House with the Grand Peristyle in Vieux-la-Romaine

Did You Know?

• The house is situated in the bath district, near a fountain evidenced by a guard stone.
• A second bath building, about 90 m by 50 m, lies 40 meters to the southwest and was donated by Sollemninus and Titus Sennius Sollemnis.
• The marble of Thorigny, an honorific inscription, records the donation of the baths.

History

Aregenua, capital of the Viducasses, was founded in the 1st century and peaked in the 2nd and 3rd centuries under the Severan dynasty. The city suffered during the 3rd-century instability but lacked fortifications unlike neighboring towns. It declined further in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, merging with Bayeux and disappearing from records before 400 AD, accompanied by a population exodus. Excavations show that building materials improved over time, with increasing luxury.

The earliest occupations (1st–2nd centuries) featured modest wood, wattle, and daub structures with beaten-earth floors, possibly including bronzesmith or glassmaker workshops. Roads were laid around 125–150 AD, when stone construction became common. By the mid-2nd century, the insula held two buildings: an eastern house (751 m²) and a western house, whose elements were later reused. The western house was partly demolished.

In the third quarter of the 2nd century, large houses existed; one was destroyed around 170–180 AD to expand another, named the House with the Small Peristyle for its modest peristyle.

Rediscovery

Excavations at Vieux began in 1697, fifty years before those at Pompeii and over a century after the discovery of the marble of Thorigny. In 1812, the southern area was explored by the owner, who found a mosaic. The Society of Antiquaries of Normandy excavated in 1826 but recovered only a fragment. No further 19th-century excavations targeted the building.

In 1988, the Departmental Council of Calvados launched an archaeological program focusing on habitation sites, and Pascal Vipard excavated the house from 1988 to 1991. The absence of later construction above the site facilitated his work, making these the most significant excavations in Vieux since 1864. Vipard's doctoral thesis on the domus was defended at Paris IV in 1996. The study identified six periods of the house's evolution.

Finds included 677 coins (none from Commodus to Gallienus), 770 kg of pottery (140,800 shards), 3,576 glass shards, and the Tutela Statue of Vieux-la-Romaine (August 1988). Pottery came from Sarthe, Picardy, Dorset, and central Gaul; amphorae were Dressel 20 types for Baetican oil, Narbonensian wine, or rare goods from Asia Minor. The house is considered the only surviving Roman-era edifice in Lower Normandy and the only preserved peristyle house in northern France.

Description of the building at its peak

The house occupies 1,250–1,500 m² on a Greco-Italic plan of 50.80 m by 30.80 m, with an enclosed area of 1,421 m², placing it among Gaul's largest residences. The ground floor had 14 rooms, 12 service rooms, and five corridors; an upper floor of an estimated 572 m² is presumed. A facade gallery ran the house's width. Foundations are up to two meters deep, built of sandstone blocks.

Walls use opus vittatum of local limestone, some with brick rows, and include Caen stone and travertine with tool marks. The house was arranged around a central courtyard with a basin, surrounded by a peristyle. Several rooms had hypocaust heating. Part of the original limestone flooring remains.

The facade gallery, about 3.30 m wide, faced north for protection from precipitation and supported an upper floor; its floor was of local pink marble slabs. Smooth columns on the facade suggest an upper story. The entrance, a bay with two arches, faced the cardo II and was designed to display the owner's social rank, inspired by official architecture like city gates.

Interpretation

This peristyle style, rare in the region and ill-suited to local conditions, is linked to Romanization. The house exemplifies the peristyle type common in Gaul, adapted to the Norman climate. Excavations reveal a typical Mediterranean dwelling, showing northern Gauls' assimilation of Roman architecture and integration into elite Roman society, indicating cultural uniformity at the end of the Antonine period and into the Severan dynasty. The building is moderate in size and style, representative of urban houses for the local elite, with a pronounced ostentatious character typical of large provincial aristocratic dwellings.

It is not representative of more modest dwellings on the site, such as the U-shaped courtyard house near the museum. The domus's full excavation is exceptional for northern Gaul; the site's loss of urban character preserved the remains and advanced knowledge of the city's history. Peristyle houses were mainly in urban cores, providing settings for elite otium and negotium, with ostentation starting at the exterior colonnade and gate-like entrance.