House of the Laberii, Oudna

VillaAfrica Proconsularis · Oudna (ancient Uthina), about 30 km south of Tunis, TunisiaBuilt 100 CE

About

Wealthy Romans built this townhouse at Uthina in the late 1st or early 2nd century AD, decades before Trajan died in 117 CE, so it already stood at the empire's greatest extent. The Laberii family kept decorating its floors for two centuries, commissioning a mosaic of Orpheus charming the animals and, later, a hunting scene finished around 300 AD. Fragments of its pavements were later pulled out and now sit in separate museums. Uthina today is a quiet park south of Tunis.

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.