CICERO

communicate
nobiscum!

A Roman mosaic from a villa in Britain

The link below will show you part of a mosaic floor at Lullingstone Roman villa in Kent. The picture is contained in a semicircular section of the mosaic and it shows Europa on the bull in quite a stylised design. Her left hand could be holding the bull's left horn, as detailed in Ovid's account of the story, but this is not clear. The bull is prancing happily and Europa looks quite relaxed, with her veil billowing behind her head and her clothes slipping from her body. Two cupids are also in the picture : one in front leading the way and the other holding onto the bull's tail. These do not feature in the literary versions of the myth but their meaning is clear and the mosaic artist obviously thought it was a good idea to emphasise Zeus / Jupiter's intentions in this way.

An interesting feature of this decoration is that there are two lines of poetry in Latin written above the picture.

INVIDA SI TAURI VIDISSET IUNO NATATUS
IUSTIUS AEOLIAS ISSET AD USQUE DOMOS
If Juno had seen the swimming of the bull she would with more justification have gone to the home of Aeolus

This is written in a style similar to that of the poet Ovid but it refers to an incident at the beginning of Virgil's Aeneid, where Juno went to ask Aeolus the king of the winds to shipwreck Aeneas on his way to Italy because she hated the Trojans. This was because her husband had had affairs with various Trojans, but the lines written here suggest that Jupiter's affair with Europa was far more serious.

The owners of the villa were obviously very well-educated, who not only liked to have Classical pictures on their floors but could also comment on Classical literature! Archaeologists are puzzled by the fact that a Christian chapel has also been found in this villa : why would the owners keep designs from pagan mythology on their floors if they had decided to become Christians?


http://www.asprom.org/resources/Lullingstone/LullingstoneHenig.html