K. Palágyi Sylvia szerk.: Balácai Közlemények 2005/9. (Veszprém, 2005)
GÁBOR, OLIVÉR: Suburbanum Sopianarum and Roman Villas around Sopianae
Industrial Quarter During the 2002 excavations, in Czinderi Street, in the site of the Árkád shopping centre, north-east of the 4 th century cemetery, two well, some furnaces and pits came to light. Their relationship to the nearby cemetery is defined by a pit that is probably contemporary with the furnaces but later, at the time of founding the cemetery, was not used for industrial purposes but a grave was dug in it. The pit had originally been dug into the very hard, alluvial-conglomerate stratum. Its digging must have been a hard work so a „ready" pit made the work of the later undertakers easier. The original pit had been round, and only half of it was used for the later, rectangular grave covered with bricks. We can thus date the „industrial" quarter outside the town to the 2 nd-3 rd centuries while the later cemetery, that connects at one point to it, to the 4 th century. The size of the industrial area is probably bigger than what we have got to know of it during the excavations. The products made here wre probably produced for the population of Sopianae and its surroundings. One of the two, different furnaces was with no doubt a pottery kiln while the other one may have been used for melting metals or glaze. The settlement of the population dealing with industry outside the town was not rare during history because to avoid the fire in the town. 4. Roman villas around Sopianae Concerning the owners of the villas we have no proof of the presence of the military aristocracy inn Baranya. We may, instead, think of the scattered settlement of the imperial aristocracy on the basis of Valerius Dalmatius also mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus or rather that of the provincial, municipal leadership (see also in Petra or Alexandria). Due to the moderate size and richness of the main buildings of the villas (glass, mosaic, fresco, central heating) seem to prove this. As for the history of the villas around Sopianae, we can agree with the concept of A. Mócsy and V. Lányi that the formation of laregr estates in Pannónia was in the second half of the 3 rd century and the construction and flourishing of their central buildings in the 4 th . 28 We can declare this onn the basis of the six villas in Baranya that were more significantly researched (with maybe the only exception of the villa in Nagyharsány, that was excavated but the process of the finds is still keeping us waitng). At the same time, the picture cannot be so simple, since it was A. Mócsy himself who gave particulars to the earlier traces of the formation of larger estates. According to this, in Pannónia Inferior, the early villa estes can be proved around Sirmium while regardin whole Pannónia, he lists five proofs concerning the early land concentration. The estates along the Danube became concentrated to be larger estates later, because they were owned by military families, who were financially more independent than other smallholders. According to the examples by A. Mócsy, brought from the Severan times, while the
