ABSTRACT
It might seem inappropriate to jump from Ovid, writing in the heyday of Rome, to consider the villa in the last centuries of Roman rule in the West; however, the sumptuousness of Ovid’s description more than matches the display and desires of the elites of the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Late Roman elite villas represent a paradoxical phenomenon: in contrast to the image of progressive decay within the urban context and on the Roman frontiers, they denote a dramatic flourish of wealth, power and stability. Our understanding of these villas has been transformed in recent years, with many scholars now looking beyond the architecture and art to consider the evolving society of the villas, and their place within the wider settlement landscape. The expanding impact of field survey – covered in various other papers in this volume – has provided scope for identifying how busy a given landscape was and how the villa estates may have functioned; more detailed excavations and revisiting of old excavation reports have meanwhile further helped in our understanding of individual sites and sequences.
