DRAFT

House with the Five Mosaics

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 with the Five Mosaics

House

House with the Five Mosaics

Keywords

House Description

Phase I: This phase is sometimes called the "House with the Off-Center Pool." It occupied an area of 481 square meters with a usable covered surface of 213 square meters. Constructed after 138, it was built in part on the site and foundations of a commercial building going back to the middle of the first century. It was used only twenty to thirty years. It had an elongated, somewhat trapezoidal plan with two groups of rooms, one to the north and one to the south of a peristyle [5]. Most of the walls in short, east-west direction, were not perpendicular to the walls in the long, north-south direction. One entered the house by a modest doorway 1.8 meters wide into a little vestibule [1] which then led directly to the east portico of the courtyard, where presumably a garden grew. The principal room [7] (6.1 x 11.5 m) was on the south of the peristyle (8.5 x 11.5 m), where the gallery was wider and the roof presumably higher than on the other sides. This reception room had a good view of the rectangular pool along the south side of the garden. This 70-centimenter-deep pool (8.35 x 1.8 m) was lined in opus signinum.

Phase II: This phase (called the House of the Five Mosaics by those who call the first phase the House of the Off-center Pool), dates from the end of the second century, probably from 160 - 180. Although more luxurious than the first phase, it nevertheless kept the plan of the original. The covered area was enlarged to 293 square meters; but the garden, though reduced, remained central. The entrance [1] was shifted towards the south and got a more monumental gate 4.25 meter wide. In the southern wing, the main interior walls were rotated from their eastern end to be perpendicular to the north-south walls, with the result that the covered area was enlarged at the expense of the garden, which was reduced to 10-by-8 meters. It was bordered on the north and east by 1.5-meter-wide galleries, while the gallery to the south, though only 1.3 meters wide, had a floor of opus sectile. The east portico [2] became the only way to get from one of groups of rooms to the other. The garden received a U-shaped rill pool lined with white marble; the branches were of different length and less than a meter wide. The space left free at the end of the northern branch of the pool was the only access to the central part of the garden. In the two corners of the pool were found socles for some decorative elements, perhaps statues or fountains. Some parts of valves were found in the overflow from the pool. In the south wing, a large room [8] (7.5 x 7.0 m) opened onto the axis of the garden. With a mosaic of the xenia type, it apparently served as the triclinium. To the east, at the south end of the eastern gallery, was a smaller reception room for visitors [7] (4.0 x 4.5 m). The almost square (5 x 5 m) room [12] at the west end of the northern wing may have been, in the opinion of the excavators, a more familial, every-day triclinium. The house was occupied into the third century, but must have been abandoned, like the rest of the quarter, in the middle of that century.

Plans

Plan of house with five mosaics

Bibliography

  1. Lancha, Janine. Recueil General Des Mosaïques De La Gaule: Iii. Paris: CNRS, 1981, P. 259-286.worldcat

  2. Guides Archéologiques De La France. Saint-Romain-en-Gal: Conseil général du Rhône, Equipe archéologique de Saint-Romain-en-Gal, 1984, P. 57-58worldcat

  3. Lancha, Janine. Les Mosaïques De Vienne. Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1990, P. 61-75.worldcat

  4. Recherches Archéologiques a Saint-Romain-En-Gal (1988-1990). Vienne, 1992, P. 86-132.worldcat

  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. Maison 1996, t. II,, p. 384-387

  7. Guide Du Site Saint-Romain-En-Ga. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999, P. 64-69.worldcat

  8. 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. 161-162.worldcat

  9. Bouet, Alain, and Isabel Figueiral. Les Thermes Privés Et Publics En Gaule Narbonnaise. Rome: École française de Rome, 2003, P. 269-271.worldcat

Places

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