FRANCOLISE
Italy.
An area of the ancient
Ager Falernus for which the mediaeval castle and village
of Francolise, beside the modern Via Appia 16 km NW
of Capua, furnishes a convenient reference point. There
were good natural communications with Cales, Sessa
Aurunca, and Teanum, as well as with the Via Appia,
which in antiquity passed some way to the S. The natural
fertility of the soil made it an early goal of Roman agricultural settlement. Of the many villas in the area two
have been exhaustively excavated.
The villa of San Rocco, on a limestone spur ca. 450 m
SE of the village with fine views over the Falernian plain,
was built around the second quarter of the 1st c. B.C.
Though designed from the outset as a residence, the
initial plan was simple, consisting of a rectangular terraced platform on which the living rooms were grouped
loosely about what was probably an atrium. The agricultural installations occupied a lower terrace below the
main platform. Some 25 years later the villa was greatly
enlarged to the SW and SE so as to incorporate a peristyle courtyard, with the formal entrance to the villa set
in the middle of the SE side. The original residence was
extensively remodeled and redecorated, taking full advantage of the fine views to S and W, and a lavish water
supply was assured by the addition of two large vaulted
cisterns. About the middle of the 1st c. A.D. half of the
NW wing was converted into a bath building. Apart from
its sequence of mosaics the main interest of this villa
lies in the well-preserved agricultural installations, which
occupied a separate terraced enclosure beside the main
access road opposite the main entrance to the residence.
Here are olive presses of two periods with a number of
vats for the separation of the oil, a threshing floor, and
a brick kiln. As well as a residence this was the center of
a substantial estate of which oil was, it seems, the principal product.
The Posto villa lay at the foot of the same slopes 1170
m SE of the village, immediately beside the modern Via
Appia at kilometer 185. Built between 120 and 75 B.C.,
unlike the San Rocco villa it was essentially a working
farm, the center of an agricultural property managed by
a resident bailiff. The original buildings comprised a rectangular terraced enclosure with lean-to farm buildings
and, along the N side, the scanty remains of the bailiff's
house. During the last quarter of the 1st c. B.C. the house
was considerably enlarged; large new vaulted cisterns
were installed and a single vat, in the courtyard, for
separating oil suggests operations on a modest scale.
About the middle of the 1st c. A.D. the farmyard was
enlarged to the S, the W part of the house was converted
to a simple bath building and the E part was shut off and
converted into an area for processing the oil on a much
grander scale. Then in the second half of the 2d c. the
site was deserted, presumably as the results of the absorption of the estate by some wealthy neighbor. A partial re-occupation is of the late 5th to early 6th c.
The two villas afford what is at present uniquely documented insight into the agricultural exploitation of N
Campania at the end of the Republic and under the early
Empire. The villa of San Rocco is preserved and accessible. Of Posto, only the site, the cistern, and the terrace
can now be seen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. v. Blanckenhagen et al., “Interim Report on Excavations at Francolise,”
BSR 33 (1965) 55-69.
J. B. WARD-PERKINS
