In the late 1st century CE, as the network of Roman cities in Gaul began to take shape, several hundred villas were constructed on the plains between the Rhone and the Pyrenees. The lagoon-dotted shoreline of the Gulf of Lion was a particularly propitious area for an estate, given the proximity of various types of resources. The Loupian Villa was very much a part of this movement to create agricultural lands near the civitates of Béziers and Nîmes.