Large Villa Near Thessaloniki

By Dale W. Manor

Excavations in 1934 at the site of Olynthos southeast of Thessaloniki in Macedonia, uncovered the floor plan of the house upon which this model is based. The villa was exceptionally large, measuring ca. 17 x 26 m, approximately nine meters longer than the regular houses in the town. The villa dates from the 5th-4th centuries BC. While the remains do not directly relate to the New Testament narrative, the design is replicated in numerous houses in the Greco-Roman world including houses in Pompeii, Ephesus, and elsewhere—it was sort of a “tract” home design for those who were well-to-do.

The New Testament refers several times to “the church in [someone’s] house” (Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Philem 2). It is not clear exactly what this involved, but we know that the early church did not have dedicated church buildings—those did not come into existence until Constantine legalized Christianity in the 4th century AD. This liberated Christianity from official persecution permitting believers to be more open in their faith. Early Christians met 1) in private houses; 2) perhaps with some regularity outdoors in the quiet, similar to Lydia’s worship by the riverside in Philippi (Acts 16:13); 3) probably sometimes in rented facilities such as the hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus (Acts 19:9). One scholar has suggested that Paul and Priscilla and Aquila used their tent-making workshop (Acts 18:1-3) as their worship location (Murphy-O’Connor, 195-96).

If meetings occurred in houses such as the one at Olynthos, the attendees would likely have gathered primarily in the atrium area, which would usually have been the largest area. Many of these would have had a pool in the middle to collect water, but apart from that, they could be sizable. Research on drawings of various houses in the ancient world yield the following comparative data. Among these are remains of the Olynthos house, remains in a house block at Pompeii, the supposed central room from Capernaum which many believe belonged to Peter and which became a gathering place for worship.

The data convert the measurements from metrics to English measurements. I then calculate what a standard person-per-1000-square-feet theater-style seating arrangement would yield (based on 110 people per 1000 ft²; HardHatCalc.com). It is unlikely, however, that the people of the ancient world would have restricted their proximity to each other according to modern building codes).*

Olynthos atrium: 112.27 m² (1207 ft²) yielding ca. 132 people;

Pompeii Menander atrium: 66 m² (710 ft²) yielding ca. 78 people

Pompeii House of Lovers atrium: 59.6 m² (641 ft²) yielding ca. 70 people

Pompeii Weaver atrium: 46.8 m² (500 ft²) yielding 55 people

Capernaum Peter’s house: 53.3 m² (574 ft²) yielding 63 people

Corinth stoa shop: 23.7 m² (255 ft²) yielding 28 people

*These data should only be used for comparative purposes with a few qualifying caveats: 1) measurements are only approximate; 2) not all of the atrium area would likely serve as “seating” areas since the pool often occupied the middle; 3) people probably did not insist on staying “x-distance” from each other (if you have ever traveled outside of the USA and Europe you likely would have experienced this); 4) people might have overflowed through the doorways into adjacent rooms; 5) we certainly should not assume that all “seating” capacity was to the maximum; and 6) as implied in the list of sites, a variety of types of gathering locations likely existed (e.g., warehouses, shops, houses, open areas, etc.).

Bibliography:

Anthony King. Archaeology of the Roman Empire. London: Bison Books, 1982.

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology. Third revised and Expanded Edition.  Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2002.

David M. Robinson. “The Villa of Good Fortune at Olynthos,” American Journal of Archaeology 38/4 (1934): 501-510.

James F. Strange and Hershel Shanks. “Has the House where Jesus Stayed in Capernaum Been Found?”  Biblical Archaeology Review 8/6 (1982): 26-37.

(The replica artifacts on display were part of a production by Cynthia Cole, Nancy Olson, and Susan Kaye, A House of Ancient Greece.  The MATCH Project, Children’s Museum, Boston; American Science and Engineering, Boston, 1969.)