Roman republican villas
Subtitle: architecture, context, and ideology
By: Jeffrey A. Becker and Nicola Terrenato, editors
Series: Papers and monographs of the American Academy in Rome
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 152
ISBN-13: 9780472117703
Subjects: Buildings, structures; Social life and customs; Domestic Architecture; Landscape architecture; Roman Antiquities; Antiquities; Dwellings; History
Description: The Roman villa is a classic icon of Western culture, and yet villa can be used to cover a multiplicity of ideas, experiences, and places. In the late Republic and early Imperial periods, villas are inseparable from elite lifestyles, providing a prestigious setting for leisurely and intellectual pursuits. But how did these advanced buildings come about? Roman Republican Villas examines key aspects of early villa culture and architecture, with the goal of understanding the development and deployment of villas in Republican Italy. For instance, where does the "classic" villa architecture originate? How do writers like Cato the Elder or Varro use the villa to their own advantage? How visible are Republican villas in the landscape of central Italy? Traditional theories about villa development have been largely focused on stereotypical ideals of early Roman austerity and industriousness.^

New work at sites such as the Auditorium, however, proves the existence of luxurious residences already by the 5th-4th c. BCE, even before the Roman conquest of Italy. Such recent developments in archaeological fieldwork have begun to reshape the discourse in such a way that old assumptions are being challenged and, in many cases, found wanting. Within this atmosphere of new discoveries and reconsideration, scholars are uniquely poised to re-examine the villa and the part it played in the culture of Roman Italy, in terms of both the material remains and the literary sources. The villa also plays a prominent role in Republican literature such as the De agri cultura of Cato and the texts of Varro, as the early Latin authors seek to fashion identities for themselves and the city of Rome.^

Drawing on diverse source materials, the collected essays of Roman Republican Villas help to re-center the discussion of Roman villa culture, particularly in light of new evidence offered both by fieldwork and by new approaches to Republican agricultural writers. This volume brings together scholars of Latin literature, Roman history, and classical archaeology to offer a multidisciplinary approach to the questions connected to the emergence and development of villas and their farming culture. With contributions from leading scholars Jeffrey A. Becker, John Bodel, Stephen L. Dyson, Carin M. C. Green, Brendon Reay, Nicola Terrenato, Mario Torelli, and Rita Volpe, the viewpoints offered build upon previous scholarship and ask challenging questions about how the evidence of Roman villas has traditionally been interpreted.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The early villa : Roman contributions to the development of a Greek prototype / Mario Torelli; title: The shepherd of the people : Varro on herding for the Villa Publica in De re rustica 2 / Carin M.C. Green; title: Villaculture / John Bodel; title: Cato's De agri cultura and the spectacle of expertise / Brendon Reay; title: The enigma of "Catonian" villas : the De agri cultura in the context of second-century, BC, Italian architecture / Nicola Terrenato; title: Republican villas in the suburbium of Rome / Rita Volpe; title: Polygonal masonry and republican villas? : the problem of the basis villae / Jeffrey A. Becker; title: Concluding remarks / Stephen L. Dyson.