római kori villák történeti - Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem

SUMMARY. THE EXAMINATION OF THE HISTORICAL
ENVIRONMENT OF ROMAN VILLAS ON THE BALATON
HIGHLAND
The Roman legions appeared in the Hungarian Transdanubia at the beginning of the 1 st
century A. D.: they developed a border region from this area, Pannonia province, and they
organized its independent administration. The economic boom of the Severus-era brought
economical recovery into the life of the province in the 3 rd century, which also led the high
growth of the number of the villas. These manors ensured the food supply of the army:
beside its military role Pannonia was also the agricultural hinterland of the Roman Empire,
thanks to the favorable natural conditions. The barbarians attacks were a permanent risk for
the province, but because their recurring invasions more villas were confirmed in the 3-4 th
century. Despite the military forces Pannonia province was slowly eliminated, however
some villas could serve as residences or houses in the later ages too.
The presence of the Romans in Pannonia caused several changes in the
landscape: they wiped out forests, they brought the lands under cultivation, they built villas
and towns with channels and paved streets: they were chosen the ideal places for buildings
on the proximity of the water, the wood-giving forests using for houses and heatings, and
the Roman road network, and they tried to involve in the spectable a panoramic view as
beautiful as possible. The villas concentrated into five groups in Pannonia: by the rivers
Dráva and Száva, by the Lake Fertő, beside the Mecsek mountain, beside the city of
Aquincum, and the biggest group with nearly hundred villas and over hundred other rural
settlements known today, was on the Balaton Highland.
The villas were not holiday homes of the modern sense, but they were cultivation
and stock-raising adapted farm units. Some uniformity can be observed in the external
appearance of the villas, which basic criteria is a main building with bathroom, or a bath in
a separated building, and a line of outbuildings. Nevertheless these manors were usually
divided into three major parts: the so-called pars urbana was the residential area, and pars
rustica with the pars fructuaria were the economical and storage part of the villas. These
parts were often physically separated by thin walls and fences. Beyond the walls the fields
of the farm-units, the grapes and the forest were located. This land, the so-called fundus or
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