Oplontis Villa B
About
A few hundred meters from the Poppaea villa, this second Oplontis complex ran as a working wine business, its storerooms holding over 1,400 amphorae being readied for a new vintage when Vesuvius erupted. Excavators tied the property to a Lucius Crassius Tertius via a graffito naming him, though whether he owned or simply worked there remains debated. The complex combined cramped worker housing with a commercial packing and export operation for Vesuvian wine, ending on 24 August 79 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
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