Beroia Roman Farm Villa
About
Highway crews building the new Egnatia Odos near Veroia in 1999 struck a working Roman farm, its storerooms still lined with wine pithoi. Founded in the 1st century BC, the estate stayed in use until the 4th century AD, so it had produced wine for over 150 years by the time Trajan died in 117 CE. One cistern doubled as a vivarium, a stocked fish tank, inside an 800-square-meter complex of presses and tanks. The find gave archaeologists a rare look at Macedonia's rural estates.
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 →