House of the Labyrinth
About
This house near Thuburbo Majus's forum took its name from a floor mosaic of Theseus gripping the Minotaur's horn mid-blow inside a geometric maze, human remains scattered at his feet. Craftsmen laid the pavement at the end of the 3rd century AD, nearly two centuries after Trajan's death. Thuburbo Majus itself only became a municipium under Hadrian in 128 CE, just over a decade past this map's snapshot. The mosaic now hangs in the Bardo Museum in 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.
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 →