Villa Publica

One of the oldest and most important Republican buildings in the *Campus Martius, established in 435 B.C. by the censors C. Furius Paculus and M. Geganius Macerinus (Livy 4.22.7: villam Publicam in campo Martio). It was not a functioning villa for farming, but instead a place where Rome’s armies were levied and regulated and where the census was administered (Varro, Rust. 3.2.4). The term ‘Villa Publica’ seems to have been applied not only to the specific structure but also to the surrounding open space, in which most of the business of the Villa Publica took place (Agache). The structure of the villa itself has not been located, but is known to have stood somewhere near the Republican *Saepta (Varro, Rust. 3.2.1). This also served, from time to time, as the place where embassies from Rome’s enemies were housed (Livy 30.21.12, 33.24.5). The building was probably destroyed at some time after 55 B.C., when it was depicted on a denarius by P. Fonteius Capito (RRC 429/2), but before the reign of Tiberius, when Valerius Maximus (9.2.1) refers to the Villa Publica in the past tense (De Caprariis). There is general agreement that the open area of the Villa Publica originally included the territory immediately S of the *Diribitorium and E of the *“Area Sacra” of Largo Argentina. By the time of Augustus, however, this zone was entirely built up with the *Porticus Minucia and the *Theatrum: Balbus. A passage of Josephus (BellJ<a class="" href="http://example.com/new.php?page=BellJ">?</a> 7.123) may suggest that some part of this open area was still in existence during the Flavian period. It is therefore probable that the original open area of the Villa Publica also stretched further E, into the area SW of the Temple of *Isis Campense (Coarelli). Richardson has argued that this E portion of the Villa Publica was ultimately transformed into the Divorum under Domitian. What open area of the Villa Publica there was at the time of Augustus would have been bounded on its S side by the residential district of the *Pallacinae.