UC Classics Will be Well Represented at the Annual AIA/APA Conference in January
The annual Archaeological Institute of America/American Philological Association meeting will have nine speakers from UC Classics. The following papers will be presented:
Andrew Connor
"Beset on All Sides by Peasants:" Making the Worker Invisible on the Roman Villa
The Roman villa was a place of both extreme intellectual and physical leisure, otium, and, often, extensive agricultural labors. The traditional focus of ancient literature, art and public attention on the elite use of the villa complex has resulted in an occasionally invisible role for the workers on those villas. Based on the spatial organization of Roman villas in Italy, Germany, and Britain, this paper argues that the Roman villa complex was designed, when possible, to limit the visual intrusion of the negotium of workers on the otium being practiced by the elite society, and described by, among others, Cicero and Pliny the Younger. As the recreatory aspect of the villa became more pronounced, villa owners at such sites as Gadebridge Park in eastern England and Settefinestre in Italy undertook reconstructions of the physical space around the complex to minimize the visibility of the worker’s negotium, often against the apparent economic interests of the owner. Artful management of the topography of the villa—seen most clearly in Hadrian’s hillside villa of Tivoli—was combined with carefully arranged viewsheds and demarcating architecture, as at Great Witcombe in southwestern England. These efforts created an idealized image of the villa, perfected for undisturbed otium and easily reproduced across the empire, as far away as England, Belgium, or Germany.
Graduate student Katie Swinford is featured in the September issue of 
. The story starts on page 18.