DRAFT

House of Vestibule with 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 Ocean Gods

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 of Vestibule with Columns

Keywords

House Description

  In phase I, the house had the L-shape due to the combination of the two previous houses. The main entrance was from the south, past a portico façade, and into a vestibule (12.9 x 11.9 m) that had a double colonnade. A square pool (4 x 4 m) with a water jet occupied its center. To the east and west, the vestibule was framed by rooms and shops. Beyond the vestibule, one came to the first garden [13]. It had a peristyle on four sides (13.5 x 12 m) with an open area of 167 square meters, porticoes 3 meters wide, and columns 3.3 meters high. A rectangular pool (3.5 x18 m) on the axis covered the central third of the garden. A masonry base of a fountain, statue or other ornament was found in the west part of the garden. North of the peristyle, in the center of the main building, was one of the main reception rooms of the house, on the axis of the pool. This triclinium (7.7 x 6.3 m) apparently had a mosaic that has been lost. The surrounding rooms are of small dimensions except for [15], a second reception area.  Farther north, a portico [20] opens onto an esplanade [19] which makes the transition from one of the former houses to the other. The level of this free space was 1.4 meters above that of the garden ahead; stairs to the left and right led down. This second large garden (35 x 30 m), open towards the south, is surrounded on the other three sides by a peristyle with porticoes 3.7 meters wide. A channel pool 1.5 meters wide runs around the three sides of the peristyle. It has been proposed to see in room [25] (54 m2) a cold-weather dining room. The west gallery of the portico opened through three doors to the rooms of the building to the northwest. The space [28], with a pounded earth floor may have been intended as another reception room that was not finished. Beyond the corridor [31] there may have been more open space.

Phase III, from around the end of the first century, carried the ideas of Phase II into the first or southern peristyle garden. The pool in the center was converted into space for planting while a U-shaped channel pull was run around the east, south and west sides, while a wider, separate, rectangular pool ran along the north side. The south side had an apse projecting into the garden.

Plans

NEW WAY ↓↓

plan of House of Vestibule with Columns

Dates

A.D. 60 -A.D. 185

Bibliography

  1. 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

  2. Maison 1996, t.II, p. 364-383

  3. 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

  4. Desbat, Armand. La Maison Des Dieux Océan À Saint-Romain-En-Gal (rhône). Paris: CNRS éditions, 1994, P. 86-132worldcat

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

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