ITALY: Dig reveals "billionaire's" Roman villa with baths

"The more water you had in your villa the more power you had" explained Darius Arya, the American archaeologist who discovered a luxurious Roman villa right next to the Claudius aqueduct in Rome's southern suburbs. Paying a fee to the state, in fact, the villa's owner could tap into the waterworks going into Rome and feed a luxurious bath complex with a constant flow of running water. "This is a very impressive, very well preserved bath complex that belonged to a certain Quintus Servilius Pudens who was a billionaire friend of Emperor Hadrian," Arya said with a proud smile. The site of the Villa delle Vignacce, towards Ciampino airport south of Rome, not far from the Appian way, was first explored by archeologists in 1780 who found statues that are now in the Vatican museum. But it is only now that the area, in the middle of a suburban park, has been properly excavated, revealing not only the predictable walls, floors and doorways of the multi-storey villa but also the surprise find of lavish baths. "It's very impressive to have discovered something this well-preserved this day and age," said Arya, pointing out the marble floor of the villa's 'caldarium', the sauna-like room which was heated by hot air piped behind the walls from a furnace stoked by the landlord's slaves. The room also contains a hot bath, although the bronze cauldron which Romans used to bring bathing water to piping hot was long ago ripped out by scavengers. The villa shows many signs of such damage -- including fragments of marble left behind after the walls were stripped of the valuable stone when the villa fell into disrepair. The villa was probably last used in 6th century AD, converted into a fortress by the Goths who sacked Rome. Near the caldarium is the latrine, a communal lavatory where a dozen guests could perform their intimate bodily functions while conducting polite conversation. Servilius, believed to have made his fortune making bricks -- one of the main materials for Roman buildings -- would have used the baths to throw lavish parties to impress his friends, said Arya, head of the American Institute for Roman Culture. "He wants to have lots of parties, he wants to show off his wealth and his sophistication." Not everyone was invited. In the deepest part of the dig, underground passageways show where the villa's slaves would work, unseen by the upper classes enjoying their leisure on the mosaic-lined floors above.

ITN Source | July 28, 2007

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