At the beginning villa was a place with few comforts, accommodating the owner and servants, dedicated to agricultural activities. As long as the owner’s occupations were changing, rural residence became the Roman politician’s retirement whereas public activities breaks allow him to rest, devoting himself to literary and artistic activities. In this quietness, away from city’s fuss, we can see the owner reading and commenting onto Greek literature and philosophy, writing notes and memoirs, rather than dedicating himself editing historical and literary works of greater commitment.
By changing activities that take place in the villa its characteristics keep changing either. Residential area, the so-called urban villa, became wider and more articulated; areas whereas the owner spent more time were been enriched with refined architectural elements: stately colonnades, gardens, fountains and mosaics. His entourage was increased by personnel with occupations very different from fields specific ones: persons in charge of his and his family personal care, chefs, chaperones and also musicians, thespians, writers.

According to a widespread interpretation, economic activities are not the main concern of the Roman ruling class. Main purpose of the rural or seaside villa is to offer a refuge for the landlord, who could dedicate himself to a necessary complement of his public activity: the literary and philosophical otium. However, it is perhaps wrong somehow not to give due importance to the villa’s activities production, thanks to which property contributed to increasing the owner’s assets.
Property economic management was entrusted to the villicus, a servant who oversaw all the villa’s productive activities and was directly responsible to the owner for its administration. Villa’s economic activities were numerous and complex; technical innovation and experimentation for what’s new were pursued with enthusiasm and genuine interest by the owner. Classic Latin writers such as Cato and Columella demonstrated how the owners’ attention to productive activities was remarkable, even if the demands of status required greater emphasis on public activities. Even if the owner was perhaps not a pure entrepreneur, he was certainly not indifferent to his property’s economic performances.

Imperial villas represented a special interest, for prestige of its dwellers as well as for activities took place there. It hasn’t always been clearly distinguished, authors pointed out, imperial residences from villas of a private citizen. Sometimes a villa of a wealthy citizen became one of the emperor’s property, just like emperor’s properties were sold to private citizens.
How the emperor spent his time along his villas depended on whether he performed public functions in them or not. Each emperor had his own approach. Augustus owned residences which were no different from those of the aristocracy’s members. His successor Tiberius spent much of his time away from Rome, while continuing to perform his duties. With Domitian and Trajan the emperor’s otium vanished: that’s it, the emperor continued carrying out his public functions in his suburban residence. Adriano had a large otium residence in Tivoli, adopting original solutions to satisfy his aesthetic taste.
New solutions were found to accommodate an impressive following and servitude, all this far removed from the frugality of Augustus, inspired by republican ideals.

Roman villa born as a productive company of rich landowners who lived in the city: initially inhabited by a small crowd of workers who cultivate vegetable gardens, vineyards and olive groves and raise farmyard animals but also rarer species assigned for refined banquets. It soon became a place of otium, where spending free time away from the hectic city’s life, switching from rest to cultural activities. According to Roman politicians and intellectuals’ “way of life” it thus became a kind of obligatory stay.
Villas would dot then landscape of central Italy: from those close to Rome, an immediate refuge to leave urban clamor, to those for vacation which, not surprisingly, were choosen at such panoramic locations such Capri, Sorrento, Castellammare di Stabia or among the gorges of the Tiburtina region.
Architectural forms, consequently, are transformed: essentiality and functionality of first structures give way to external colonnaded elevations and internal gardens, to dining rooms arranged around pools full of fish, to a series of environments inserted in sequences that ended on panoramic terraces. For the emperors, extra-urban residences took on the same meaning: from Tiberius’ villa built onto the Capri’s cliffs to the much more complex one commissioned by Hadrian near Tivoli, it was developed an architectural language adapting to the landscape or creating artificial spaces between monuments performing representation functions, but also intended for physical and intellectual pleasures.