Villa Sora
About
Villa Sora occupied a coastal terrace at what is now Torre del Greco, expanding through several phases after its mid-1st-century-BCE founding into a residence with frescoed capitals and reception halls. Recent excavations found evidence a construction site was still active on the property in 79 CE, work interrupted mid-stream when Vesuvius erupted. The villa lay largely forgotten for centuries beneath the modern town that grew over it.
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 →