1You wonder why my Laurentine villa, or – if you prefer – my Laurens, delights me so much; 1you will stop wondering once you have learned the charm of the villa, the convenience of the site, the extent of the shore. 2It lies seventeen miles from the city, so that, after finishing what has to be done, with your day's work safe and settled, you can stay there. 2It is reached by more than one road; 2for both the Laurentine and the Ostian roads lead to the same place, but the Laurentine must be left at the fourteenth milestone, the Ostian at the eleventh. 2From either side the road that takes you on is partly sandy, rather heavy and slow for a carriage, short and soft for a horse.
3The scenery varies on this side and that; 3for sometimes the road narrows as woods close in, sometimes it spreads out and opens across very wide meadows; 3there are many flocks of sheep there, many herds of horses and cattle, which, driven down from the mountains in winter, grow sleek on the grass and in the warmth of spring. 3The villa is roomy enough for use, and not expensive to maintain. 4In its front part is an atrium, plain but not mean; 4then colonnades curving round in the shape of the letter D, which enclose a small but cheerful courtyard. 4This makes an excellent refuge against storms; 4for they are protected by panes of transparent stone and much more by the overhanging roofs.
5Opposite their middle is a cheerful inner court, then a rather beautiful dining room, which runs out towards the shore and, whenever the sea is driven in by the south-west wind, is lightly washed by the last waves, already broken. 5On all sides it has folding doors or windows no smaller than the doors, and so from the sides and the front it looks out, as it were, on three seas; 5behind, it looks back through the inner court, the colonnade, the courtyard, the colonnade again, then the atrium, to the woods and the distant mountains. 6To the left of this, set back a little, is a spacious bedroom, then another smaller one, which lets in the rising sun through one window and holds the setting sun with the other; 6through this window it also views the sea lying below, at a greater distance indeed, but more securely.
7By the projection of this bedroom and of that dining room a corner is enclosed, which holds and intensifies the purest sunshine. 7This is the winter quarters, this also the exercise ground of my household; 7there all the winds are silent except those which bring in cloud, and they take away the clear sky before they take away the use of the place. 8Joined to the corner is a bedroom curved into an apse, which follows the course of the sun with all its windows. 8Into its wall a cupboard is fitted like a library, which holds books not to be read once but to be read again and again.
9Adjoining it is a sleeping wing, with a passage between, which, raised on a hollow floor and fitted with pipes, distributes and supplies the heat it has received hither and thither at a healthy temperature. 9The rest of this side is kept for the use of slaves and freedmen, most of the rooms being so neat that they could receive guests. 10On the other side is a most elegant bedroom; 10then either a large bedroom or a moderate dining room, which shines with abundant sun and abundant sea; 10after this a bedroom with an antechamber, fit for summer by its height, for winter by its shelter; 10for it is withdrawn from all the winds.
10To this bedroom another, with its antechamber, is joined by a common wall. 11Then comes the cold room of the baths, spacious and wide, in whose opposite walls two plunge-baths curve out as if thrown outwards, amply large if you consider that the sea is close by. 11Next to it is the anointing room, the hypocaust, next to it the furnace room of the baths, then two small rooms more elegant than costly; 11connected to these is a wonderful heated swimming pool, from which swimmers look out on the sea, and not far off is a ball court, which meets the hottest sun as the day declines. 12Here a tower rises, beneath which are two suites, and as many in the tower itself, as well as a dining room which commands a very wide sea, a very long shore and the most delightful villas.
13There is also another tower; 13in this is a bedroom in which the sun rises and sets; 13behind it a broad storeroom and granary, beneath this a dining room, which of the troubled sea receives only the roar and the noise, and that already faint and dying away; 13it looks on the garden and the drive by which the garden is enclosed. 14The drive is bordered with box, or with rosemary where the box fails; 14for box, where it is sheltered by buildings, flourishes richly; 14under the open sky and exposed to the wind, and to the spray of the sea, though from far off, it withers. 15Next to the drive, on the inner circuit, is a young and shady vine-walk, soft and yielding even to bare feet.
15The garden is clothed with many mulberries and figs, trees for which the soil is especially fertile, though less kind to others. 15This view, no worse than that of the sea, is enjoyed by a dining room set back from the sea, which is flanked behind by two suites, beneath whose windows lie the entrance of the villa and another garden, rich and rustic. 16From here a covered colonnade stretches out, almost on the scale of a public building. 16It has windows on both sides, more facing the sea, facing the garden single ones, fewer because they come only in every other bay. 16When the day is calm and still, these are all opened; when it is disturbed by winds from this side or that, those on the side where the winds are quiet open without harm.
17In front of the colonnade is a terrace fragrant with violets. 17The colonnade increases the warmth of the sun falling on it by reflecting it, and just as it holds the sun, so it checks and keeps off the north wind, and as much heat as there is in front, so much cold is there behind; 17likewise it stops the south-west wind, and so it breaks and ends the most opposite winds, one on one side, another on the other. 17This is its pleasantness in winter; greater in summer. 18For before noon it tempers the terrace with its shade, after noon the nearest part of the drive and the garden, its shade falling shorter or longer on this side or that as the day has lengthened or shortened.
19The colonnade itself, indeed, is most free from sun just when the sun stands most blazing on its roof. 19Besides, through its open windows it receives the west winds and lets them through, and never grows heavy with stale and stagnant air. 20At the head of the terrace, and then of the colonnade and the garden, is a suite which is my darling, truly my darling: I built it myself. 20In it is a sun-room, which looks out on the terrace from one side, on the sea from the other, and on the sun from both, and a bedroom which looks on the colonnade through folding doors and on the sea through a window.
21Opposite the middle of the wall an alcove recedes very elegantly, which, by drawing or drawing back its glazed panels and curtains, is now added to the bedroom, now separated from it. 21It holds a couch and two chairs; 21at its feet the sea, at its back villas, at its head woods: so many views of places it both separates and mingles with as many windows. 22Adjoining is a bedroom for night and sleep. 22It is not aware of the voices of the young slaves, nor the murmur of the sea, nor the movement of storms, nor the flash of lightning, nor even of daylight, unless the windows are opened.
22The reason for such deep and hidden seclusion is that an intervening passage separates the wall of the bedroom from that of the garden, and so swallows up all sound in the empty space between. 23Attached to the bedroom is a very small hypocaust, which through a narrow window either lets out or retains the heat below, as need requires. 23From there an antechamber and bedroom stretch out into the sun, which they catch at once as it rises and keep beyond noon, slanting indeed, but keep it still. 24When I have withdrawn into this suite, I seem to be away even from my villa, and I take great pleasure in it especially at the Saturnalia, when the rest of the house rings with the licence of the holidays and festive shouts; 24for neither do I disturb the games of my household nor they my studies.
25These conveniences, these charms lack running water, but there are wells, or rather springs; 25for they are near the surface. 25And altogether the nature of that shore is wonderful: wherever you dig the ground, moisture meets you ready to hand, and it is pure, not in the least spoiled by the nearness of so great a sea. 26The nearby woods supply firewood in plenty; 26other provisions the colony of Ostia supplies. 26For a frugal man even the village is enough, which is separated from us by a single villa. 26In it there are three public baths for hire, a great convenience, if perhaps a sudden arrival or too short a stay makes heating the bath at home inadvisable.
27The shore is adorned, with most pleasing variety, by the roofs of villas, now continuous, now with gaps, which present the appearance of many cities, whether you are on the sea or on the shore itself; 27this shore a long calm sometimes softens, but more often frequent and contrary waves harden it. 28The sea is not really rich in costly fish, yet it yields soles and excellent prawns. 28Our villa, however, provides inland produce too, milk above all; 28for the flocks gather there from the pastures whenever they seek water or shade. 29Do I now seem to you to have just reasons for living in, dwelling in, and loving this retreat?
29and you are too much a man of the city if you do not long for it. 29And how I wish you would long for it! 29so that to the many great endowments of our little villa the greatest commendation might be added from your company. 29Farewell.