Le deversorium dans les villae occidentales tardives: éléments pour une identification archéologique

Abstract

Since the early XXth century it is globally admitted that the aristocratic Roman house offered lodgings for guests and occasional visitors. But practical questions remain when we attempt to precise the archaeological identification of those quarters. This article is aimed to provide criteria fit for pinpointing guests’ lodgings, through the combination of ancient texts and archaeological sources. The analysis of the texts, from Vitruvius to Isidore of Seville, allows understanding that the guests’ quarters are a very old housing concept, already known as domunculae or hospitalia during the Ist century BC. It also shows that in late Antiquity those structures, now called deversoria and strictly reserved for aristocratic guests, unlike the hospitalia, seemed to be a central part of the autorepresentative architectural apparatus. The ancient texts also provide helpful indications, once combined together, for delineating the shapes of the guests’ apartment and its position within the house. Beside elements of definition inferred from the texts, this paper proposes a method for the archaeological identification of the guests’ quarters among the spaces of the aristocratic residence. This method, based on 4 techniques, gave the opportunity to isolate 31 deversoria in 28 residences mainly throughout the dioceses of Spain, Britain and Gaul, from the Ist to the VIIth centuries p.C. Thanks to these structures it has been eventually possible to propose a threefold typology for the deversorium. A first level refers to its shape, which could be “simple”, “multiple” or “occasional”. A second level of that typology, also drawn from field observations, proposes to specify the position of the deversorium within the entire building. Here, the three starting types are declined in six new types, which can be “isolated” or “inserted” in the house. The third and last level, inspired by Vitruvius’ explanations, concerns only the “inserted deversorium” and makes a difference between a lodging related to the œcus and another equipped with a proper access. Far from any dogmatism, this work does not intend to be definitive, but pretends only to trigger reactions and to foster the interest of archaeologists for the deversorium, as the study of this structure seems crucial to the understanding of the practical and social functioning of the late roman aristocratic house.