LOUPIAC
Dept. Gironde, France.
This Gallo-Roman villa is on the banks of the Garonne, 40 km upriver from Bordeaux. The first traces (a mosaic) were
discovered in 1844; excavation was recommenced in
1953-56, then suspended. The site is now covered over.
Over a surface of ca. 1 ha there was first identified a
building ensemble, ca. 70 x 70 m sq, divided into a
higher and a lower section, with traces of mosaics here
and there. The baths, connected to the villa, have been
partly excavated: a pool surrounded by mosaic-floored
porticos was apparently the frigidarium. The pool, a rectangle 12.20 x 8 m with a maximum depth of 1.4 m, had
ladders for climbing down in the N and E corners. It
was surrounded on all four sides by a stylobate ornamented between the column bases with geometric mosaics (checkerboards, imbrication); the decoration of
the portico pavements was based on some similar
themes (imbricated patterns, cruciform motifs of interlocking circles, checkerboards, diabolos), but also
with a few nature motifs (water lilies, ivy leaves, rinceaux). The walls of the porticos were apparently
covered with painted plaster; a few fragments ornamented with fish have been recovered. It is difficult
to date this luxurious villa precisely, which some have
wished to identify as one of Ausonius' “little villas.” It
must, however, be included among the numerous large
rural villas built during the course of the 4th c., and
which survived in Aquitaine at least into the 7th or
8th c.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Dezeimeris,
Note sur l'emplacement de la Villula d'Ausone (1869); J. Coupry, “Informations arch.,”
Gallia 12.1 (1954) 209; 15.2
(1957)
PI 250.
M. GAUTHIER
