This project explores the elite monolith that dominates discussions of late Roman villas in the western provinces (ca. 250–450 CE). I treat the villa as a window onto the full breadth of late antique society, from top to bottom. First, I argue that variety across domestic assemblages (e.g., interior décor schemes) parallels the socioeconomic and cultural diversity of the upper class, who were much more colorful than current scholarship admits. To move conversations beyond villa owners, moreover, I analyze evidence for estate laborers, both as actors in their own right and as pawns in the villa’s promotion to status symbol. Synthesis of the heterogeneity of villas and their inhabitants—their lives and their worlds—is poised to advance our understanding of rural life in the waning years of the empire.