House of Neptune

VillaAfrica Proconsularis · Thuburbo Majus, TunisiaBuilt 210 CE

Not standing in 117 CE

About

Thuburbo Majus's House of Neptune wrapped four porticoes on twelve columns around a central peristyle garden when it went up in the early third century. Restorers left its geometric floors in place but shipped the finer figural panels to the Bardo Museum, since figural mosaics were rare among Thuburbo's mostly geometric houses. The city itself started as an Augustan veteran colony in 27 BC, two centuries earlier. It remains one of the best-preserved houses on the site today.

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.