Prescribed Sources

Question 1

Great Bath (Photo)

Answer 1

• 1.6m depth, largest in Britain
• Surrounded by colonnade

Question 2

Inscription on statue Sulis-Minerva
Deae Suli To the goddess Sulis
L.Marcius Memor Lucius Marcius Memor
Haruspex Haruspex
Donum Dedit Gave this gift

Answer 2

Displays that people gave gifts to the goddess
This was considered to give good luck
A haruspex is a religious official who interpreted omens by inspecting the guts of sacrificial animals

Question 3

Extract from Solinus (3rd century CE)
In Britain are hot springs adorned with sumptuous splendour for the use of mortals. Minerva is patron goddess of these.

Answer 3

Luxury aspect of springs - even god-like
Sulis Minerva - Religious syncretism

Question 4

Bronze head of Sulis Minerva

Answer 4

Religious syncretism
Sacred baths
Wealth as this is a gold statue
Donation to display wealth and influence, also for luck

Question 5

Temple pediment and Gorgon’s head

Answer 5

Luxury in baths
Religious syncretism

Question 6

Mosaic from Roman Baths in Libya
‘salvom lavisse’
- sandals
- strigils

Answer 6

‘bathing is good for you’
sacred springs - health and good fortune

Question 7

Lockley’s villa plan
First Roman building - Cottage house - villa phase 1
Second Roman building - Winged-corridor villa - villa phase 2

Answer 7

Poor imitating the rich
Phase 1: Rectangular structure, four rooms, semi-timber construction on dressed flint foundations, NW-SE orientation, 23m long - 7m wide, northernmost room divided in two
Phase 2: flanking wings, fronted by a veranda (access to rooms/privacy), walls with decorated plaster

Question 8

North Leigh Villa
Courtyard villa

Answer 8

British villa rustica
Enlarged from 1st to 5th CE
16 rooms with mosaic floors, 3 bathhouses, 11 rooms with tiled floors, 11 rooms with hypocausts, 60 rooms total
Large agricultural estate - farmworkers and slaves, farm building and granaries
- 1-2 CE: first villa built: three buildings, bath-house, NW orientation, winged-corridor villa
- 3 CE: SW and NE wings added, partially enclosing courtyard (buffer zone)
- 4 CE: building extended (60 rooms), across three sides, with the fourth formed by a corridor with a gateway

Question 9

Columella’s On Agriculture: The villa

Answer 9

Three types of buildings: landlord’s living quarters, farmhouse, storehouse
Living quarters: Winter face sunrise, summer face sunset
Farmhouse-personnel:
- Quarters for foreman: built next to the main farmhouse door, to check in and out traffic.
- Quarters for manager: over the main farmhouse door, to supervise everything.
- Next to them, the barn, where all farm equipment should be kept; inside the barn, a locked room where iron tools can be stored.
- Herdsmen and shepherds to live next to their herds and flocks.
- All farm personnel should live next to each other, for security reasons, and to witness each other’s hard effort and mistakes.
Farmhouse-slaves:
- Large kitchen, for household slaves to pass their time there conveniently
- Sleeping quarters for non-chained slaves.
- Underground prison for chained slaves, with narrow windows; as healthy as possible.
Farmhouse-animals:
- For cattle: spacious, waterproof (so no cattle hooves rotting), sheds not attacked by cold and heat
- For tamed animals: winter and summer stalls
- For non-tamed animals: stalls partly roofed, partly open to sky, fenced with high walls, protected by wild beasts
- Particularly for oxherd: wide enough stalls
- Mangers: at the appropriate height
Storehouse:
- Divided into rooms for: oil, presses, wine, boiling down must, hay lofts, chaff lofts, storerooms and granaries.
- Ground floor: to accommodate liquid products for selling -wine and oil.
- Upper floor-lofts: dry products -grain, hay, leaves, chaff and other fodder. These granaries accessible by ladders and ventilated facing north (most cold and least wet for preservation).
- On ground floor, wine should be stored in rooms facing north, away from baths, oven, manure, pools and springs (to avoid foul smell and moisture, which spoil the wine).