Roman Villa in the Mediterranean Basin

"The expansion and proliferation of villas into the Mediterranean under Roman hegemony is the topic of this volume. In addition, the historical trajectory of the villa as a formula and phenomenon is outlined for different parts of the empire. Villas - extra-urban, suburban, or seaside country houses, many with productive estates or facilities contiguous or non-adjacent to them, others purely residential - were unmistakable signs of Roman social and economic presence. Roman villas expanded into Italy and the coasts and inland areas of the mare nostrum (and ultimately into the northwestern provinces of the empire) along with other agricultural, physical, institutional, and socio-cultural phenomena of the new hegemony. There were exceptions, most notably in the eastern empire where a widespread residential tradition and culture on agricultural estates did not develop. However, villas were signs of Roman economic organization and signifiers of Roman cultural presence in annexed lands and coastlines, and they became both normal and normalizing by the late-2nd century BCE in central and southern Italy and a little later in the northern peninsula. Elsewhere, landscapes readily receptive to the implantation of villas and their proliferation in the imperial period further assured Roman presence in terms of architecture, agricultural practices, decorative expectations, and social mores throughout the Mediterranean"--