Stories in Stone
Martin Elvery discovers the beautiful Roman mosaics of Sussex which tell a forgotten story of how
the other half lived 2,000 years ago.
We all like to show-off to our guests and relatives when we invite them to dinner: We might bring
out the best crockery, or set up a decorative table-centre as a talking point. For the Romans -or more
accurately the Romano-British- living in Britain almost 2,000 years ago, it was little different; Instead
of making small talk about the NEXT curtains or the latest IKEA furniture however, Roman dinner
guests would have talked about the floors!
Mosaic art-the art of creating pictures from small pieces of tile, glass or stone, was first developed
in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, originally using terracotta cones and later different
coloured pebbles to make intricate designs. But it was the ancient Greeks who perfected the art,
developing precise geometric patterns and detailed scenes of people and animals. The Romans
brought mosaic art to Britain after the emperor Claudius launched an invasion of the country in AD
43, and it soon became the favoured floor decoration for elite Romano-British families in their chic
country villas and town-houses, as they sought to imitate the fashions of Rome.
As a wealthy Romano-Brit you would have been keen to further your position amongst the Roman
high society by holding regular dinner parties for the great and good of the empire. Once you had
welcomed your dinner guests -perhaps they would have bee travelling officials or relatives from a far
distant part of the empire-you might have invited them to recline with you on cushioned couches in
the dining room where a low table would have been regularly re-filled with an array of exotic dishes
which were designed to amaze and delight you; As you invited your guests to tuck into such
delicacies as larks tongue and honeyed doremouse, you might have tried to impress them by telling
them stories about your floors.
In the early years of the Roman empire (1st century AD), the fashion in Italy was for black and white
or partially coloured geometric mosaics. These mathematically complex and often symmetrical
designs, varied enormously but a basic rule was that the more lavish the design, the more impressed
your dinner -guests were likely to be. Diners would have been suitably awestruck at the magnificent
house of Fishbourne Roman Palace for example when you revealed to them that one of your
geometric pavements was in fact a clever illusion: At first site the pavement appears to be a simple
cube-based design, but on closer inspection you r guests would have noticed stars shifting between
the squares, then –if they were still sober enough- it would have dawned on them that the
perspective in the pavement confuses the eye to create a continually alternating pattern of threedimensional shapes. At Bignor Roman Villa, near Pulborough in the heart of the south downs, you
might have taken an after-dinner stroll with your guests along a fine geometric pavement in the
main corridor of the villa, fronted by an open colonnade, which let you gaze out on magnificent
views across the downs.
At Fishbourne it's possible that you -as the host- might have been king-Cogidubnus, a British prince
who had collaborated with the Romans and had probably received the colossal palace as a gift in
return for your loyalty. Over dinner you might have drawn your guests’ attention to the beautiful
boy-on a dolphin mosaic which graced your dining room. In the centre of this pavement a boy cupid
sits astride a beautifully executed dolphin, with a trident in his hand. In Roman mythology, cupid
was the god of love and erotic desire so you might have laughed with your guests over stories from
mythology of young lovers who were struck by cupids bow- such as Aeneas, the prince from Troy
who founded the Roman nation, and Dido queen of Carthage who was thrown into an
uncontrollable desire for him by the will of Juno queen of the Gods.
For fun, you might have asked your guests to look closely among the vine tendrils around the edge
of the design, to see if they could spot a small black bird which may have been the trademark of the
designer -much as a potter might stamp his work today.
If you were lucky enough to be the owners of Bignor Roman Villa, you would have been a wealthy
Romano-British couple who had inherited a fine country houses amid acres of highly profitable
farm estates. In winter, you might have escorted guests to the winter dining room which was heated
under floor by an ingenious hypocaust system which can still be seen today. During dinner you could
have asked your guests look down at the head of Venus, Goddess of love, which was the central
feature of the mosaic in this room. You could have asked guests to stand up and walk slowly around
the dining room to marvel at the brilliant trick of the mosaicists art which caused the doe eyes of the
goddess to gaze at you intently no matter where you were standing in the room.
If time allowed you might have invited your guests to bathe with you in the small heated bath house
in the south western corner of the villa. Bathing in Roman times was both a social event and an
issue of hygiene and you would have had a good opportunity to enjoy conversation in the changing
rooms before passing into the inviting warm and hot rooms. While they changed, guests would have
rested their bare feet on a beautiful floor adorned with the head of medusa. The story of the snake
headed gorgon who could turn men to stone with just a look- and who was recently featured in the
film Clash of the Titans- might have served as a warning to bathers against vanity and the pleasures
of the flesh: Medusa was said to have once been a beautiful maiden who was transformed into a
gorgon as a punishment for sleeping with the sea-God Poseidon.
In summertime you would have invited guests to dine in a summer dining room nearer to the front
of the villa where a strikingly three dimensional image of mythological figure Ganymede awaited
you. Ganymede , a prince who was said to be fro the city of Troy (yes the one with Brad Pitt), is
depicted as hanging in the clutches of a starkly rendered golden eagle complete with beady eyes
and a dangerous looking beak. But all was not lost; The story goes that Ganymede was so attractive
that Zeus decided to have him abducted and taken up to Mount Olympus to serve as a cup-bearer to
the gods. Perhaps dinner guests imagined furtively that they were having their wine poured by
Ganymede himself and that they were in fact dining in the company of immortals!
But the dream of Roman civilization could not last ad after nearly 400 years of occupation, the last
Roman troops were recalled in 410 AD and the province was gradually over-run by Jutes, Angles, and
Saxons from Northern Europe. Over the course of time the mosaics were buried beneath farmers
fields as the buildings collapsed and decayed around them. It was only the dedicated work of teams
of archaeologists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that has brought the floors to light once
more and has allowed us to re-imagine the stories that would have been told around the dinnertables 2,000 years ago.