The Roman villa at Diaporit

Diaporit on the southeast side of Lake Butrint provided an ideal location for luxurious living. Sheltered by low hills and with spectacular views across the lake, the site was occupied from the late 3rd century BC.

The early Hellenistic villa may have covered an area of up to 2,000 m2 and was laid out on terraces facing the lake giving it an extensive, open aspect. This is quite different from the fortified farmsteads – like those at Malathrea, Çuka and Metoq – characteristic of the 4th and early 3rd centuries BC, and is suggestive of the greater prosperity and self-confidence of Epirus in the period of King Pyrrhus.

In the early decades of the 1st century AD, at the very end of the reign of the emperor Augustus and as Butrint benefited from substantial imperial investment, a new Roman villa was constructed. Much of this building now lies beneath the waters of the lake, which have risen since the Roman period, or was destroyed in later building activity, but enough survive to show that it followed the alignment of the earlier Hellenistic villa, facing towards Lake Butrint.

Around AD 40-80 a much larger and more grandiose villa was laid out across the site. Arranged over a series of terraces, it included an elegant east wing with rooms decorated with mosaic and painted wall plaster. The west wing of the villa included a monumental nymphaeum fountain set close to the water’s edge. This may conceivably have been attached to a porticoed walk, giving the villa an imposing aspect when approached from the lakeside, and providing dramatic vistas towards Butrint when viewed from inside the west wing of the building. The southern wing was dominated by a major bath complex that by the late 2nd century included an apsidal room with a cold plunge pool, a large hexagonal room and an elegant internal courtyard.

A striking innovation of this new villa was its different orientation. No longer facing the lake, the design of the new villa was instead orientated directly towards Butrint. We don’t know who its owner might have been, but its definite visual links to Butrint make it at least likely that it belonged to one of the new local elite dominating the political life of the city.

This luxury residence was not without its quirks. Though lavish in design, structurally the work – especially the 2nd-century refurbishments of the bathhouse – appears carelessly and hastily executed. It is possible that the villa during the later period of its life was not permanently occupied, but owned by a person who was resident elsewhere coming only occasionally to Butrint.

 

• The expansion of Butrint
• Reconstruction of the Roman city
• The Vrina Plain suburb
• The aqueduct
• The Roman villa at Diaporit
• QTVR The Roman Villa at Diaporit