Regia Caesareae
About
Juba II, the Numidian-born client king Augustus installed over Mauretania, refounded the Punic port of Iol as Caesarea around 25 BCE and built a royal palace modeled on the Hellenistic capitals of the eastern Mediterranean. He and his queen, Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony, filled the city with a lighthouse, theater, and amphitheater alongside their residence. After Rome annexed Mauretania as a province in 44 CE, Caesarea continued as the provincial capital, and the royal quarter remained a governing seat through 117 CE.
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
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 →