DRAFT

House of the Columns

Contributor: Yichen Liu
Published: 2021-04-21
Modified: 2025-06-29

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

House of the Columns

House

House of the Columns

Keywords

House Description

The house had a linear plan starting from a garden on the south, then on the north side of the garden, a façade gallery, then several rooms, and finally a peristyle on the north. It went through three phases with the changes concentrated on the south garden. In the first phase, this garden [13] (23.5 x 11.5 m) was bordered on the north by a portico [12] 2.5 meters wide. In the garden, adjacent to this portico and directly in front of the principal reception room [8] was a rectangular pool (7.5 x 4 m) with an apse in the center of the south side. It probably had a fountain.

In the second phase, this south garden was reduced by the addition of two lateral porticoes (2.5 m wide) on its east and west sides. In keeping with the local fashion of the time, it was given a U-shaped rill or channel pool running around the outer rim of the garden. A 1.5 meter apse on the north side is slightly off the axis of the reception room [9]. In the center of the garden was a little square pool (1.5 m on a side) with an apse on the north. It was surrounded by benches in a U to form a masonry summer triclinium facing north.  On the south side of the benches was a nymphaeum of three niches, a central semicircular one and a rectangular one to either side. At present, a water jet has been put in the middle of each of them. The final phase lasted about fifty years, beginning in the first half of the third century. The south garden was enlarged by the suppression of the east portico. The U-shaped channel pool lost its lateral arms, so that it became a simple rectangle (18 x 1.5 m) and it was made shallower. The apse, in practically the same place, was off-center to the west. The garden kept its summer triclinium and nympheum.

Plans

Fig. 1 Plan of House of the columns_phase1
Fig. 2 Plan of House of the columns_phase2
Fig. 3 Plan of House of the columns_phase2

Bibliography

  1. Maison 1996, t. II,, p. 309-401

  2. Guide Du Site Saint-Romain-En-Ga. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999, P. 36-39.worldcat

  3. 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. 189.worldcat

  4. Recherches Archéologiques a Saint-Romain-En-Gal (1988-1990). Vienne, 1992, P. 45-83.worldcat

  5. Bouet, Alain, and Isabel Figueiral. Les Thermes Privés Et Publics En Gaule Narbonnaise. Rome: École française de Rome, 2003, P. 271-275, fig. 194.worldcat

Places

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