Roman villas in northwestern Gaul (modern France) functioned as colonial economic centers. Most villas did not resemble the luxurious, aristocratic country retreats of the Mediterranean region. Their owners were absentee investors (or the emperor himself), managed by local Gauls whose families were rewarded after the Gallo-Roman wars.

Roman Gaul refers to Gaul [note 1] under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD. The Roman Republic 's influence began in southern Gaul.

Gaul c. 58 BC, on the eve of the Gallic Wars. The Romans divided Gaul into five parts: Gallia Celtica (largely corresponding to the later province Gallia Lugdunensis), Gallia Belgica, Gallia Cisalpina, Gallia Narbonensis, and Gallia Aquitania.

Gaul, the region inhabited by the ancient Gauls, comprising modern-day France and parts of Belgium, western Germany, and northern Italy. A Celtic people, the Gauls lived in an agricultural society divided into several tribes ruled by a landed class. A brief treatment of Gaul follows. For full treatment, see France: Gaul.

The ancient Roman world saw the rise and expansion of large-scale, estate-based agriculture, and at the heart of this system lay a very special institution – the villa. Excavation of one of these large estates, the Villa Loupian in France's Languedoc province, provides a glimpse of rural life in …

Feb 23, 2018 · When Celtic tribal invaders from the north entered Italy in about 400 B.C., the Romans called them Galli 'Gauls'. They settled amid the other people of northern Italy. In 390, some of these, the Gallic Senones, under Brennus, had gone far enough south in Italy to capture Rome after they won the Battle of the Allia.

The excavation of a villa in Loupian on the Languedoc coast, has shed more light on an aspect of rural life in Roman Gaul and the lives of large landholders who divided their time between otium (relaxation and study), negotium (business) and their farms worked by slave labour.

The well-preserved ruins at Glanum provide valuable insights into the daily life, society and economy of a typical Roman town in Gaul. Extensive archaeological excavations have uncovered the remains of houses, shops, workshops, and public buildings.

The Gallo-Roman villa corresponds to a concept borrowed from ancient authors, illustrated in Gaul by numerous excavations, that covers a form of agricultural exploitation displaying all the signs of Romanitas: stone-built architecture with a certain monumental flourish, paired with a rigorous spatial organization marked by symmetry, straight ...

Like their Roman contemporaries, many Gauls lived in large towns. Their houses were made of wood. Modern reconstructions of La Tène settlements feature cozy clusters of cottages with steep thatched roofs.