Old Houses, New Viewers: Domestic Renovation in Roman Sicily

Drawing on a range of media, from architecture to wall-painting and mosaic, this dissertation charts a new approach to the study of Roman Sicily. Focused on the island’s transition from Hellenistic and Punic to Roman control, my investigation analyzes the role of house renovations in the articulation of local Sicilian identities during the Roman Imperial period. Deploying renovation as a theoretical category, I consider the diachronic nature of domestic architecture as a tool of self-fashioning. In this study I suggest that we think about renovation not as a single action but as a conceptual framework that allows us to critically approach the modifications made to architecture and décor. I define renovation as the process of actively selecting which decorative elements to keep or add to one’s domestic ensemble. I have chosen the term “renovate” as opposed to rebuild, redecorate, or transform because it implies a sense of continuity between old and new. Through this lens we can think diachronically about continually occupied spaces such as the houses of Roman-era Sicily. The primary benefit of this approach is that it restores the human element to the architectural evidence. By placing an emphasis on the architecture itself, we can access both the “how” and “why” of changes made to a house over time. In particular, I examine the stratigraphic evidence and décor of three renovated houses across Sicily: House B at Tyndaris, The House of Leda at Soluntum, and The House of the Gazelle at Agrigento. Modifications to a house are direct evidence of a shift in the needs of its inhabitants. They reveal what structural and decorative elements—Hellenistic, Roman, or a combination of the two—were selected for at the individual level. Each townhouse, and its renovation, is contextualized within the city’s local history. My analysis reveals that the domestic ensembles of House B, the House of Leda, and the House of the Gazelle were extremely heterogeneous and polyvalent because they were sites of identity construction for the homeowners, who had a foot in both worlds as local patrons in each of their respective cities but also as members of the provincial elite. I demonstrate that Sicilian homeowners drew upon the island’s rich cultural past, especially that of the Late Hellenistic period, to highlight Sicily’s tradition of Hellenism. In all three cities, it is clear that the homeowners used the décor of their houses to negotiate between local traditions and wider-reaching trends. During the Imperial period each Sicilian city, and each province, had its own way of capturing and asserting its position within the wider, Roman-dominated Mediterranean. While previous work has focused on the import of Sicilian luxury materials by Roman elites on the Italian mainland, in this study I consider the production, style, and reception of Hellenism in Sicily itself and in respect to broader Mediterranean trends