Floor Mosaic with Gladiators and Hunters
The small fragment, which was found with another of similar size and five larger ones, must have originally decorated the floor of a cryptoporticus in a grand villa that was excavated in 1834 on the Borghese estate at Torrenova, along Via Casilina, for Prince Francesco Borghese Aldobrandini. The mosaics, which depict gladiator combat (munera) and hunting scenes (venationes), celebrated the prestige and virtutes of the patron in private spaces. The panel depicts the head of a gladiator wearing a galea and labelled Iaculator. Scholars have dated the mosaic to between the third and fourth centuries CE.
Object details
Location
Date
Classification
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
Unearthed in 1834 during excavations in a hamlet of Torrenova, along Via Casilina. Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1834 Interventions on the frame, in monochrome white (except for a short section around the head) and at the lower part of the neck; the letter R was restored
- 1908 R. Lazzari
- 1926 C. Fossi
- 1960 P. Saltelli
- 1989 Consorzio ARKE'
- 2020/2021 Istituto Centrale del Restauro: scientific project for diagnostics and restoration
Commentary
This small panel, placed next to a larger one, depicts a head in profile, wearing a simple round helmet (called a galea), typically worn by gladiators of the secutor class. The figure is labelled with the term Iaculator. It is probably a fragment of one of the five larger mosaics with gladiator themes in the Salone. The name seems to link it to the mosaic with the figure of a incitator named in the same way. Turning to epigraphy, the style of some of the letters, like the ‘A’, with the oblique stroke sticking out on the right, is also found in the edict on prices issued by Diocletian in 301 CE. (Hübner 1885, p. 387, no. 1097).
The panels, five large and two small, were discovered in 1834 on the Borghese estate in a hamlet in Torrenova, in an area called Vermicino-Quarto della Giostra, along Via Casilina. The excavations, which were commissioned by Prince D. Francesco Borghese Aldobrandini, unearthed the remains of a large residence. According to Luigi Canina, who was present at the time, the mosaics decorated a cryptoporticus located on one side of the villa’s innermost peristyle, measuring about 140 palmi long and 12 wide. He further reported that ‘two thirds of this mosaic were found in good condition, and the remaining part was missing. It was divided into five panels framed by a meander motif, also mosaic in two simple hues’ (Canina 1834, pp. 193–194). The only part of the floor that has been preserved is the portion with figures, measuring in total 27.9 metres, while the meander frames are lost. The imagery on the larger panels is arranged in a single narrative frieze, depicting various moments of a single episode, scenes of gladiator combat (munera) and hunting (venationes), against a solid white background. Some of the figures are labelled with their name. After their discovery, the mosaics, divided into rectangular panels, were removed using the strappo method and sent to Rome, where they were kept, until 1839, in the Casino dell’Orologio, where they were restored by Gaetano Ruspi and Filippo Scaccia. They were then installed in the Salone, where Giuseppe Santalmassi made drawings of them.
The lack of information, beyond Luigi Canina’s article, about the context of the discovery allows us to date the work exclusively on the basis of stylistic analysis, which suggests a date between the third and fourth centuries CE.
Giulia Ciccarello
Bibliography
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