Late Roman «villae» and the «rus»: Interrogating Rural Interdependencies in the Ebro River Valley (Navarra, Spain)

Abstract

The last century of archaeological exploration has brought to light many late antique villae (mid-3rd – early-5th centuries CE), and much has been made of the ways these sites visually reinforce the increasingly fraught patron-client relations that characterize the late antique world in scholarship. My paper challenges these assumptions, using material evidence to illustrate a more complex, symbiotic relationship between late antique villae and the rus. The late Roman countryside was stratified, but to presume an especially oppressive relationship between estates and rural populations is to perpetuate synthesis of this period as synonymous with decline, and to disregard more nuanced evidence in the archaeological record. I discuss cult structures on three estates in the Ebro River Valley in ancient Tarraconensis (Spain) to argue that villae courted and catered to sub-elite rural population groups, who were themselves receptive to such offerings. By highlighting these interdependencies, this paper aims to bring greater contour to our understanding of the mechanisms animating the provincial countryside in late antiquity.