Philosophiana

(Filosofiana, Sofiana)

A Roman market center in central Sicily, five miles south-southeast of the modern town of Piazza Armerina, in a fertile valley on the inland route from Catana (Catania) to Agrigentum (Agrigento). The massa Philosophiana was one of the most extensive Roman estates on the island. Within the town, a large series of edifices of the early fourth century AD, including a bath installation, have been uncovered. Built over Augustan structures, they in turn were at least partly superseded c 400, when a small Christian basilica was inserted in the hot room of the baths; another apsed and three-naved church has been found nearby.

Three miles north-northeast of Philosophiana, in the region of Casale, lies the palatial late Roman villa which is known by the name of the adjacent town of Piazza Armerina. This mansion stood on the site of a villa of unknown dimensions of the second century AD. The building that replaced this second century dwelling is one of the largest habitations known in the ancient world—although two only slightly less luxurious villas have been recently discovered elsewhere in Sicily, on the river Tellaro and at Marina di Patti. The palace at Philosophiana was constructed according to an unsymmetrical but unified plan, cAD 300, during the period of the tetrarchy. The principal emperors at the time were Diocletian and Maximian, who both abdicated in 305; there has been a theory that the villa was one of Maximian's places of retirement (or that it belonged to his son Maxentius), but it seems more probable that the villa was the property of a millionaire landowner-senator (or provincial procurator) of Roman or Sicilian origin—perhaps the proprietor of the Philosophiana estate described above.

A monumental triple archway leads northward into an irregular D-shaped colonnaded courtyard; its right side contains an entrance to the spacious central colonnaded courtyard round which the principal living accomodation was arranged. At the northwestern corner of the courtyard, set at an oblique angle, is an elaborate bathing establishment, including an octagonal frigidarium (cold room). A group of apartments along the northern side of the courtyard has been tentatively identified as the day quarters of the servants on duty. On the east side is a transverse corridor more than two hundred feet long, terminating in an apse at either end. Beyond stands an enormous apsed audience hall (`Basilica’), flanked by two suites of rooms of which one, centered on its own semicircular court with a fountain, appears to have comprised the private residential quarters of the owner and his family. A further complex, on the south side of the central courtyard, consists of a huge three-apsed room, probably a banqueting hall, fronted by a colonnaded court with three rooms on either side.

This huge residence was formerly adorned with statues, and its walls were covered with paintings and rare and precious marble inlays. But its outstanding and unique feature is the large number of enormous mosaic pavements, which originally covered nearly a whole acre; they were probably executed by master artists from North Africa, where comparable achievements are to be seen. Although the mosaics depict a wide range of themes (some charmingly intimate, such as a design of girl gymnasts, wearing bikinis—superimposed on an earlier geometric pattern—and a picture of the lady of the house with her attendants) there is constantly recurrent emphasis on the massive carnage of hunting wild beasts, notably in the vast Great Hunt mosaic in the transverse corridor (on which the owner of the house himself appears to be portrayed), and in the Small Hunt in the north wing; this concentration on such themes has caused some to suppose that the proprietor drew his income from the importation of animals from Africa for gladiatorial shows. The entire floor of the banqueting hall is covered by a mosaic glorifying the Labors and slaughters of Hercules which displays quite a different artistic style, and is unmistakably the work of other designers, favoring huge, boldly foreshortened masses of flesh and drapery, which twist and heave in ferocious contortions. Certain of these mosaics indicate alterations to the original plan of the mansion, perhaps introduced c 320. There are signs that the building suffered severe damage from an earthquake, perhaps in 365, when other parts of Sicily are also known to have been afflicted. Subsequently the mosaics were covered by rubbish and earth, and the wealthy owners were replaced by squatters—perhaps c 470, or half a century later. About 1000 the ruins became the nucleus of a village named Platia (palatium), abandoned in 1161 when the town of Piazza Armerina was founded. The principal excavations took place in 1950–54 although important work was also done before and since.