Figuring out the facts: calculating mosaic labour times in 4th-c. A.D. Britain

In the study of the British countryside in the 4th c. A.D. villas have formed a central component. Their decoration features highly in the scholarship, the tessellated floors cited as evidence for the spending patterns and status claims of a wealthy élite. This élite's desire to spend its surplus funds on lavish interiors created a “boom” in mosaic production, which some scholars have associated with a “flight of capital” from the Continent in the late 3rd c. or others simply with the increasing prosperity of landowners during the 4th c.