In Roman times, large country villas were not only places to spend leisure time, but also working farms.

Several villas have been discovered around Tarragona, the most notable being those of Centcelles (Constantí) and Els Munts (Altafulla). The latter was already known as a Roman site in the 16th century, although systematic excavation of the area did not begin until the nineteen-sixties. According to the available archaeological data, the site was first occupied in the middle of the 1st century AD.

Around the year 260 it was affected by a fire that destroyed almost all its buildings. It was subsequently reoccupied and then finally abandoned at the beginning of the 5th century.

Excavations have uncovered a series of luxurious rooms, linked to the centre of the villa by a porticoed corridor, and two thermal baths. Most of the rooms in the villa were paved with polychromatic mosaics and the walls and ceilings were decorated with splendid paintings. The thermal baths had mosaic floors and the walls of the pools still have significant remains of marble. This decoration, together with the statues, discovered mainly in the area of the thermal baths, gives us an idea of the splendour of the whole complex.

The luxuriousness of the villa of Els Munts, which is not found in the other known villas in the Tarraco area, can probably be related to the fact that it was the residence of the governor of the provincia Hispaniae citerioris, of which Tarraco was the capital.