Ideologies and villas Approaches of Philodemus the Epicurean and his Roman contemporaries

Absztrakt

In this paper, I examine how the ancient Latin concepts of otium (leisure, recreation) and villa were constructed from ideological and lifestyle constructs in the late republic. In the analysis, I contrast the conceptions of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus with the ideas of the contemporary Cicero and Varro. It can be shown that Philodemus, in his ideas on property management and estate administration, incorporated ideas appropriate to the wealthy Roman landowners. And prominent members of the Hellenistic-learned Roman social and cultural elite, such as Cicero and Varro, not only knew this rate of living, but also sought to put the otium and one of its depositories, the countryside-villa, at the service of self-education and sophisticated management, especially in the literary sources that have come down to us.