Els Munts
About
A Roman residence occupied this hilltop 12 kilometers from Tarraco from the 1st century CE onward, though the opulent villa whose mosaics and baths survive today was largely rebuilt starting in the mid-2nd century, a generation past this map's snapshot. Its later heyday belonged to Caius Valerius Avitus, a duumvir of Tarraco, and his wife Faustina. In 117 CE a working Roman residence stood on the site, but the grand aristocratic villa visitors see today was still a generation away.
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 →