ABSTRACT
Although it is usually a good idea to define terms, and although studies of the Roman villa are usually prefaced by an attempt to define the term villa itself, there is a sense in which such an exercise is bound to be rather academic. It is very doubtful whether the Romans themselves could have agreed on a wholly watertight definition, since the word is not a legal or technical one and is likely therefore to have varied somewhat in its use by different people at different times. In practice this causes little difficulty: if it is simply a concern with identifying sites and labelling them it is only with a small minority that uncertainty or disagreement arises, and these are not likely to have a serious effect on any more general statements that may be made. There is, nevertheless, a duty to say how the word is to be used, if only to ensure that any arguments or discussions so provoked are about real issues and not simply about terminology, and this can be done quite briefly.
