House of Virgil
About
Workers uncovered this Hadrumetum house in 1896 and found a floor unlike any other in Roman Africa. It showed the poet Virgil seated between the muses Clio and Melpomene, an open scroll of the Aeneid across his knees. The floor dates to the third century, more than a century after Trajan's death, and now fills a room of its own in the Bardo Museum. No inscription names the owner, but the literary program marks a household of real ambition.
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 →