Gordion Roman Peristyle House
About
On the old citadel mound at Gordion, Roman settlers raised a house with a colonnaded peristyle courtyard between the Flavian and Trajanic periods, so it stood complete before Trajan died in 117 CE. Archaeologists who mapped it call it the only excavated rural residence known from Roman Galatia's former territory. The University of Pennsylvania Museum has dug there since 1950, finding a colonnaded street alongside it. Galatia's countryside was mostly villages and estates, rarely excavated houses.
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
Nearby
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 →