After the Greeks came the Romans. As it was in high school history class, so it was in Sicily.
By 200 BC, Sicily had been absorbed into the Roman Empire. Few structures from the Roman era remain in Sicily; most succumbed to the island’s later history of warfare, conquest, and taking stones from old buildings to make new ones. But thanks to a mudslide that buried it for centuries, one Roman-era marvel is still there.
During our travels, Melissa and I have been lucky to see lots of Roman ruins—in Spain, France, Germany, and throughout Italy. Museums and archaeological sites around Rome and Naples and Pompeii are full of wonders. But the remains of a villa nestled in a hollow in a quiet corner of central Sicily is one of the most remarkable Roman sites we’ve ever seen. What makes the Villa Romana del Casale so special are its floors, which are inlaid with some of the biggest, most detailed, and best preserved Roman mosaics in the world.
The mosaics, which date to the early 4th century AD, cover nearly every room of the villa. In the work rooms and storage rooms, the patterns are mainly geometrical. But in the public rooms and family apartments, the mosaics depict detailed scenes of animals, hunting, chariot races, female athletes (a very rare subject), family members heading to the baths attended by their slaves, and mythological subjects such as the labors of Hercules.
The children’s rooms feature pictures of miniature circuses and animal hunts peopled entirely by children and cherubs. The mosaics culminate in an extraordinary hunting scene nearly 200 feet long of exotic animals being captured and loaded into cages and ships for transport back to Rome. It’s amazing to think of artisans turning millions of little tiles into such detailed scenes.
Historians are still trying to figure out why the villa was built in an out-of-the-way place and whom it belonged to. One common theory is that it was a hunting lodge and rural retreat of Maximianus Herculius, a military commander who served as Roman Emperor jointly with Diocletian from 286 to 305 AD. A figure in the great hunting mosaic is thought to depict Maximianus himself.
Like the Greek temples in Agrigento, Villa Romana del Casale is one of Sicily’s major tourist attractions. It’s a must-see stop for every tour group. All of those visitors can overwhelm the place, but we got lucky. The afternoon we visited, it was pouring rain, so only a few other people were there.
Best of all, the apartment we rented in Enna (the big town closest to the villa) belongs to a family whose daughter is studying to be a tour guide. She offered to give us a free tour in order to practice her English and even drove us the 25 km to the villa, saving us from having to negotiate a series of local buses in a downpour.
After a landslide covered the villa in the 12th century, its artwork lay hidden until professional excavations began in 1929. The excavated site has been covered with a roof and walls to protect it from the elements, which is why we could enjoy it in the pouring rain. An elevated walkway lets you move at ceiling height from room to room, looking down at the structure and the amazing floors.
It’s not clear whether the villa’s owner was an art lover or just wanted to impress the heck out of his guests. But whatever the motivation, modern visitors to Sicily are the richer for it.
