEN

3. Villaculture

45

JOHN BODEL

4. Cato’s De agri cultura and the Spectacle of Expertise

61

BRENDON REAY

5. The Enigma of “Catonian” Villas: The De agri cultura in the Context of Second-Century BC Italian Architecture 69 NICOLA TERRENATO

6. Republican Villas in the Suburbium of Rome RITA VOLPE

7. Polygonal Masonry and Republican Villas? The Problem of the Basis Villae m JEFFREY A. BECKER

Concluding Remarks STEPHEN L. DYSON

Contributors 137 Index Locurum‘ 139 General Index 143

129

94

Introduction

’VV’T’hen it comes to name recognition, Roman villas can compete with VV most other icons of the classical world. At once architectural arche­ type, cultural symbol, and means of production, villas have figured promi­ nently in countless modern reconstructions of the past. Yet almost every­ thing about them is still debated or at least debatable. Since the term villa has been co-opted by scholars who have deployed it in various ways with­

out any underlying consensus about the limits of the term, we find our­ selves with a single term that continues to be used to label many types of sites at once, potentially leading one, in a slightly perplexing way, to safely assume that one villa is just like another, when the reality is quite different. Landscape archaeologists of the twenty-first century need only glance about and realize that as an umbrella term, villa will no longer suffice as an

appropriate label for the broad spectrum of rural habitations in the Roman world. Republican sites labeled as such run the gamut from the humble farmstead (viz., Monte Porzio Catone) to the late archaic palace (viz., the

Auditorium site or Villa delle Grotte) to the modest country production site (viz., Via Gabina villas) to the (perhaps erroneously) so-called platform villas (see Beckers chapter in the present volume). Some scholars today are still content with the idea of authoring catalogs of villa sites without ex­ amining the underlying terminological categories or advancing any new typological system;1 this latter omission is particularly lamentable. In short, the very usage of this misleading loanword from Latin in most Eu­

ropean languages is extremely problematic, as has been observed many

I. Lafon 2001; Romizzi zooi; De Franceschini 2005; Marzano 2007.

2

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ROMAN REPUBLICAN VILLAS

times. It suggests a harmless emic, culture-specific concept :pt for one of the most value-laden terms still used in Roman archaeology, defined and

redefined over and over from a wide range of points of view. Many times and not only in frustrated jest after yet another fruitless terminological showdown, the call has been heard for a complete overhaul, if not an out­ right rejection, of our traditional terms of reference. Would it not be bet­ ter if we simply spoke of using more neutral descriptions for Roman rural sites, such as “single-building elite residential settlements" or even “type al­

pha” and “variant 7”? 1 hese reasonable arguments norwithstanding, here we are introducing yet another book with the objectionable word villa in its title. There arc some terms, such as state, city, or acculturation, that can apparently with­ stand brutal amounts of punishing deconstruction and still pop right back up in the current discourse, as if nothing had happened to them. Not only arc they irresistibly attractive as self-evident keywords that can quickly ag­ gregate scholars and literature, but they allow a complete sidestepping of a complex terminological debate that seems exceedingly problematic to de­ velop across disparate periods and regions. So it would seem at this point that our best chance consists in reworking the semantics of villa from in­ side this baggage-burdened term, rather than ditching it altogether. Qual­ ifying villas as precisely and robustly as possible appears to be the only practically viable option that is available at this time. The present book positions itself consciously in a perspective that aims precisely at a sort of Geertzian “thick description” of villas in their various archaeological, historical, and textual contexts. There is, emphatically, no postulation of uniformity that goes with the discourse about villas that is contained in this volume. Indeed, limiting our scope to republican villas automatically simplifies and focuses the terminological issue, allowing the interdisciplinary approach that is pursued here (discarding the term villa altogether would make interaction with the written sources virtually im­ possible). Not only does this geographically limit our writ to peninsular Italy, but it excludes the enormous villa proliferation that takes place from the Caesarian period onward and that arguably forever changes the very nature of the phenomenon. In terms of the Hellenistic pre-Gracchan land­ scapes of central Italy, there is an obvious site typology that is immediately

apparent to anyone who has carried out a balanced and comprehensive survey of the evidence. At the top of the settlement hierarchy, we find sites whose roofed surface covers over one thousand square meters, with more than ten rooms and often with architectural terracottas and other markers

Introduction • J

of elite status.2 These are the sites that are operationally defined as villas for the purposes of the present volume. Smaller rural settlements tend to have less than five hundred square meters of roofed surface (often much less), display no prestige architecture, and are not included in the definition here. On the other hand, Imperial villas—many of them famous for their opulence—arc comparatively well understood and well documented, while the same cannot be said for villa architecture (and culture) in the re­ publican period. Several important recent books have extensively recon­ sidered the villa phenomenon from different points of view, but they have devoted their attention primarily to the post-Gracchan period.3 It is, in part, to redress this lacuna that the present volume was conceived, and it has taken shape as a multidisciplinary approach to a problem that strongly impacts the way in which we perceive the Roman Republic. It is fair to say, at least in our opinion, that the “prehistory” of villas that is in question here has not often been considered in its own terms. The nu­ merical and architectural predominance of later villas has all too often over­ shadowed the complexity of the preceding phases, often reducing the nar­ rative to a quick and ready embryology that is clearly more concerned with what is seen as the end product of the process—the classic imperial villa— than with the actual character and function of these important early stages. Another side of this teleological bias has been a reading of the few relevant

sources with an eye always to subsequent developments, while glossing over the contradictions and difficulties of the contemporary record. The collective aim of the contributors is to revisit Roman republican vil­ las in light of a wealth of evidence now offered by new archaeological dis­

coveries as well as by new historical paradigms and new interpretations of literary texts. An approach that combines perspectives from all of these spheres is likely to offer the best chance of understanding villas and their culture within an appropriate context. The approach propounded here is

emphatically not informed by any brand of archaeological purism (contrary' to the dismissive and cursory assessment of a few voices of the archaeologi­ cal rear guard).4 Sources like Cato and Varro obviously must enjoy a promi­

nent role in any debate on republican villas. But this must be done by crit-

2. Terrenato 2001; Terrenato and Becker 2009. 3. Lafon 2001; Romizzi 2001; De Franceschini 2005; Marzano 2007; Tombragel 2012; but now see important contributions in Carlsen and Lo Cascio 2009; de Light 2012. 4. Carandini, D'Alessio, and Di Gyseppe 2006.

4 • ROMAN REPUBLICAN VILLAS

ically taking on board the most recent and well-informed opinions on these authors and their texts, rather than by quoting for the umpteenth time the same tired and decontextualized passages, only to interpret them with a naive literality that has been abandoned by specialists some decades ago. The present collection of essays combines, instead, the contributions of

Latin literature scholars, historians, and archaeologists on that strictly equal

footing that it is the first prerequisite for true interdisciplinarity. The well-known form of the “classic” Roman villa has generated a vast scholarship that examines this architectural form from numerous angles.

But one poorly explored aspect remains: namely, the question of the pro­ totype for the classic Roman villa. Mario Torelli addresses Greek prece­ dents for the Roman villa typolog)', asking whether or not: the classic villa form originates in the Greek world or in Italy. Torelli sees ithe agrarian reforms implemented at Rome during the fourth century BC as a critical point in the development of villa architecture in Italy. In turn, the Roman elite, in light of burgeoning development in Rome’s hinterland and in South Etruria, looked to Magna Graecia for inspiration, finding it in sites such as Montegiordano and Moltone di Tolve. In Torelli’s view, it is possi­ ble to examine the rise of villa architecture in Roman spheres in light of the influence of these Greek prototypes.

Carin Green persuasively examines the second book of Varro’s De re rustica, with the hypothesis that much of the text is itself allegorical. With a particular focus on pasturing and the herd, Green identifies a friction in Varro’s text that exists between agricultural wealth and the villa, leading her to question what analogy might be drawn between the care of the villa and the upkeep of the state itself. The names of the characters in the dia­ logue also reflect an agrarian bent, testimony of an inextricable link be­ tween the land and the state. Since the troubled times of the late republic were fraught with strife, Green makes clear that Varro reflects on these crises in his own treatise, using the most foundational subject matter to do so, that of agriculture. John Bodel takes his argument straight to the heart of the semantic question, asking what Romans meant when they used the term villa. In tracing the usage of the term in republican texts, Bodel discovers that both the concept of the villa and its meaning to various authors is variable.

Cato, in his De agri ctiltura, sets up farming as the paradigmatic lifestyle choice, which allows him to discuss other pursuits of his day against the backdrop of the large-scale land exploitation that was so central to the Ro­

man economy. In exploring these areas, it matters less whether or not the

Introduction • j

Catonian treatise is a how-to manual for the would be farmer than that Cato causes the reader to question fundamentals about Roman life, and the treatise certainly does much to establish the culture of the Roman villa. Villas clearly captured the Roman literary imagination, both for their ability to conjure up notions of the pastoral ideal and for their ability to impress others. In republican and early imperial literature, Cato and Varro both loom large with their rustic treatises on the agrarian life to which all good Romans should aspire. While well known, these treatises still have yet to be fully explored, especially for their value as instruments of estab­ lishing individual identity and credibility in the complex politics of the late republic. It is in this regard that Brendon Reay approaches the text of Cato from the latter point of view, trying to situate Catos handbook within a sociopolitical framework. Specifically, Reay examines the connec­ tion that exists (or, perhaps, should exist) between cultivation and the vir bonus, a linkage that could serve to the political advantage of any Roman man. He sees experience as essential and posits that Cato is acutely inter­ ested in establishing his own credibility by stressing his own expertise and reinforcing his credentials, since he was, after all, a homo novus. Nicola Terrenato addresses a long-overlooked problem from the ar­ chaeological point of view: namely, the discussion of whether or not the villa rustica described in Cato’s handbook existed in Italy during Cato’s own time or whether the presentation of the “Catonian villa” has more to do with ideology than architecture. Terrenato finds that generations of ar­ chaeologists have accepted Cato’s treatise at face value, using it as nearly a historical document by means of which they could interpret archaeologi­ cal remains. But no one has ever subjected the text to any sort of archaeo­

logical truthing, and in so doing, Terrenato finds that it comes up short.

This leaves the question of how to interpret and utilize Cato’s fascinating text, if not as a guide to the truisms of Italic agriculture and its context, then perhaps as another sort of document that tells us a great deal about its

author and the times in which he lived. Surprisingly, even within the well-trodden sphere of villa studies, some

physical villa sites remain unidentified, and thus their impact and

influence has not yet been evaluated. Rita Volpe approaches this very ques­ tion for the suburbium of the city of Rome as part of a larger project to

map archaeological sites within that region. Within this mapping project have emerged a number of sites that Volpe identifies as republican villas, in

some cases on the basis of the archaeological remains of viticulture at cer­

tain sites. Taken together with her own excavations at the site of Cento-

6 • ROMAN REPUBLICAN VILLAS

celle, Volpe demonstrates clearly that this new data set will powcrftilly im­ pact any discussion of villas at Rome and in its hinterland. The data pre­ sented by Volpe is persuasive and causes us to reevaluate our approach to republican villas if, in fact, there are so many others that were not previ­ ously identified. Similarly, there arc also villa sites within rural contexts in Italy that have

not been fully taken into account by scholarship, yet one class needs com­ plete reevaluation itself. This is the group described with the label basis villae, a term that usually refers to a “platform villa.” These sites have been identified in both coastal and inland Latium, as well as in other scattered instances in Italy, yet the group has never been fully studied as an architectural class. Large terraces built in polygonal masonry tend to characterize these sites, but evidence of a villa and the activities associated with it is usu­ ally not forthcoming. Jeffrey A. Becker considers these issues as he high­ lights the need for further evaluation—both by survey and excavation—of

this class of sites, all the while keeping in mind the fact that if these sites are deemed to be villas, the impact on villa studies would be substantial. A joint symposium held at the 2007 joint annual meeting of the Ar­ chaeological Institute of America and the American Philological Associa­ tion in San Diego, California, provided the stimulus for this book. All of

those who presented a paper on that occasion have submitted a contribu­ tion that is included here, so that the original coherence of the session is reflected as effectively as possible. Stephen Dyson and Andrew WallaceHadrill kindly agreed to serve as discussants for the symposium, and the invaluable input of the former is contained in a responsive essay that ap­ pears at the end of the volume. To all the participants go our heartfelt thanks for their help and collaboration. Jeffrey A. Becker Nicola Terrenato

WORKS CITED

Carandini, A. 2006. “La villa dell’Auditorium interpretata.” In Lafattoria e la villa dellAuditorium, ed. A. Carandini, M. T. D’Alessio, and H. Di Giuseppe, 559-610. Supplemento al Bullettino della Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma 14. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider. Carlsen, J., and E. Lo Cascio, eds. 2009. Agricoltura e scambi nell’Italia tardorepubblicana. Bari: Edipuglia.

Introduction • 7 De Franccschini, M. 2005. Ville dell’Agro romano. Rome: “L’Erma” di Brctschneider. de Ligt, L. 2012. Peasants, Citizens and Soldiers: Studies in the Demographic History ofRoman Italy 225 BC-AD100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lafon, X. 2001. Villa maritima: Recherches sur les villas littorals de I'Italie romaine (Hie siecle av. ].-CHIIe siecle ap. J.-C). Bibliothequc des ecoles fran^aises d’Athiincs ct de Rome 307. Rome: Ecole fran^aise de Rome. Marzano, A. 2007. Roman Villas in Central Italy: A Social and Economic History. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Romizzi, L. 2001. Ville d’otium dell’Italia antica (IIsec. a.C.-Isec. d.C.). Naples: Edizioni scicntifiche Italiane. Terrcnato, N. 2001. “The Auditorium Site and the Origins of the Roman Villa.” JRA 14:5-32. Terrenato, N., and J. A. Becker. 2009. “Il sito di Monte delle Grotte sulla via Flaminia c io sviluppo della villa nel suburbio di Roma.” In Suburbium II: Il Suburbia di Roma dallafine dell'eta monarchica alia nascita del sistema delle ville (V-II sec. a.C), ed. V. Jolivet, C. Pavolini, M. A. Tomei, and R. Volpe, 393-401. Collection de 1’Ecole fran^aise de Rome 419. Rome: Ecole framjaise de Rome. Tombragel, M. 2012. Die republikanischen Otiumvillen von Tivoli. Untersuchung zur Bautechnik, Chronologic, Architektur, und zu den historischen Hintergrilnden. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.

CHAPTER I

The Early Villa: Roman Contributions to the Development of a Greek Prototype Mario Torelli

Tf by the word villa' we mean a building standing isolated in the counJL trysidc that was involved in slave-run agriculture and possessed a specific area intended to house, though irregularly, a dominus, then such a struc­ ture and the related lifestyle have a definite terminus post quem—namely, the year 367/366 BC, when the two great Licinio-Sextian laws were passed, the de consult plebeio and, above all, the de modo agrorum. The develop­ ment in Rome of a type of slavery similar to the contemporary Greek one depends entirely on these two measures. As a matter of fact, the first law as­ sured a gradual composition of the dramatic conflict between plebeians and patricians and a reorganization of the agrarian economy, while the other bill put an end to the exclusive patrician control of the agerpublicus?

These were all basic conditions that ushered in a more profitable exploita­ tion of the land through slave labor. Before 367/366 BC, we lack both social and economic foundations for 1. The scholarly bibliography on Roman villas of the republican and early imperial pe­ riods is vast, as is evident from two of the latest general works on the subject, Romizzi zool and Marzano 2007. This chapter, dedicated to the origin of the architectural type, does not deal with the diffusion and the development of the type or with specific examples, unless they are relevant to the question of origins. 2. Contra Smith 2006, 239-50. 8

The Early Villa • 9

a full development of the villa of later times: “classic” slavery is foreign to the social organization dominant both in Rome and Etruria between 750 and 450 BC, currently classified as societies based on personal dependence of groups of gentiles and clientes, at that time the principal sources for pro­ ductive labor and overwhelmingly controlled by patricians. As a matter of fact, the original type of settlement favored by the society of the monar­ chical and early republican times is the village, normally fortified, as is ev­ ident from a number of contemporary seventh- and sixth-century BC Etruscan and Latin sites. Some of these were controlled by luxurious princely dwellings, such as those discovered at Poggio Civitate (Murlo) near Siena or at Acquarossa near Viterbo. In even larger settlements, on their way to becoming cities, the tendency of the ruling class was to create self-suffi­

cient villagclike quarters, as we gather from the example offered by Etruscan Veii of the seventh and sixth century BC. At Veii, the wide, isolated plateau of Piazza d’Armi (fig. 1.1) adjoined the southern side of the main setdement and possessed its own protective wall with a monumental dipylon gate, a great cistern for communal watering, and even a reasonably regular plan (fig. 1.2). At the beginning of the fifth century BC, it is suddenly abandoned while the main settlement receives an entirely new city wall.3 The etymological root of the word villa lies in the term *vicsla and clearly refers to a rural settlement, as dictated by the meaning of the word vicus, from which it ultimately, although indirectly, derives. However, its earliest occurrence, in the name of the Roman Villa Publica, built by the censors of the year 433 BC in the great and then empty plain of the Cam­ pus Martins, shows that villa might mean a country building with a num­ ber of possible uses, in that case the census business of the censores.4 Andrea Carandini has excavated a building complex in the northern outskirts of Rome that was in use from the middle of the sixth century BC until the imperial period, which he christened “the Auditorium villa.”5 More wisely perhaps, in his preliminary report of the same excavation, Nicola Terrenato labeled the complex the “Auditorium site.”6 Despite some hast}’ conjec­

tures, this complex, which included the residence of a rich landowner (the

3. Cf. Barroloni 2004. 4. Livy 4.22.7 announces rhe accomplishment of rhe building with the statement “ibique primum census populi esr actus,” a task that Varro 3.2.4) explains this way: cum ad rem publicam administrandam haec sit utilis, ubi cohones ad dilectum consul! adductae considant, ubi arma ostendant, ubi censores censu admittant ad populum." 5. Carandini, D'Alessio, and Di Giuseppe 2006. 6. Terrenato 2001.

& \

Grotta Gramiccia

\ Quattro v\\ Fontantli

n area o( Roman town

q,

villanovan cemetery % Villanovan village

500 m

Fig. 1.1. The town of Veii in the sixth century BC.

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/ M'/I/,.

\ Fig. t.2. The Piazza d’Armi in Veii in the early sixth century BC. (From Guaitoli 1981.)

The Early Villa • n so-called villa) and other houses of poorer appearance belonging to simple peasants, has nothing to do with the sanctuary of Anna Perenna ad I lapidemd Instead, the Auditorium site could be better considered as a part of the pagui Latiniensis, a vast and dispersed settlement that has been identified, at least since the nineteenth century, with an area close by that corresponds roughly to the Villa Glori of today.8 As I concluded in an article of some years ago,’ based on a thorough survey of archaeological literature produced on the occasion of a collo­ quium held in Pisa in 1979,10 we have no secure archaeological evidence concerning farms, villas, or undefended rural sites in the territories under Roman control before the third century BC, a statement apparently valid for all the territories of the other main Latin and Etruscan cities. It will be useful for our purposes to summarize the general history of these territo­ ries since the archaic period. After three centuries of extensive conquests and internal colonization, from 700 to 500 BC, the territories of the metropoleis of South Etruria and of Rome alike show a general stability: their borders now encircle the traditional extension of the land possessed by the Etruscan and Latin city-states up to their incorporation into the Ro­ man state in 90 BC.11 During the fifth and the greater pan of the fourth

century BC, these territories had been exploited only in an extensive way to produce grain and secure grazing ground for the benefit of the ruling oligarchs. After the enlargement of civic bodies and after the agrarian re­ forms that took place around the middle of the fourth century BC, which by no means were an exclusive Roman phenomenon but were widely known both in Greek colonies and Etruscan cities, substantial changes took place. In the territories controlled by the individual city-states, the preexisting small towns and villages, formerly the seat of seventh- and sixth-century BC princely potentates, which had been seized, destroyed, and usually abandoned soon after the conquest by the major adjoining city, were reoccupied. The best possible picture of this momentous change

7. Piranomonte 2002. 8. Cicero De bar. resp. 10.20. This ager, together with the ager Fidelias, was located north of Rome along the left bank of the Tiber, since Pliny the Elder (//AT 5.54) says that this river separated both the ager Latiniensis and the ager Fidenas from the ager Vaticanus (on the right bank). See F. Coarelli in LTUR Suburbium, vol. 3 (Rome, 2005), s.v. Latinien­ sis, ager. 9. Torelli 1990. 10. Giardina and Schiavone 1981. 11. For a summary of the political and social situation of the Etruscan city-states, see Torelli 2000.

12

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ROMAN REPUBLICAN VILLAS

is provided by the territory ofTarquinia, as it appears in the second half of the fourth century BC (fig. 1.3): there we find a number of small fortified cities, located five to ten miles from each other, that must be interpreted as firmly established colonics, founded over a generation by the leading city of Tarquinia for military purposes as well as for the implementation of agrarian reforms. Most of these small and medium-sized towns were des­ tined to become municipia of the Roman state after 90 BC; all of them were enrolled in the same rural tribe of Tarquinia, the Stellatina, as a way to show their earlier appurtenance to the once-autonomous Tarquinian state.12

In the fifth and fourth centuries BC, a period of pronounced instabil­ ity and nearly continuous military confrontations, there is scant evidence of farms in the archaeological record in the territories of both Etruscan and Latin cities: to my knowledge, one of the few exceptions up to now is the site ofTorrino, some ten miles west of Rome, where Alessandro Bedini ex­ plored the remains of a very early building apparently situated in the open countryside.13 For economic and military' reasons, early aristocracies pre­ ferred to concentrate their populations in cities and, more rarely (as it hap­ pens in Clusium), in oppida and castclla.xi Since the dominant model of agrarian exploitation required only a temporary human presence on the land, there was hardly a need for permanent buildings. In most cases when these did occur, they were built using ephemeral materials, a circumstance that defies detection even by the most intensive archaeological survey. The parallel absence of scattered cemeteries with small groups of tombs, a nor­ mal find in connection with farms from the late republic to the fifth cen­

tury AD, confirms that farms were, for the most part, foreign to the rural landscape of Italy up to the fourth and third centuries BC. In the eyes of the fourth-century BC ruling classes of Rome and Etruria, Magna Graecia represented the unequaled source for all forms of culture and of social and political organization. Recently, Enzo Lippolis15 has emphasized the role played in the second half of the fourth century BC by the great Tarentine political leader and Neopythagorean philosopher

Architas in the acceptance and diffusion beyond the borders of the Taren­ tine state of the slave-run farm as the best possible system of land exploita-

12. 13. 14. 15.

Cf. Torelli 1985. Bedini 1984,1985. Becker 2002-3. Lippolis 2006, esp. 44.

The Early Villa • 13

Fig. 1.3. The territory of the Etruscan polis ofTarquinia at the end of the fourth century BC.

tion and of social behavior. Aristoxenos, a disciple ofArchitas, attributes to his teacher the creation of a farm run by slaves (oiketai) under the supervi­ sion of a procurator (epitropos) and, above all, governed by the masters temperance. These are all economic and social distinctive traits of the sort of villa described by Cato the Elder. Tarentum was, of course, a leading center, but analogous experiments were also carried out in the Sicilian towns, as shown by a few farms explored in the territory of the Greek colony of Camarina.16 The success among the dominant class of Rome of 16. Di Stefano 2002. Cf. also D. Adamesteanu in AWri9>8,364-79.

14

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ROMAN REPUBLICAN VILLAS

the slave-based model of agriculture was certainly promoted by the pres­ tige enjoyed by the culture of Magna Graccia and by the Ncopythagorcan philosophy in the most exclusive aristocratic circles of fourth-century BC Rome. The philosophical choices of Appius Claudius Caccus, the famous censor of 312 BC, seem to be the best possible demonstration of such ten­ dencies.17 Archaeological evidence from the chora ofTarentum in the ar­ chaic and classical times confirms this. TheTarentine landscape,18 up to a distance of five to six miles from the city walls, is thickly populated by farms (fig. 1.4a), not one of which has been properly excavated; in the rest of the territory, it is possible to recog­ nize a whole range of settlements, from fortified guard posts (phrouria) on the frontier (fig. 1.4b) to some small villages, usually connected with a sanctuary (fig. 1.4c). These sanctuaries sought to provide divine protection to the borders and to secure the ethnic and cultural identity of those who inhabited or frequented the peripheral area of the city’s territory.19 It is not difficult to detect the influence of thcTarentine model in the lands of the Lucanian tribes, populating the hinterland of the Greek colonies ofTaren­ tum, Metapontum, and Herakleia.20The best example of such influence is offered by the fortified Lucanian farm at Montegiordano (fig. 1.5),21 which had a well-built pyrgos similar to those of Attica,22 as well as to those of the famous fourth-century farms in the Argolid, with towers built in polygo­ nal masonry,23 and to the pyrgoi of the farms of the Greek colonies in the Crimea.24 Founded around 340-330 BC, the Montegiordano farm was de-

stroyed during the war against Pyrrhus (ca. 280-275 BC) and was never re­ built. The building was organized around a central courtyard, with an andron connected, as usual, with a kitchen and a pantry, a storeroom, and a gynaikonitis that also contained a small shrine for domestic cults. This type of building is apparently inspired by the type of slave-run farm favored by Architas for his political ideal of a moderate democracy, though adjusted to the needs of a landed, locally resident warrior elite, which formed the

17. Humm 2005, 483-540. 18. Osanna 1992, 25-38 with rhe plates showing the territory ofTarentum. 19. On these sanctuaries and their function, see Torelli 1999. 20. Ynrema 1993. 21. Guzzo 1982,325. 22. Lohmann 1993,1992. 23. Fracchia 1985; Baatz 1999. For other examples on Lesbos, see Spencer 1994; for Lycian cases, see Konecny 1997. Cf., more in general, Nowicka and Kasiska 1975. 24. Cf. Saptykin 1994; Kuzishchin and Ivarchikk 1998; Wasowicz 1999; Carter, Craw­ ford, Lehman, Nikolaenko, and Trelogan 2000; Nikolaenko 2001; Wasowicz 2003.

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Fig. 1.4a. The chora of Tarentum in the archaic and classical time: farms. (From Osanna 1992, map entitled “II territorio di Taranto.”)

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Fig. 1.4b. The chora of Tarentum in the archaic and classical time: phouria. (From Osanna 1992, map entitled “11 territorio di Taranto.”)

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Fig. 1.4c. The cbora of Tarentum in the archaic and classical time: villages. (From Osanna 1992, map entitled “11 territorio di Taranto.”)

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ROMAN REPUBLICAN VILLAS

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Fig. 1.5. The Lucanian farm at Montegiordano. (From Guzzo 1990, 325, Rilievo dell’edificio di Montegiordano.”)

strength of the Lucanian “military democracy” (to use the term coined by the great ancient historian Ettore Lepore to define the ancient Lucanian state).25 The existence of a cultural “loan” of this kind by “barbaric” groups in southern Italy is important to reconstruct the earliest stages of the slave villa in Roman lands. Let us consider again the Lucanian area and another 25. Lepore 1990.

The Early Villa • 19 farm belonging to the same culture, located at Mokone di Tolve, even fur­ ther inland than the Montcgiordano building.26 The plan of its initial phase (fig. 1.6) dates to the end of the fourth century BC and again de­ pends on a well-established type of Greek rural building of the classical pe­ riod, perhaps best illustrated by the famous Attic farm known in the ar­ chaeological literature as the “Dema House” (fig. 1.7).27 The influence of this classical Greek prototype would have a very lasting effect in the most developed lands of Italy—notably in Latium, Campania, Apulia, and southern Etruria. In rural buildings of these areas dating from the middle

and late second century BC,28 we can still trace a compact, rectangular plan that is not unlike that of Attic prototypes and includes an elongated courtyard and three or more rooms on the long side, generally with a good southern exposure. This similarity is demonstrated by the original plan of a series of farms, such as those at Francolise29 near Cales in Campania (fig. 1.8), at Posta Crusta near Herdonia in Apulia (fig. 1.9),30 at Mancamasone near Bantia in Apulia (fig. 1.10),31 and at Sambuco near Blera in southern Etruria (fig. 1.11).32 Many of these farms were solidly constructed, largely built with the use of opus caementicium, a clear proof that they belong to the richest and most developed agriculture of late republican Italy and that they were built at a time when land exploitation by greater and greater masses of slaves was the prevailing model. We are far from the villa perfecta of Carandini’s theoretical reconstruction,33 but the contrast with the ap­ pearance of very simple rural buildings from other areas of Italy could not be sharper, if we compare them with the sole complete example of an Etruscan farm, excavated by Giulio Paolucci at Poggio Bacherina near

26. Tocco 1990; Russo 1993a; Soppelsa 1991; Di Giuseppe 1994. On early villas in Lucania, see Gualtieri 2003, 136-39, esp. 137; for the impact of the Roman conquest on in­ digenous settlements, see Isayev 2002. 27. Jones, Sackett, and Graham 1962. Another similar farm, the so-called Vari House, has been explored and published by the same authors: see Jones, Graham, and Sackett 1973. 28. I understand that these buildings are the “farms" of Carandini's classification (dif­ ferent, then, from the “villas" of his scheme). Cf. Carandini, D’Alessio, and Di Giuseppe 2006,587-610. 29. Cotton 1979. In the same territory, there is another villa of urban quality, cf. C01 ton and Mctraux 1985. 30. De Boe 1975. 31. Russo 1993b. 32. Ostenberg 1962. Cf. the other villa near Blera at Selvasecca: see Berggren and An­ dren NScigGy, 51-71. 33. Carandini 1989.

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Fig. 1.6. The Lucanian farm at Moltone di Tolvc, phase I (ca. 300 BC). (From Russo 1993, fig. 64.)

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Fig. 1.7. The “Dema House” in Attica. (From Jones, Sackett, and Graham 1962, 76, fig. 1.)

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46 Ackerman, James, Acquarossa, 9, 96 adftctatores regm, 71 agcrptiblicus, 8, 73 ager Romanns antiques, 119 ager Sabinus, 116 ager Tiburtinus, ti6

agricolae, 33, 63

alae, 25, 74Madallena, 114 Andreussi, Anna Perenna, 11 Antony, 38, 42 Appius Claudius, 34, 35 Appleseed, Johnny, 129

Apulia, 19, 73 Archiras, 12,13 lCOttas> 7> architectural terrar Argolid, 14 Aristotle, 64 Aristoxenos, 13 tit ashlar masonry, 74, Astin, A. E., 63 atrium, 25, 26, 75> 98 Attema, P.A.J., »5> >>9. >2°

Attica, Atticus,14, 38,2042, 57- 58

figures or tables. Auditorium site, 1, 9,11, 25,26, 71, 76, 82, 95, 96, 96, 97, 98,120 Auditorium villa. See Auditorium site Augustan Age, 58 Aulus Gellius, 49 Axius, 34

Bantia, 19, 22 Basis villae, 6,112,113,114,ny,115,116, ti6,117,118,119,120,121,122,124, 125,126 Becker, Jeffrey A., v, 1, 6, ill Bedini, Alessandro, 12 Blera, 19, 23, 75,123 Bodel, John, v, 4, 45 Boii, 38 bonus vir, 47 British School at Rome, 107,114,139 C. Laelius, 54 Caesar, 57,145 Cales, 19, 21 Camatina, 13 Campania, 19, 70,76, 83, 85,133 Campi Macri, 38 Campus Mattius, 9, 34, 3$, $7 Carandini, Andrea, 19, 74, 75, 95, 96

>43

144 • General Index

Carinae, 57 castclla, 12 Cato the Elder, 3, 4, 5, 13, 32, 33, 36, 37, 46, 48,50,51,52,54, 55,56, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 74, 78, 79, 82, 83, 87, 130,131, 132,

134

Dyson, Stephen I„, v, 6, 119 Ecole francjaisc de Rome, 103 Ennius, 54 Epirus, 34, 42, 57, 57, 58 Esquilinc Hill, 57 Etruria, 12,19, 70, 72, 73,124

Catonian villa, 5,53, 69, 76, 79, 88, 95, 118

Ccntoccllc, 5, 98, yy, too, 101,103,106, 107

Chianciano, 19 chora, 14 Cicero, 46, 53,54, 87,134 Cincinnatus, 39, 40, 41, 71,131 Cisalpine Gaul, 38, 42 classic villas, 3, 74, 98 Claudius Caccus, Appius, 14 clientes, 9 Clusium, 12, 25 colonae, 63 Comune di Roma, 98 Cora, 117,11S, 119,125 Cornelius Merula, 35,57 Cornelius Nepos, 47, 55 Cornelius Scipio Africanus, Publius, 47.131 Cossinius, 38 Crimea, 14 Cryptoporticus, 116 Curius Dentatus, M.’, 46, 47, 48,58 de agri cultura, 4, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 74, 76, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88 de consult plebeio, 8 De Franceschini, Marina, 102 de modo agrorum, 8 de oratore, 54 de re rustica. See Res rusticae De republica, 54 De senectute, 54, 87 Dema House, 19, 20 Di Giuseppe, Helga, 107 dolia, 79, 80 dominus, 8, 26, 63, 96

famHia, 81 Farmer j Almanac, 86 Faustulus, 38 Firccllius Pavo, 35, 57 Forma Italiae, 115, 117 Forum, 35 Forum Boarium, 37 Francolise, 19, 21, 75, 114 fiindamentntn, 116 Fundania, 38,54,55

gentiles, 9 Georgies, 65 Gigli, Stefania Quilici, 134 Greco-Italic amphora, 80, 83 Green, Carin M. C„ v, 4, 32,57 Grottarossa. See Villa delle Grotte

Habinek, Thomas, 63, 85 Hannibalic War. See Second Punic War Hellenistic farms, 83 Herakleia, 14 Herdonia, 19, 22 Hesiod, 88 homo novus, 5, 81, 86,130 homoteleuton, 87

Iliad, 39 impluvia, 74 instrumentum, 80 Joolen, E. van, 117 Junius Brutus, Marcus, 53 La Grande Rotna dei Tarquinii, 131 Latium, 6,19, 72, 73,113,119,120,121, 124. I25

General Index • 14$

Lamm Adiectum, 119 Ixporc, Ettore, 18 Licinio-Sextian laws, 8 Lippolis, Enzo, 12 Liternum, 47 Lucius Fundilius, 34 Lucullus, 135 Lucus Fcroniae, 27 Ludi Megalenses, 87 Macedonia, 37 Magna Graecia, 4,12,14,132,135 Mago, 37 Mancamasone, 19, 22 Marathon, 41 Marathonamachoi, 41 Marcus Antonius, 57 Mari, Zaccaria, 116 McKay, Alexander, 75 McMahon, Lynne, 87 Mediterranean, 63,131,133 Metapontum, 14 Mielsch, Harald, 75 Minucius Pica, 35 Moltone di Tolve, 4,19, 20, 24, 25, 75 Monte Porzio Catone, I Montegiordano, 4, 14,18,19 Monti Lepini, 117 Monticchio, 113 municipia, 12 Mutina, 38 Neopythagorean philosophy, 12,14 nobilitas, 26 Norba, 117,119,120,122,124

Octavian, 42 oppida, 12 opus incertum, too, 116,117 opus quadratum, 71, tot, 121 Origines, 48,53 otium, 53. 112 Ovile, 34, 35 pagtis Latiniensis, it Palatine Hill, 7‘. S>6

Paolucci, Giulio, 19 Parilia, 38 pars dominica, 26 pars fructuaria, 25 pastio villatica, 37,58 paterfamilias, 51, 63, 64 peristyle, 25, 75, 98 Petronius Passer, Marcus, 35 Piano, Renzo, 95 Piazza d’Armi, 9,10 Pictrabbondatc, 133 platform villa, 6 Pliny the Elder, 130 Pliny the Younger, 46 Plutarch, 46, 47 Poggio Bacherina, 19, 23 Poggio Civitate (Murlo), 9, 96 Poggio Serrone di Bove, 124,123 Polybius, 66 polygonal masonry, 6, tn, 112,113,114, 117,119,121,122,124

pomerium, 35, 95 Pompeii, 133 Pompey, 38 Pontine Region Project, 115,125 populus Romanus, 35 Posta Crusta, 19, 22 Posto, 75 Potentia, 25 />yr£or, 14, 25 Pyrrhus, 14 Quilici, Lorenzo, 134 Quintus Lucienus, 38

Reay, Brendon, v> 5. 61, 85, n8 respublica, 35 ResRusticae.4,^ 39-54 Kice University, 97 Romulus and Remus, 38 Rubicon, 57

Salissano, 114 Sambuco, 23 Samnite, 133 Scipio Aemilianus,

47. 54

146 • General Index

Scipio Africanus, 47,131 Scrofa, 37,38 Second Punic War, 47, 95,108,132 Second World War, 134 Sclvasccca di Blcra, 75,123 Seneca, 47 Sctia, 117 Settcfincstrc, 79,115,119 Sextus Roscius, 132 Sicily, 76, 135 Siena, 9 Signia, 119, 120 slave mode of production, 135 Social War, 134 socii, 133 Soprintendcnza Archcologica di Roma, 103,113 South Etruria, 4, it South Etruria survey, 107,134 Spain, 73 Spurius Cassius, 71 St. John de Crevecoeur, J. Hector, 130 Stellatina, 12 Struggle of the Orders, 133 suburbium, 71, 94, 97,103,104,105, 108

tablina, 74 Tarentum, 13,14, If, 16,17 Tarquinia, 12,13,135 Tellus, 33,34, 57 Terrcnato, Nicola, v, 5, 9, 69, 96,118 Tiber Valley Project, 107 torcular, 118 Torelli, Mario, v, 4, 8 Torrino, 12 triumphator, 46 Turranius Niger, 38

Umbria, 124

Vaccius, 38 Valerius Poplicola, 71 Valvisciolo, 119

Varro, 3, 4, 5, 33, 34, 35, 36. 37. 38. 39. 40, 41. 43, 46, 55. 56. 58. 88, 130, 131 l.U. 13$ Veii, 9. to Vcync, Paul, 130 Via Appia, 120 Via Elaminia, 95, 97 Via Gabina, 1, 75, 76, So, 97,123 Vilicus, 83 villa arl rluas lauros, 99, too Villa della Piscina, 75, 76, 98, too, 106 Villa dellc Grottc, 1, 76, 79, 97,120 Villa Glori, it Villa of the Mysteries, 75 villa perfecta, 19, 95,131,134 Villa Prato, 76 Villa Publica, 9, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 43, 57. 57 villa rustica, 118 villa urbana, 32 villae expolitae, 72 villae maritimae, 114 villae perfectae. See villa perfecta villae rusticae, 113 vir bonus, 5,32, 66 Virgil, 65 Viterbo, 9 Vitulus, 38 Volpe, Rita, v, 5, 6, 94 Volusii Saturnini, 27 Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, 6 • Weber, Max, 84 Xenophon, 33, 40,54

Yale ArchitecturalJournal, 45