Nile Mosaic

The Hellenistic Period witnessed striking new developments in art, literature and science. This volume addresses a particularly vibrant area of innovation: the study of animals and the natural world. While Aristotle and his followers had revolutionized fields such as zoology and botany during the fourth century BC, these disciplines took on exciting new directions during Hellenistic times. Kings imported exotic species into their royal capitals from faraway lands. Travel writers described unusual creatures that they had never previously encountered. And buyers from a range of social levels chose works of art featuring animals and plants to decorate their palaces, houses and tombs.

While textual sources shed some light on these developments, the central premise of Art, Science and the Natural World in the Ancient Mediterranean is that our surviving artistic evidence permits a fuller understanding. Accordingly, the study brings together a rich body of visual material that invites new observations on how and why knowledge of the natural world became so important during this period. It is suggested that this cultural phenomenon affected many different groups in society: from kings in Alexandria and Pergamon to provincial aristocrats in the Levant, and from the Julio-Claudian imperial family to prosperous homeowners in Pompeii. By analysing the works of art produced for these individuals, a vivid picture emerges of this remarkable aspect of ancient culture.

Reviewed by:

- S. Hales, in: Greece & Rome 69.2 (2022), 346–47 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383522000122)
- R. Bondí, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2022.12.12 (https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2022/2022.12.12/)
- J. Trinquier, in: Topoi: Orient - Occident 25.2 (2022), 341–55
- A. Bates, in: The Classical Review 73.1 (2023), 268–70 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X22002438)
- S. Cuomo, in: West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 30.1 (2023), 101–3 (https://doi.org/10.1086/728339)

Nilotic scènes were a popular decorative motif in the Roman world, as may be seen by many examples which have been preserved in Pompeian houses. Their meaning is variously understood, either as scènes of an exotic, colonised world, comparable to the genre of Chinoiserie in later Europe, or as propaganda for the Egyptian cults. From a study of the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, the earliest and richest of the extant examples, it appears that the essential motif of these scènes is the Nile flood and its beneficial effects on Egypt, which are given by Isis and Osiris. The meaning of these scènes as symbols of welfare and divine providence made them generally acceptable as decorations for surroundings where a festive mood was required, such as dining rooms and gardens, just like Dionysiac motifs.