Roman Mosaics: The Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World in Stone
The Roman mosaic was the dominant medium of monumental decorative art across the empire for five centuries — from the late Republic through the late antiquity — and its mythological program constitutes one of the richest visual archives of Greco-Roman sacred narrative that survives. Unlike painting, which deteriorates rapidly, mosaic is nearly indestructible: assembled from thousands of small tesserae of stone, glass, and terracotta, set in mortar and intended to last, the great mosaics of Pompeii, Delos, Zeugma, and North Africa have survived earthquakes, fires, and centuries of abandonment to emerge still brilliant. The gods and heroes they depict — Neptune commanding the sea, Dionysus in his eternal ecstasy, Orpheus charming the animals with his music, Alexander meeting the divine through the intensity of battle — were not merely decorative subjects. They were theological statements, embodiments of the cosmic forces that Roman civilization recognized in its mythology, permanently fi...