Elite house architecture and decoration in the diocese of Thrace (4th-7th centuries)

All or parts of luxurious residences have been discovered and studied in several of the cities of the Late Antique diocese of Thracia. Grouped around a peristylium, they included numerous reception rooms, bedrooms and service rooms, and were decorated with mosaics, wall paintings and marble revetment. Some of the owners also had collections of sculptures. The houses discussed include Villa Armira near Ivailovgrad, those in the capitals of the provinces of Marcianopolis and Philippopolis, as well as the domus in Augusta Traiana (Beroe). On the basis of this material one can make conclusions about the movement of the ateliers engaged in the luxurious decoration of the noble residences. At Villa Armira the mosaics reveal links with the repertoire and style of Roman mosaics, but the architectural sculpture was probably the work of an atelier in Asia Minor (supposedly from Aphrodisias). In Late Antiquity artistic relations with the ateliers of mosaicists from the provinces in Asia Minor and Syria, as well as with those in Greece, were fundamental. The luxurious residences in Thrace attest to the fact that the Balkan provinces enjoyed good economic prosperity in Late Antiquity, regardless of the trials and tribulations related to the invasions of the Goths in the 4th century and the Huns in the 5th. The Christianization of residential architecture, for which there is also evidence in the houses of city nobles discussed here, is a particularly interesting and relatively new problem.