House of the Hunt, Bulla Regia
About
Romans at Bulla Regia dug their grandest houses half underground to escape the North African heat, and the House of the Hunt is the best-preserved example. Builders raised it mostly in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, postdating Trajan's death in 117 CE by decades. Excavators in 1904 found its sunken courtyard ringed by eight columns beneath a groin vault of hollow terracotta tubes, still cool on the hottest days. The house is named for a mosaic of a hunting scene found in one room.
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 →