When we think of Roman houses, we think of ruins: of broken walls and empty windows,
and lizards skittering over sunbaked mosaics.
There are a few Roman houses, however, that have never been ruins, and are still used
for their original purpose.
None of them, as we’ll see, look much like the familiar courtyard-centered dwellings
of Pompeii.
But all have been inhabited repeatedly, and in some cases continuously, for nearly two
thousand years.
Number 5.
San Gregorio Magno We’ll start in the city of Rome.
The Monastery of San Gregorio Magno was founded in the year 575, when its namesake – the
future pope and Saint Gregory – converted his family’s ancestral mansion into a monastery.
By the time it became a monastery, Gregory’s mansion was already centuries old.
It seems to have been a sprawling structure, with warrens of ruins ringing its central
courtyard and grand reception halls.
One of these halls likely became the current monastery church, which is pictured here.
The only obviously ancient part of the church is a marble throne, said to have been used
by Gregory himself.
While it’s impossible to know whether that’s true, the throne is certainly ancient, and
may have come from the original house.
Another part of Gregory’s house became the chapel of Sant’ Andrea.
The frescoes visible today date to the seventeenth century.
But beneath them, and beneath the medieval frescoes that they covered, the walls of Gregory’s
mansion still stand to ceiling height.
A neighboring chapel preserves an ancient Roman table, made of marble, at which St.
Gregory is said to have served the poor of Rome.
We have no way of knowing whether this is true, but it is at least possible that this
table, like the throne in the main church, once stood in Gregory’s house.
Number 4.
The Cave Houses of Cappadocia From the shady Caelian Hill, we move to sun-stricken
Cappadocia, in central Turkey.
These days, Cappadocia is a staple of travel brochures.
During the Roman era, however, this bleak and windswept region was one of the most isolated
parts of the Mediterranean world, known, if at all, for its extreme climate and the cave
houses of its inhabitants.
Since long before the Romans conquered the region, the people of Cappadocia had been
tunneling stables, houses, and whole subterranean cities into the formations of volcanic rock
that loomed over their villages.
The golden age of such building began in the late Roman period, when the first cave churches
were cut into the region’s spires and fairy chimneys.
Although precise dating is impossible, some of Cappadocia’s cave houses were certainly
inhabited continuously from the Roman period through the twentieth century.
Many, in fact, have been renovated and provided with modern amenities, and now serve as upmarket
hotels.
Number 3.
The Late Roman Houses of Syria For our next example, we journey to the edge
of the Syrian desert.
Syria has the best-preserved Roman houses anywhere.
During the late Roman era, a booming regional economy sparked the foundation of dozens of
towns, each with its streets of sturdy stone houses.
After the economy of Roman Syria broke down in the seventh century, most of these settlements
were abandoned.
The houses – some, like this example, three stories tall – survived the centuries remarkably
well, and when the regions around them began to be resettled, many of the Roman houses
were in such good condition that they were simply reused.
The best-preserved houses of all are in the Hauran, in southern Syria, where – thanks
to the absence of wood – walls, floors, and roofs were all built with thick slabs
of volcanic stone.
The two examples shown here, drawn as they appeared in the nineteenth century, were more
or less perfectly preserved, and both inhabited.
The most impressive example I could find was the imposing and perfectly-preserved mansion
shown in this drawing.
When that drawing was made, in 1865, the mansion was inhabited by the Sheik of Amrah.
Of course, a lot has happened in Syria since then.
I can only hope that this fine building still exists.
Number 2.
The Sassi of Matera And now, back to Italy.
Over the past few decades, the Sassi of Matera have become one of the biggest tourist attractions
in southern Italy.
They look like nothing else in the country – row on ragged row of weathered stone houses,
built into a natural amphitheater of limestone.
Although most of the masonry visible today is medieval, the cave houses behind them are
much older.
They were already ancient when the Romans arrived.
Some, in fact, may have used for thousands of years before Rome was even founded.
Individual cave houses are almost impossible to date, both because the basic design changed
little over the millennia and because the caves were constantly modified and expanded.
At least a few, however, have been more or less continuously occupied since the emperors
reigned in Rome.
Number 1.
Split, Croatia Last but not least, we head to the sunny shores
of the Adriatic, and to Split, a medieval town built on, in, and over the ruins of a
gargantuan Roman villa.
That villa was the retirement home of the Emperor Diocletian.
It was an immense complex with palatial reception rooms, cavernous storehouses, gleaming marble
temples, and barracks for a large detachment of troops, all ringed by walls high and strong
enough to defend a city.
Almost as soon as the emperors stopped visiting, people began to trickle into the villa from
the surrounding countryside, seeking shelter from the barbarians behind its colossal walls.
By the seventh century, a permanent settlement had developed.
The villa’s central courtyard, shown here, became the town square.
Houses were built into the imperial suite.
Shops crowded the vast cellars.
And in a splendid bit of irony, the mausoleum of Diocletian, arch-persecutor of the Christians,
was transformed into a church.
The town thrived and grew, and has become a destination for tourists, who come by the
thousands every year to see this fascinating example of a Roman house that’s still inhabited
today.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be exploring more remarkable and overlooked survivals from ancient
Rome, so stay tuned.
If you haven’t already, feel free to check out my forthcoming book Naked Statues, Fat
Gladiators, and War Elephants, which is linked in the description.
And as always, thanks for watching.