Editing Ancient Roman architecture (section)

=== Villa ===
{{main|Roman villa}}
{{See also||Villa rustica|List of Roman villas in England|List of Roman villas in Belgium}}
[[File:Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Villa of the Mysteries]] just outside [[Pompeii]], seen from above]]
A [[Roman villa]] was a country house built for the upper class, while a ''[[domus]]'' was a wealthy family's house in a town. The Empire contained many kinds of villas, not all of them lavishly appointed with [[mosaic]] floors and [[fresco]]es. In the provinces, any country house with some decorative features in the Roman style may be called a "villa" by modern scholars.{{sfn|Ward-Perkins|2000|p= 333}} Some, like [[Hadrian's Villa]] at [[Tivoli, Italy|Tivoli]], were pleasure palaces such as those that were situated in the cool hills within easy reach of Rome or, like the [[Villa of the Papyri]] at [[Herculaneum]], on picturesque sites overlooking the [[Bay of Naples]]. Some villas were more like the [[country house]]s of England, the visible seat of power of a local magnate, such as the famous palace rediscovered at [[Fishbourne Roman Palace|Fishbourne]] in Sussex.

Suburban villas on the edge of cities were also known, such as the Middle and Late Republican villas that encroached on the [[Campus Martius]], at that time on the edge of Rome, and which can be also seen outside the city walls of [[Pompeii]], including the [[Villa of the Mysteries]], known for its frescos. These early suburban villas, such as the one at Rome's Auditorium site<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070704130906/http://www2.comune.roma.it/auditorium/auditorium.html La Villa Romana dell'Auditorium]</ref> or at Grottarossa in Rome, demonstrate the antiquity and heritage of the ''villa suburbana'' in Central Italy. It is possible that these early, suburban villas were also in fact the seats of power (maybe even palaces) of regional strongmen or heads of important families (''gentes'').

A third type of villa provided the organizational center of the large farming estates called ''[[latifundia]]''; such villas might be lacking in luxuries. By the 4th century, ''villa'' could simply mean an agricultural estate or holding: [[Jerome]] translated the [[Gospel of Mark]] (xiv, 32) ''chorion'', describing the olive grove of [[Gethsemane]], with ''villa'', without an inference that there were any dwellings there (''Catholic Encyclopedia'' "Gethsemane").

With the colossal [[Diocletian's Palace]], built in the countryside but later turned into a fortified city, a form of residential castle emerges, that anticipates the Middle Ages.