Country Houses

Increasingly numerous plans exist of country houses, allowing comparison between townhouses and the rural built environment. A simple home may consist of a two-roomed structure with a small yard. Most recorded townhouses are larger, although Athens evidences some of this small size. Presumably their occupants were poor peasants, agricultural tenants or slaves, but alternatively some might be seasonal field-houses for urban-dwelling farmers of higher status. In contrast the excavated farms on Delos and atVari in Attica are similar, or larger, than typical townhouses, and the latter estate-center clearly possesses a farmyard larger than urban norms. Nonetheless rural residences repeat the standard plan of the townhouse: a family structure with at least two rooms, and usually additional rooms ranged around a walled farmyard. The larger country residences exhibit more spacious and numerous room-clusters around a veranda-courtyard, not infrequently set off by expensive, prominent towers. An increase in area for rural homes may reflect the lower cost of rural land whilst the obvious dominance of agricultural activities benefited from larger farmyards. Rural courtyards can equal the rest of the farm enclosure in size, whereas the yard commonly occupies just one quarter to one fifth of a standard Olynthus townhouse. Nonetheless regional surveys in Greece have identified a predominance of relatively small “family farms,” with surface areas commonly less than half a hectare plotted by pottery scatters, although ensembles of sites in contiguous blocks of countryside reveal a hierarchy of rural residences which include rarer larger estate-centers and rural hamlets (Bintliff et al. 2007).

These rural farms, known from standing, aboveground foundations, or (still rare) excavations, can be accompanied by threshing floors, small rough enclosures (probably for stock), terracing to conserve soil on hilly terrain, and stream dams to limit erosion. Occasionally, as in the remarkable network of larger farms mapped by the Atene survey in Attica (Lohmann 1993) wall-lines survive indicating estate-boundaries for specific identified farm sites, further allowing the estimation of landholding sizes (Figure 12.11). Most plans come from stony land where house foundations are visible on the present surface, but where soils are deeper, such as in Boeotia (Central Greece), much can still be achieved through combining non-destructive subsurface probes such as the geophysical tools of resistivity, magnetometry or georadar with exhaustive plotting of the differential spreads of domestic rubbish and collapsed roof tile which mark Classical farms on the surface. A typical small “family” farm has a pottery scatter of some 25 meters radius, which compares well with a basic farmhouse-complex plus a yard of some 200—300 m2 at its heart (some 9—10 meters radius), surrounded by working areas or gardens, together with rubbish heaps and pits (Bintliff1997b). Surveyors have additionally noted enhanced quantities of domestic debris surrounding these pottery scatters or “site cores” of Classical age. On our Boeotia Survey, mapping these “site haloes” suggests concentrated rubbish disposal for fertilizing infields of more intensive cultivation (see Chapter 11).

The range of pot types from such sites offers a full spectrum of functions suitable for a permanent residence, but caution is needed. On the Methana Survey farm-site sample collections were small, so that, unsurprisingly, any individual site has a low number of shapes which can be tied to particular activities. Foxhall (2004), as noted previously, compared this composite assemblage of all the pot types from the rural sites with the selection found at individual farms. She interpreted divergence to suggest that some sites were not the location of full domestic activities. However, a more limited range of pot types collected by surveyors can be expected as a result of their differential survival and limited presence on the surface, as well as stemming from the tiny sample of finds brought back and datable, bringing her conclusions into question.

Although farmers of similar income could probably purchase larger rural properties for the same cost rather than buy a smaller townhouse, many estate-centers are so much larger and better-equipped that they seem to reflect wealthier owners. The pseudoegalitarian ethos which permeates many planned Classical towns may have been relaxed in the countryside where pretentious houses were far from jealous eyes (Jameson 1990a—b). The late Classical author Isocrates remarks for Athens that the better houses and furnishings are rural.

Figure 12.11 Atene deme’s thin eroded soil allows Classical farm foundations to stand on the modern surface. Three farms, numbered, are shown with circular threshing-floors and estate boundaries.

H. Lohmann, Atene. Forschungen zu Siedlungs - und Wirtschaftsstruktur des klassischen Attika. Koln 1993, Figure 36.

At regular intervals across the countryside there were villages, arguably acting as secondary or tertiary foci for surrounding rural farmsteads when distance from the city reached several kilometers. We have many such sites from surface survey but few are excavated. A village in Attica at Ano Voula has been partially exposed (Lohmann 1992, 1993). Wide streets articulate a loose settlement structure comprising large walled or fenced enclosures. Within these are houses but also associated gardens (the latter match surface survey “site haloes” which rural sites show extending well outside the likely house positions). Several towers are integrated into homes, also recorded from a minority of rural estates in Attica and elsewhere. In towns and villages these are largely for prestigious display, whereas in dispersed farms they also (as texts confirm) have a defensive role against robbers. Finally village social life is revealed by dining-rooms for communal male clubs, and several small shrines dot the street-plan rather like modern Greek versions (iconostaseis).

Lohmann’s (1993) Atene deme survey provides our best window into Classical rural life within one ancient city-state. In comparison to richer farming landscapes such as Boeotia, where perhaps 50 percent of the surface was cultivated in Classical times, Atene is a rocky 20 km2 district. To compensate, farmers invested in a massive terracing program, largely for olive groves, enlarging the cultivable surface by an extra 38 percent. Even so, the ca. 445 ha then in use represented only 22 percent of the total deme area. Nonetheless survey located 36 sites (farms and other rural activity-foci), and Lohmann suggests that a further 15—20 farms have been lost to erosion, cultivation, and other disruptions. Numerous rural cemeteries were mapped, all but one associated with a farm site.

Figure 12.11 (upper left) shows a typical larger farm complex, that of LE17, and its close distance to similarly-sized neighbor LE16. Traces of intervening estate boundary-walls survive (dashed lines). The status of the small site LE18 to the north of site LE17 is unclear. Since there is no village center for Atene and we are far too remote from Athens, such a site cannot be a seasonal residence for a farmer living in a nuclea-tion, so the question is whether this was an independent small farm or a satellite to its larger neighbor

LE17. Possessing its own threshing-floor might indicate its independence, although it could still be a tenancy to LE17.