The Roman Villa In The Mediterranean Basin

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.

"The expansion and proliferation of villas into the Mediterranean under Roman hegemony is the topic of this volume. In addition, the historical trajectory of the villa as a formula and phenomenon is outlined for different parts of the empire. Villas - extra-urban, suburban, or seaside country houses, many with productive estates or facilities contiguous or non-adjacent to them, others purely residential - were unmistakable signs of Roman social and economic presence. Roman villas expanded into Italy and the coasts and inland areas of the mare nostrum (and ultimately into the northwestern provinces of the empire) along with other agricultural, physical, institutional, and socio-cultural phenomena of the new hegemony. There were exceptions, most notably in the eastern empire where a widespread residential tradition and culture on agricultural estates did not develop. However, villas were signs of Roman economic organization and signifiers of Roman cultural presence in annexed lands and coastlines, and they became both normal and normalizing by the late-2nd century BCE in central and southern Italy and a little later in the northern peninsula. Elsewhere, landscapes readily receptive to the implantation of villas and their proliferation in the imperial period further assured Roman presence in terms of architecture, agricultural practices, decorative expectations, and social mores throughout the Mediterranean"--

One of the greatest challenges faced today by those responsible for ancient cultural sites is that of maintaining the delicate balance between conserving these fragile resources and making them available to increasing numbers of visitors. Tourism, unchecked development, and changing environmental conditions threaten significant historical sites throughout the world. These issues are among the topics dealt with in this book, which reports on the proceedings of an international conference on the conservation of classical sites in the Mediterranean region, organized by the Getty Conservation Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum. The book includes chapters discussing management issues at three sites: Piazza Armerina, Sicily; Knossos, Crete; and Ephesus, Turkey. While visiting these sites, conference participants examined how issues raised at these locales can illuminate the challenges of management and conservation faced by complex heritage sites the world over. Additional chapters discuss such topics as the management of cultural sites, the reconstruction of ancient buildings, and ways of presenting and interpreting sites for today's visitors.

Marzano explores the exploitation of marine resources in the Roman world and its role within the economy. Bringing together literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and legal sources, she shows that these marine resources were an important feature of the Roman economy and paralleled phenomena taking place in the Roman agricultural economy on land.

The late Roman villa of Caddeddi, near Noto in south-east Sicily, first came to light over forty years ago. Built in the second half of the fourth century AD, it is chiefly known for its three figured mosaic pavements, which after careful restoration in Syracuse were returned to the site prior to its opening to the public in 2008. This book describes in detail these and other pavements at Caddeddi, and concludes that, as at the more famous villa of Casale near Piazza Armerina a generation before, they are likely to be the work of North African mosaicists fulfilling an overseas commission for the villa's owner. The book attempts to place the mosaics and the villa itself in their wider Sicilian and Mediterranean context, with discussion ranging over such topics as late Roman villas elsewhere in Sicily, the iconography of myth and personification, peacock-feather helmets, the participation of the military in the Roman animal trade, the parallels between the mosaic floors of Caddeddi and those of Roman North Africa, the development of a new Roman saddle type in the fourth century, and military footwear fashionable at the same time. Of particular note are the 197 illustrations, 184 of them in full colour, which highlight the vividness and vivacity, as well as the polychromatic variety, of these stunning late Roman mosaics.

In Gardens of the Roman Empire, the pioneering archaeologist Wilhelmina F. Jashemski sets out to examine the role of ancient Roman gardens in daily life throughout the empire. This study, therefore, includes for the first time, archaeological, literary, and artistic evidence about ancient Roman gardens across the entire Roman Empire from Britain to Arabia. Through well-illustrated essays by leading scholars in the field, various types of gardens are examined, from how Romans actually created their gardens to the experience of gardens as revealed in literature and art. Demonstrating the central role and value of gardens in Roman civilization, Jashemski and a distinguished, international team of contributors have created a landmark reference work that will serve as the foundation for future scholarship on this topic. An accompanying digital catalogue will be made available at: www.gardensoftheromanempire.org.

Cultural identity in the classical world is explored from a variety of angles.

This is the first archaeological study to approach the central problem of storage in the Roman world holistically, across contexts and datasets, of interest to students and scholars of Roman archaeology and history and to anthropologists keen to link the scales of farmer and state.