250 Deliyannis
Archaeology provides evidence of such deluxe houses at Ravenna, for
example, at the Via D’Azeglio excavation in the north-eastern part of the old
oppidum. Since the 2nd century BC two houses had faced each other across a
five-metre-wide street, but now in the late 5th or early 6th century the street
was blocked off by a room that served as a monumental entrance to a new,
grander house built to the north of the street, with a second equally grand
house built to the south, perhaps both opening on to a street to the west. The
main rooms on both the north and south sides were covered with elaborate
mosaic and opus sectile floors.102 These buildings may have housed members
of Theoderic’s court or the Ravennate upper class, and the modification of the
imperial-era street network indicates new urban priorities at work. Big elite
houses with apsidal halls and mosaic or opus sectile floors are also known from
the 5th and 6th centuries at Rimini, Cesena, Faenza, Modena, and Imola.103
In the few cases in which upper-class houses can be definitely assigned to
the Ostrogothic period, a new type has been identified by Gian Pietro Brogiolo.
Seen in castella built by Theoderic as well as in the episcopal palace of Poreč,
they consist of two-storey buildings with storerooms and porticos at the
ground level and reception rooms and offices in the upper storey.104 This type
of structure, however, co-existed with older Roman elite houses of the tradi-
tional style, which were reused or modified. The large house discovered on the
Pincio in Rome, for example, was laid out traditionally, with a hemicycle por-
tico, a large apsed hall, a hypocaust (heating) system, and very rich decoration;
built after the sack of Rome in 410, it continued in use until it was damaged by
the earthquake of 484 or 508.105
As for non-elite housing, we have very little evidence at all, largely because
of the difficulties of dating occupation. In some cases, such as at Brescia, elite
houses had been subdivided into smaller units already in the 5th century,106
but in other cities this seems to have happened after the end of the Ostrogothic
period. All we can say is that because the Roman walls that enclosed most cit-
ies had been built for much larger populations than were living there in the
early 6th century, there must have been room for everyone to spread out more
than had been the case in earlier periods.
102 See Montevecchi (ed.), Archeologia urbana a Ravenna.
103 Gelichi, “L’edilizia residenziale”.
104 Brogiolo, “Dwellings and Settlements”, pp. 124–6.
105 Broise/Dewailly/Jolivet, “La fouille du Piazzale,” and V. Fauvinet-Ranson, Decor civitatis,
p. 98, who suggest that this was the house from which Theoderic ordered materials to be
brought to Ravenna in Variae 3.10.
106 Brogiolo, “Dwellings and Settlements”, p. 117.