Military Camp or Villa

[Musivarius]

Wes,
If you want to look at the possibility of mosaic floors for your villa let me know and I'd be happy to send you some relevant information so you could judge what is feasible for you to take on with the help of some friends/volunteers. The marble is really not as expensive as people think, and if you learn to do the work yourself that's the major cost sorted, if you can sit and make chainmail you have the patience to create a mosaic.
Good luck with the plans!
Lawrence

[Robert]

Just for kicks, there are several Italian firms offering mosaic patterns glued on a roll. These can be ordered by mail and shipped seafraight(or air) You unwrap them, and cement into place, then add the filling. You can do the area's around with white and black marble chips/cubicles. They have good replica's of original designs. Check it out. I have some links which I can mail you if the need arrises. Mind you, the main building is the most important part, the dressing comes later. In my view and as far as my understanding goes, mosaic was mainly apllied in those area's of the villa with a representative function, such as the dining room and the main reception room. Best spend money on the total design and fill in the blanks as business progresses. a lot of stuctures in Herculaneum and Pompaye have a terrazo flooring, not mosaic.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

That sounds interesting Robert! Could I have the link?

[Wes]

Alright, heres what I am thinking, I have just upped my Home equity Line, so I can buy the ground easy enough. I am going to start with a "basic" castra, and add eventually to it, to include a Villa and recreated crops if possible. ( Everybody send me your Olive pits!! LOL) as I am into the agricultural aspect as well (Farm Kid!)

Any one that would be willing to help is welcome, this will be cool! I am needing plans, drawings, ANYTHING!! that will help with layout, materials, and actual construction. Thanks!!

Wes

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I have a book from English Heritage called Roman Forts in Britain.

There is actually a chapter titled 'Palaces and hovels in a fort!' :lol:

While not an exhaustive source there are some exploded drawings, plans and photos of fort buildings and forts......even one of our illustrious HQ,
Lunt!

Not sure how accessible these are on your side of the pond tho.....

Edit - Also Ospreys book - Roman Legionary Fortresses 27 BC - AD 278

quite informative I think.

[Robert]

A castra is a VERY big affair, easily covering 10 acres. This was the home of a legioen. A castellum is much smaller, and if you are OK with late Roman, they have very nice border forts for a century. I am in the process of reconstucting a full cohort castellum and this will set you back 5 milj. And those are accurate calculations made by professionals.
If you Google "klein-kastell" and look at the second page (Nersingen) this gives a good impression of a century castellum or burguss. The other burgus in stone looks nice, but only one example was found along the Limes, build by a commander who had served in Tunisia and the like. The type is commonplace there.
You can play around with the distance of the walls to the barracks, Nersingen is a bit crowded, I know of a Dutch small castellum with a somewhat roomier (is that a word?) make-up. I am sending you a picture of that as soon as you PM me a regular e-mail adress, sinds adding attachments in RAT is a major :oops: I can also mail you the dimensions, will have to translate and its all metric (sorry, this is Europe), no Roman feet.
A small castellum near an important villa and small agricultural settlement makes a good combination in de 250 AD timeframe, when the Romans were changing their defence stategie along the border. Adding livestock and farming raises more interest with children then just soldiers, boys may love it, girls (having more sense) prefer the civil life! :lol:

[Robert]

Darn, sorry Gaius, forgot your mosaic link, I am just sending the English language ones:

http://www.mosaicmarble.com/ lebanon
http://www.pompei-mosaic.com/ US based company!!

Wes, on roof tiles, there is ample evidence slate and wooden shingles were used as well. The century fort in Holland actually had a slate roof, slate coming from Germany. 40 by 40 centimeter slabs if I remember correctly. If you go for a century fort, I'll dig up the excavation details on dimensions of the roofing. If you choose oak slats, same. These are basicly boards hand wide, three hands long, with a triple overlap, dead easy to nail in (yes, these were nailed, archeological proof)

[Musivarius]

I don't want to take this off topic too much but just looking at the 2 websites above have prompted me to point out a couple of things, hopefully to give a little more information out to anyone contemplating buying a copy of a Roman mosaic. There are certain rules to the way the Romans set the tesserae for their mosaics, ignore these and you have a modern mosaic, contemporary mosaic follows no rules therefore it cannot be criticized. The mosaics from the company in the Lebanon are very nice and a fantastic price for the work put in, but they can only be classified as contemporary works. As for the other company, if you use 10mm machine cut cubes the end result is a very 'flat' piece of work,( I know I've tried it) the slight variation in size is what sets it out look as a Roman piece looks.
I don't say this to try to sell my work to anyone here just to help people understand what the difference is between a modern copy of a Roman mosaic and a modern mosaic. If anyone wants me to bore them to death on the difference I'd be happy to post it up.
Lawrence

[Robert]

Ave Lawrence, I'm by no means up to scratch on mosaic, just came across these sites searching for suppliers of building materials. This link may be more to your liking: http://www.mosaica.com.tn/files/fruits.html
Less "arty" and more irregular cut stone.

[Musivarius]

Thanks Robert,
They're very nice pieces and I really like the horse pieces, I think though I should explain what I mean regarding at least one of the 'rules' so people don't think I'm blindly criticising other peoples work. Look on any Roman mosaic with a figure, animal etc in, ie something which cuts across the background. Whatever colour stone is used for the background, usually an off-white such as Botticino, and you will see a line of tesserae in this colour around the figure. The rest of the background is then filled in using,generally horizontal lines. Now I'm really useless on computers hence I've not figured out how to put a picture up to illustrate this but bear with me! Say you have a figure with their arm out at 45 degrees, Without the contour line of background colour when the background is filled (horizontal) meeting the line of say brown tesserae of the arm you need to cut triangular pieces so as not to leave any gaps. This creates a very sharp line against the figure which they always tried to avoid, the lines of a mosaic always nee to 'flow'. Most probably clear as mud but have a look at a figural mosaic and hopefully you can see this. This is one of the main rules of Roman mosaics and is taught at the Ravenna Mosaic School and if you can't see this it's a mistake. When I've figured out how to put up pics I'll put a short tutorial up on CivTalk for anyone to access if they're interested. This should allow you too look at an original and understand how the Roman craftsman worked.
Ok back to the thread, anyone contemplating doing their own mosaic and want to use marble, there is a company in Italy which now can supply marble tesserae pre-cut but in irregular sizes. Ie it's all average 10mm, the depth is 10mm but the shape is irregular. This way it looks all hand-cut but you save the cutting time needed with rods and you don't have the 'flat' look you get when the pieces are all exactly 10mm cubes. Again I'll figure out how and but up some pics. They cost 25% more for this 'antique' cut and they have a 5kg minimum order, but for the time saving it's worth it. The site is www.mosicimoruzzi.com
Hope this helps,
Lawrence.