DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0123
The Roman Empire
95
Ostiensis, and these were adorned with works of art in Vespasian's time. Suetonius says
that Nero went there in the course of his last flight to Ostia.
Sallust says that not only did they try to make country houses in the town, but the
real country villas were also like small towns; and this remark points (with some dis-
approval of their vast size) to the fact that all the Roman villas with their scattered buildings
had a townish look if seen from a distance. The Roman loved to change his home con-
tinually, and he shows this not only by keeping up a great many villas in different localities,
but also by moving about, here and there, in the same one, according to the time of year,
and even to the time of day. And so Lucullus was able to fly "like a crane" to another
home. The dwelling-house proper, the villa urbana, was mapped out into different kinds
of separated pavilions
that could be lived in.
We cannot be certain
how far the Roman
villa was taking the
Hellenistic as a model,
and this can only be
positively known when
the whole of some
Hellenistic villa has
been excavated. Still
one may say with some
confidence that the
Romans adopted a
style that was already
fully formed.
We saw in the
Greek gymnasiums
and the philosophers'
gardens the scattered
buildings, i.e. the very
FIG. DO. A ROMAN VILLA-FROM A WALL-PAINTING AT POMPEII
different sorts of build-
ings and houses collected into one garden scheme. If we next look at special instances of
villas (Fig. 60), as shown m the Pompeian frescoes, we find the same front view constantly
recurring, the colonnade, generally with three wings, and sometimes with conspicuous
pavilions at each corner. We can tell from the dominance of the peristyle that the inside
atrium was rather old-fashioned even in the first century, and later on practically a thing
of the past. At Pompeii we shall return to the difference between Roman Atrium houses
and Greek Peristyle houses. But here in Rome the pure Greek peristyle—for one may
consider the three-winged colonnade to be an open peristyle—comes immediately to the
fore; and the conclusion is forced upon us that not only the garden but the whole plan
was adopted from a Hellenistic source, as a perfected product of Greek design.
One must not, however, be deceived into supposing that frescoes depicting villa
types were first known in Roman times, though wall-paintings of the Hellenistic age are
so few that the material gives no opportunity for comparison. When Pliny relates that in
1—H
95
Ostiensis, and these were adorned with works of art in Vespasian's time. Suetonius says
that Nero went there in the course of his last flight to Ostia.
Sallust says that not only did they try to make country houses in the town, but the
real country villas were also like small towns; and this remark points (with some dis-
approval of their vast size) to the fact that all the Roman villas with their scattered buildings
had a townish look if seen from a distance. The Roman loved to change his home con-
tinually, and he shows this not only by keeping up a great many villas in different localities,
but also by moving about, here and there, in the same one, according to the time of year,
and even to the time of day. And so Lucullus was able to fly "like a crane" to another
home. The dwelling-house proper, the villa urbana, was mapped out into different kinds
of separated pavilions
that could be lived in.
We cannot be certain
how far the Roman
villa was taking the
Hellenistic as a model,
and this can only be
positively known when
the whole of some
Hellenistic villa has
been excavated. Still
one may say with some
confidence that the
Romans adopted a
style that was already
fully formed.
We saw in the
Greek gymnasiums
and the philosophers'
gardens the scattered
buildings, i.e. the very
FIG. DO. A ROMAN VILLA-FROM A WALL-PAINTING AT POMPEII
different sorts of build-
ings and houses collected into one garden scheme. If we next look at special instances of
villas (Fig. 60), as shown m the Pompeian frescoes, we find the same front view constantly
recurring, the colonnade, generally with three wings, and sometimes with conspicuous
pavilions at each corner. We can tell from the dominance of the peristyle that the inside
atrium was rather old-fashioned even in the first century, and later on practically a thing
of the past. At Pompeii we shall return to the difference between Roman Atrium houses
and Greek Peristyle houses. But here in Rome the pure Greek peristyle—for one may
consider the three-winged colonnade to be an open peristyle—comes immediately to the
fore; and the conclusion is forced upon us that not only the garden but the whole plan
was adopted from a Hellenistic source, as a perfected product of Greek design.
One must not, however, be deceived into supposing that frescoes depicting villa
types were first known in Roman times, though wall-paintings of the Hellenistic age are
so few that the material gives no opportunity for comparison. When Pliny relates that in
1—H