Villa of Chiragan
About
The first villa at Chiragan, on the Garonne along the road to Toulouse, rose modestly during Augustus's reign, centuries before the site became one of Gaul's grandest estates. By Trajan's reign the residence already included an atrium and two peristyle courtyards, expansion carried out as the property's wealth grew. Chiragan later yielded more than 700 sculpture fragments, including imperial portrait busts, now at the Saint-Raymond Museum in Toulouse — most of that famous sculpture collection dates generations after this snapshot.
What happened here
A working estate with a comfortable house attached, and the proportions vary with how rich the owner is and how often he visits. The farm side has presses for oil and wine, threshing floors, storage sunk into the ground, stables and quarters for the workforce. The residential side has baths, dining rooms sited for the view, mosaics, and a garden with water in it. A manager runs the place year-round and reports; the owner arrives for the vintage and for the summer. Produce goes to market or to the owner's town house, and the accounts are kept in detail. Some villas are pure retreat with no farm at all, built on a cliff or a lake specifically to be looked at from a boat.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →