House of the Cistern
Province
Province Description
Ancient Roman colony (founded 118 BCE) and senatorial province located in modern southern France, along the Mediterranean. This province had stronger cultural and political ties to Italy than the rest of Gaul.
Location
saint-roman-en-gal
saint-roman-en-gal (Pleiades)
Sublocation
Sublocation Description
The northern end of this vast house is just west of the House of Five Mosaics and in the same insula. From the Passage des Grands Entrepôts along this northern limit, it runs over 100 meters southward to the "Voie I" along the south side of the archaeological site. The eastern edge is about 230 meters west of the Rhone. No less than five names have been given to the houses occupying part or all of the site. The following table of these names with approximate dates may help the reader keep them straight.
The final house runs just over 100 meters from south to north. The first two houses covered only about the first 66 meters from the south, up to the noticeable kink in the north-south lines. The third house in the above list, the House of the Large Peristyle, was limited to the area north of this kink. The fourth house combined these two, while the last rebuilt the whole area keeping only the outline and a few walls. We describe the houses in chronological order. All plans for these houses are from La maison des dieux ocean, Equipe archèologique departmentale de Saint-Romain-en-Gal, published by Aglas, 1996.
House
House with the Cistern
Keywords
House Description
This house was exposed during a programmed excavation from 1981 to 1985. It occupies a plot of 1338 square meters facing Voie I, on which it opens through an entrance in the center of its façade. This phase, called the House with the Cistern, was constructed in the last years of the Augustan period on the site of an earlier building, itself Augustan and probably also a dwelling. It was occupied 20 to 25 years before being remodeled. In its unusual quadrilateral shape, no two sides were parallel, but the west and south sides were perpendicular, and the interior walls ran parallel to one or the other of them. The average width (in the east-west direction) was 24 meters and average length 66 meters. The construction was organized around three sides of the courtyard [12] (10 x 8 m); it may have been planted or may have had a simple earthen floor. To the north, a second open space, a court or a garden [17] (roughly 27 x 15 m) took up a third of the lot. A cylindrical structure [16] three meters in diameter, interpreted as a cistern, occupies an extension off the southeast corner. Nearly all of the floors are of pounded earth. Numerous areas of painted plaster have been discovered in the thirteen rooms that ring three sides of the courtyard [12]. However, the quality of the construction remained ordinary.
Dates
B.C. 20 - A.D. 20
Bibliography
Laroche, H. Savay-Guerraz, E. Chantriaux et al. Guides Archéologiques De La France. Saint-Romain-en-Gal: Conseil général du Rhône, Equipe archéologique de Saint-Romain-en-Gal, 1984, P. 46-57worldcat
Maison 1996, t.II, p. 364-383
Delaval, Eric, and Hugues Savay-Guerraz. La Maison Des Dieux Océan: (ier Siècle Avant J.-C. _ Iie Siècle Après J.-C.). Saint-Romain-en-Gal: AGLAS, 1996.worldcat
Desbat, Armand. La Maison Des Dieux Océan À Saint-Romain-En-Gal (rhône). Paris: CNRS éditions, 1994, P. 86-132worldcat
Prisset, Jean-Luc, Laurence Brissaud, and Odile Leblanc. Evolution Urbaine À Saint-Romain En-Gal: La Rue Du Commerce Et La Maison Aux Cinq Mosaïques. Paris: CNRS éd, 1994, P. 1-133. worldcat
Gros, Pierre. L'architecture Romaine Du Début Du Iiie Siècle Av. J.-C. À La Fin Du Haut-Empire: 2 Maisons, Palais, Villas Et Tombeaux Paris: Picard, 2001, p. 160-162.worldcat
Bouet, Alain, and Isabel Figueiral. Les Thermes Privés Et Publics En Gaule Narbonnaise. Rome: École française de Rome, 2003, P. 269-271, fig 189.worldcat
Places
- Narbonensis (province) Pleiades: 981537
- Gallia Narbonensis (province) TGN: 7030317
- Saint-Romain-en-Gal (inhabited place) TGN: 5004109