NIKOPOLIS - House of Manius Antoninus - 2002

Nikopolis, House of Manius Antoninus. K. Zachos and Th. Kyrkou (ΙΒ' ΕΠΚΑ) report on the fifth season of excavation focused in the northeast part of the complex, east of the tetrastyle court.

Three new, intercommunicating rooms (V, IX and VIII) were found along the east side of the tertrastyle court, bounded by what was probably the original exterior wall of the complex. Room V has no direct access to the court, but links into rooms IX and X. Rooms IX and VIII (which connect) both had floors of cement and tile chips, and together probably formed passage around room XV. East of the original east wall lay rooms X (with a pebble floor), XV and XVa - the latter two of unknown size since their eastern parts are destroyed. The western and northern margins of room XV were defined by a paved area of floor with clamp cuttings probably for a stylobate: it is conjectured that the second garden area of the house may lie in this area, surrounded by a peristyle. Room XIV, north of the peristyle, was a triclinium with a partially preserved floor mosaic. The composition comprised a dodecagon with cruciform ornament with, in the emblem, a scene of the infant Dionysos being nursed by a nymph, beside a tree, with a satyr to the left bearing a bowl of fruit and accompanied by a she-goat. In the frame around the emblema were depictions of birds and human figures oriented towards the four cardinal points (a cock-fight, a peacock and pheasant, a dove, duck and goose, and three standing figures wearing theatrical masks). The technique and style of the mosaic and the pottery from the room, date the floor to the fourth century AD).

North of room XIV, two small rooms with hypocausts, a water channel, and a larger room with a mosaic floor all form part of the private bath which lay to the east of the villa. Seven new rooms belonging to this complex were excavated, three of which were bathing pools (II, X and XI). Room II, a semicircular space, clad with marble, had a bench around it, and a terracotta air conduit. A seventh-century AD cist grave was cut into the south part. The orthogonal pool room X also had marble cladding over plaster. The apsidal room XI contained an orthogonal, plaster-lined pool with a low bench. The bath complex was not fully excavated, although the central hall (VII), apodyterium (VIII) and a further room with a hypocaust and brick floor (IX) were also located. Pieces of tegula mammatae, terracotta air conduit, bone pins, bronze coins, pottery and a quantity of nails were collected from the whole area, which seems to have been infilled during a later phase of the villa.

Central sewer. The wall which formed the eastern border of the villa also defined the western boundary of a public area: this was likely an early construction on the basis of the construction technique, opus quasi reticulatum, and the first-century AD pottery collected. Immediately beyond the wall lay a north-south road (cardo) up to 7.39m wide: in places, however, the road has been narrowed by subsequent building such as the eastwards extension of the House of Manius Antoninus, which represents an adjustment to the original town plan. The west side of the road was at some point taken up to lay a drainage pipe probably connected to the villa’s private bath. The limestone slabs used to build the groups of Early Christian cist graves in and beyond the eastern part of the road likely also belonged to the original paving. The road fabric included the stone-lined main sewer (cloaca) of the western cardo, into which drained channels from neighbouring buildings as the villa. Two of the rectangular shafts used to clean the sewer were located 7m apart. Pottery from the area dates from the first to the fourth century AD.