Do we see any examples of ideology and snobbishness trumping climate/physics in Roman elite building practices?
For instance, the Romans didn't like pants, but as the Romans went north, they gave in and adopted pants because climate is a thing.
In the villa context you mention local materials and heated floors. But were these villas actually well adapted to cold climates, or buildings adapted to the southern Mediterranean being jury-rigged to serve in England because that's what culture demanded?
Sod houses are well adapted to Scandinavia, for instance. Is the villa equally well adapted, or just posturing?
Villas seem to be very adaptable buildings when it comes to climate. In warmer climates, having a central courtyard or peristyle, particularly one filled with water features and flora, acts as having somewhere to cool the house.
The hypocaust systems are just extensions of those used to heat the baths, so if the climate gets colder, the house is easily adaptable to take a hypocaust wherever you need one.
Anecdotally, villa sites in Britain tend to contain a lot more evidence of hypocaust flue tiles than they do in Gaul which might be explained by a few things.
Firstly, of course, it's just about the climate, although the climate throughout most of Gaul isn't that different to Britain and, in most cases, colder during Winter. It might be soggier most of the time, perhaps, but this shouldn't come as a surprise to the Romano-British who are the majority of the villa owners, rather than shivering southern Mediterranean types.
Secondly, the elite of Romano-British society appear to have been richer than their Gallo-Roman cousins, which might reflect a wider difference in society as a whole or just the elite. It's hard to tell. So they might have been better able to afford to have the more expensive hypocaust installed.
Lastly, it might just be a cultural identity thing. As the Romano-Britons found unique ways to express their cultural identity within the villa model, or even, as is the case in Norfolk, bypass it altogether, so the Gallo-Romans might not have seen the hypocaust as a feature of their villas that served anything other than a practical purpose.
Conversely, it might have been that the Romano-Britons are installing them as much for status as for heating, and that status is either an expression of wealth or of cultural identity. Or both, of course. It's showing off, but it might also be signalling that you've really 'arrived' in terms that can be identified as Roman.
That's not to say that the Romano-Britons were 'more Roman' than their Gallic cousins, just that this is how they chose to express their own place within the empire. The opposite in Gaul might be fountains, which are more common in villa contexts than they are in Britain, and all of the above might apply to those, too. They are adapted to the climate and are also expressions of what it meant to be Gallo-Roman.
Two changes between the pre-industrial world into the modern world are the separation of workplace and residence, and the separation of production and consumption. The co-mingling of production and consumption is evident in the elite houses of Pompeii according to Wallace-Hadrill. I am only familiar with a few literary examples of Italian villas. It appears that Italian villas and Romano-British villas combined these functions, too.
Being economically self-reliant was a strong trope in Roman society, especially among the elite. It’s a great separator between ‘normal’ citizens and slaves, for example and that self-reliance and autonomy was seen as on of the markers of a citizen. Hence people like actors, prostitutes and gladiators are looked down on because they are deemed to have forfeited some of that self-reliance and autonomy in order to make money. Likewise, engaging in trade, which relies on other people’s money to make your own, is deemed as an uncouth way of making a living, especially for those elite. The villa model, on the other hand, is the perfect way for the Roman gentleman to make money - he owns land, which he can farm or rent out and the resulting profit is then used to make loans. ‘Living above the shop’ is a very Roman way of living.
Yet Wallace-Hadrill claims that elite houses themselves were often production facilities. Not only did these houses generally combine commercial and domestic functions, the spaces within these houses mixed commercial and domestic functions.
All the production in those houses would be directly handled by slaves, as would the trading of produce. The gentleman owner would only be directly involved in overseeing the ownership of the land and the money-lending, thereby keeping his hands clean of what they literally referred to as 'dirty money', i.e. money that had become tainted by passing through more than one set of hands.
Although trading was uncouth, it was also very profitable. One often sees freedmen become extremely rich through direct involvement in careers such as grain trading, and what would happen is that they would learn the trade under a master, earn their freedom once they had served a sort of apprenticeship, and then the master would set them up in business, taking a cut of the profits. That way, the gentleman could keep his metaphorical hands clean and also profit from the trading of the goods his villas produced.
It wasn't forbidden to take part in such business, it was just bad for one's reputation. It was unseemly. Having a network of freedmen beholden to him, allowed the gentleman to have his fingers in many pies.
None of these social restrictions applies to those lower down the social ladder, of course, and wouldn't have applied to the nouveau-riche villa owners in provinces such as Britain unless they then moved so far up the ladder that they became involved in provincial-level politics.
The governor of Galatia, supporter of Augustus and consul in 21 BC, Marcus Lollius, was described by Pliny the Elder as having 'disgraced himself' in amassing an incredible fortune. Although a lot of this disdain is from the usual practices of plundering the provinces that he ran, he also implies that some of it was gained by trading directly with 'eastern kings'. The direct avarice of plunder is seen as part of the perks of the job, but the greed of trading is disgraceful. His granddaughter, Lollia Paulina, was briefly married to Caligula and went about town in a dress worth a staggering 40 million sesterces.
One way to avoid the taint of dirty money was to own all the land and act as the central hub for production, but to rent the land and, therefore the production process to tenant farmers, which was seen as perfectly acceptable.
In towns, where people lived above their own businesses, the plebians had none of this to contend with, of course.
Great post.
Do we see any examples of ideology and snobbishness trumping climate/physics in Roman elite building practices?
For instance, the Romans didn't like pants, but as the Romans went north, they gave in and adopted pants because climate is a thing.
In the villa context you mention local materials and heated floors. But were these villas actually well adapted to cold climates, or buildings adapted to the southern Mediterranean being jury-rigged to serve in England because that's what culture demanded?
Sod houses are well adapted to Scandinavia, for instance. Is the villa equally well adapted, or just posturing?
Thank you!
Villas seem to be very adaptable buildings when it comes to climate. In warmer climates, having a central courtyard or peristyle, particularly one filled with water features and flora, acts as having somewhere to cool the house.
The hypocaust systems are just extensions of those used to heat the baths, so if the climate gets colder, the house is easily adaptable to take a hypocaust wherever you need one.
Anecdotally, villa sites in Britain tend to contain a lot more evidence of hypocaust flue tiles than they do in Gaul which might be explained by a few things.
Firstly, of course, it's just about the climate, although the climate throughout most of Gaul isn't that different to Britain and, in most cases, colder during Winter. It might be soggier most of the time, perhaps, but this shouldn't come as a surprise to the Romano-British who are the majority of the villa owners, rather than shivering southern Mediterranean types.
Secondly, the elite of Romano-British society appear to have been richer than their Gallo-Roman cousins, which might reflect a wider difference in society as a whole or just the elite. It's hard to tell. So they might have been better able to afford to have the more expensive hypocaust installed.
Lastly, it might just be a cultural identity thing. As the Romano-Britons found unique ways to express their cultural identity within the villa model, or even, as is the case in Norfolk, bypass it altogether, so the Gallo-Romans might not have seen the hypocaust as a feature of their villas that served anything other than a practical purpose.
Conversely, it might have been that the Romano-Britons are installing them as much for status as for heating, and that status is either an expression of wealth or of cultural identity. Or both, of course. It's showing off, but it might also be signalling that you've really 'arrived' in terms that can be identified as Roman.
That's not to say that the Romano-Britons were 'more Roman' than their Gallic cousins, just that this is how they chose to express their own place within the empire. The opposite in Gaul might be fountains, which are more common in villa contexts than they are in Britain, and all of the above might apply to those, too. They are adapted to the climate and are also expressions of what it meant to be Gallo-Roman.
I feel a whole book about this coming on!
Interesting. Thanks!
A pleasure.
Two changes between the pre-industrial world into the modern world are the separation of workplace and residence, and the separation of production and consumption. The co-mingling of production and consumption is evident in the elite houses of Pompeii according to Wallace-Hadrill. I am only familiar with a few literary examples of Italian villas. It appears that Italian villas and Romano-British villas combined these functions, too.
Being economically self-reliant was a strong trope in Roman society, especially among the elite. It’s a great separator between ‘normal’ citizens and slaves, for example and that self-reliance and autonomy was seen as on of the markers of a citizen. Hence people like actors, prostitutes and gladiators are looked down on because they are deemed to have forfeited some of that self-reliance and autonomy in order to make money. Likewise, engaging in trade, which relies on other people’s money to make your own, is deemed as an uncouth way of making a living, especially for those elite. The villa model, on the other hand, is the perfect way for the Roman gentleman to make money - he owns land, which he can farm or rent out and the resulting profit is then used to make loans. ‘Living above the shop’ is a very Roman way of living.
Yet Wallace-Hadrill claims that elite houses themselves were often production facilities. Not only did these houses generally combine commercial and domestic functions, the spaces within these houses mixed commercial and domestic functions.
All the production in those houses would be directly handled by slaves, as would the trading of produce. The gentleman owner would only be directly involved in overseeing the ownership of the land and the money-lending, thereby keeping his hands clean of what they literally referred to as 'dirty money', i.e. money that had become tainted by passing through more than one set of hands.
Although trading was uncouth, it was also very profitable. One often sees freedmen become extremely rich through direct involvement in careers such as grain trading, and what would happen is that they would learn the trade under a master, earn their freedom once they had served a sort of apprenticeship, and then the master would set them up in business, taking a cut of the profits. That way, the gentleman could keep his metaphorical hands clean and also profit from the trading of the goods his villas produced.
It wasn't forbidden to take part in such business, it was just bad for one's reputation. It was unseemly. Having a network of freedmen beholden to him, allowed the gentleman to have his fingers in many pies.
None of these social restrictions applies to those lower down the social ladder, of course, and wouldn't have applied to the nouveau-riche villa owners in provinces such as Britain unless they then moved so far up the ladder that they became involved in provincial-level politics.
The governor of Galatia, supporter of Augustus and consul in 21 BC, Marcus Lollius, was described by Pliny the Elder as having 'disgraced himself' in amassing an incredible fortune. Although a lot of this disdain is from the usual practices of plundering the provinces that he ran, he also implies that some of it was gained by trading directly with 'eastern kings'. The direct avarice of plunder is seen as part of the perks of the job, but the greed of trading is disgraceful. His granddaughter, Lollia Paulina, was briefly married to Caligula and went about town in a dress worth a staggering 40 million sesterces.
One way to avoid the taint of dirty money was to own all the land and act as the central hub for production, but to rent the land and, therefore the production process to tenant farmers, which was seen as perfectly acceptable.
In towns, where people lived above their own businesses, the plebians had none of this to contend with, of course.