Dionysus mosaic, Samatya

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The Dionysus mosaic found in Samatya, Istanbul, was uncovered in 1995 while the lot it was discovered in was under construction. [1] It could have been created between the 4th and 5th century, with evidence supporting it to be from the later part of the 5th century. [2] The mosaic is severely damaged due to construction machinery, and much of the piece is missing because of the urban landscape. What remains is a traditional Byzantine mosaic depicting the chariot of Dionysus, with a grand thiasos, or parade of followers circled around the god of wine. [2]

Contents

Design

The mosaic itself was 2.5 meters by 10 meters at the time of excavation. [1] It consists of a square panel that is defined by two bands; the bands are multi-colored guilloches. [1] Within the square panel are two circles; one within the other. These circles are framed by laurel wreaths that are created by a sawlike pattern band with colored fillets. Between the square panel and the outermost circle is the embodiment of Winter; a female dressed for winter with a green mantle. [3] In the area between the first and second circle is Dionysus's thiasos. The thiasos is seen moving in a clockwise rotation with figures that include Silenos sitting on a mule supported by a satyr, a dancing maenad with an unidentified object in her hand, a male flutist, and a child with no clothes sitting upon a goat. [1] All of these people and beings are from stories in Greek mythology related to Dionysus.

In the center of the mosaic is the chariot of Dionysus. [1] This part of the mosaic is severely damaged and is missing much of the original piece. What remains of the center is the eight-spoked wheel of a chariot car that is piled with the garlands of Dionysus's chariot. [1] Behind the chariot is the illustration of a panther with a red strap; the purpose of the pictured red strap is unknown. [1] Dionysus is often depicted wearing the skin of a panther, and usually wore this article of clothing during times of war [4]

Materials

The artist(s) of this piece used baked clay, natural stone, and marble tesserae to create the mosaic. [1] The color palette consists of black, brown, green, pink, red, white, and yellow. Mosaics were a very popular type of floor art throughout the Byzantine Empire. [5]

Meaning

There are several theories as to why Dionysus and his entourage were depicted in a Byzantine home. The first is the influence of the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of Panopolis, one of the only surviving poems of Dionysus from the 5th century. [6] It was common during this era to use manuscripts, such as the Dionysiaca, as muses for art pieces like the Dionysus mosaic. [6] Dionysiaca gives a detailed account of Dionysus's life, and includes characters depicted in the mosaic; the characters are also considered to be a part of the Dionysian cycle. [7] The adventurous nature of the poem could be considered a reason for the depiction of Dionysus in this Byzantine mosaic. [6]

Another reason for Dionysus's appearance in the mosaic is the item he is most affiliated with wine. [2] The mosaic is showcased in what would have been a reception room of a wealthy person, where lavish parties would have been thrown. [1] [2] Dionysus is often pictured in manuscripts and illustrations hosting drinking parties, which could have been the reason for including the god of wine and his thiasos in the room where guests would have been entertained.

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Satyr Male nature spirit with horse features and a permanent erection found in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, a satyr, also known as a silenus or silenos, is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and are always shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbating or engaging in bestiality.

Mosaic Image made from small colored tiles

A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly popular in the Ancient Roman world.

Dionysus Ancient Greek god of winemaking and wine

Dionysus is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth. He is also known as Bacchus by the Greeks. This name was later adopted by the Romans; the frenzy that he induces is bakkheia. As Eleutherios, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Zagreus was sometimes identified with a god worshipped by the followers of Orphism, the "first Dionysus", a son of Zeus and Persephone, who was dismembered by the Titans and reborn. In the earliest mention of Zagreus, he is paired with Gaia and called the "highest" god, though perhaps only in reference to the gods of the underworld. Aeschylus, however, links Zagreus with Hades, possibly as Hades' son, or as Hades himself. Noting "Hades' identity as Zeus' katachthonios alter ego", Timothy Gantz thought it "likely" that Zagreus, perhaps originally the son of Hades and Persephone, later merged with the Orphic Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone.

Maenad Female follower of Dionysus

In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, Bacchae, or Bacchantes in Roman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox skin.

Byzantine art Art of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine art comprises the body of Christian Greek artistic products of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, as well as the nations and states that inherited culturally from the empire. Though the empire itself emerged from the decline of Rome and lasted until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the start date of the Byzantine period is rather clearer in art history than in political history, if still imprecise. Many Eastern Orthodox states in Eastern Europe, as well as to some degree the Islamic states of the eastern Mediterranean, preserved many aspects of the empire's culture and art for centuries afterward.

<i>Dionysiaca</i> Greek epic poem by Nonnus

The Dionysiaca is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from Greco-Roman antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west.

Thiasus

In Greek mythology and religion, the thiasus, was the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus, often pictured as inebriated revelers. Many of the myths of Dionysus are connected with his arrival in the form of a procession. The grandest such version was his triumphant return from "India", which influenced symbolic conceptions of the Roman triumph and was narrated in rapturous detail in Nonnus' Dionysiaca. In this procession, Dionysus rides a chariot, often drawn by big cats such as tigers, leopards, or lions, or alternatively elephants or centaurs.

Macedonian art (Byzantine)

Macedonian art is the art of the Macedonian Renaissance in Byzantine art. The period followed the end of the Byzantine iconoclasm and lasted until the fall of the Macedonian dynasty, which ruled the Byzantine Empire from 867 to 1056, having originated in the theme of Macedonia. It coincided with the Ottonian Renaissance in Western Europe. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Byzantine Empire's military situation improved, and art and architecture revived.

Micromosaic

Micromosaics are a special form of mosaic that uses unusually small mosaic pieces (tesserae) of glass, or in later Italian pieces an enamel-like material, to make small figurative images. Surviving ancient Roman mosaics include some very finely worked panels using very small tesserae, especially from Pompeii, but only from Byzantine art are there mosaic icons in micromosaic with tesserae as small as the best from the Modern period. Byzantine examples, which are very rare, were religious icons. They are usually framed and treated like portable paintings.

Staphylus Character from ancient Greek mythology

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Ichthyocentaurs

In late Classical Greek art, ichthyocentaurs were centaurine sea beings with the upper body of a human, the lower anterior half and fore-legs of a horse, and the tailed half of a fish. The earliest example dates to the 2nd century B. C., among the friezes in the Pergamon Altar. There are further examples of Aphros and/or Bythos, the personifications of foam and abyss, respectively, depicted as ichthyocentaurs in mosaics and sculptures.

Veroli Casket

The Veroli Casket is a casket, made in Constantinople in the late tenth or early eleventh century, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It is thought to have been made for a person close to the Imperial Court of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and may have been used to hold scent bottles or jewellery. It was later kept in the Cathedral Treasury at Veroli, south east of Rome, until 1861.

Eros Greek god of love and sex

In Greek mythology, Eros is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"). In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is described as one of the children of Aphrodite and Ares and, with some of his siblings, was one of the Erotes, a group of winged love gods.

Ancient Roman sarcophagi

In the burial practices of ancient Rome and Roman funerary art, marble and limestone sarcophagi elaborately carved in relief were characteristic of elite inhumation burials from the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD. At least 10,000 Roman sarcophagi have survived, with fragments possibly representing as many as 20,000. Although mythological scenes have been quite widely studied, sarcophagus relief has been called the "richest single source of Roman iconography," and may also depict the deceased's occupation or life course, military scenes, and other subject matter. The same workshops produced sarcophagi with Jewish or Christian imagery. Early Christian sarcophagi produced from the late 3rd century onwards, represent the earliest form of large Christian sculpture, and are important for the study of Early Christian art.

Aura (mythology) Divine personification of the breeze in Greek and Roman mythology

In Greek and Roman mythology, Aura is a minor deity, whose name means "breeze". The plural form, Aurae is sometimes found. According to Nonnus, Aura was the daughter of the Titan Lelantos and the mother, by Dionysus, of Iacchus, a minor deity connected with the Eleusinian mysteries, while Quintus Smyrnaeus makes the Aurae daughters of Boreas, the North-wind. Aurae was the title of a play by the Athenian comic poet Metagenes, who was contemporary with Aristophanes, Phrynichus, and Plato.

Roman mosaic Style of mosaic from the Roman period

A Roman mosaic is a mosaic made during the Roman period, throughout the Roman Republic and later Empire. Mosaics were used in a variety of private and public buildings, on both floors and walls, though they competed with cheaper frescos for the latter. They were highly influenced by earlier and contemporary Hellenistic Greek mosaics, and often included famous figures from history and mythology, such as Alexander the Great in the Alexander Mosaic.

Tympanum (hand drum) Type of frame drum or tambourine

In ancient Greece and Rome, the tympanon (τύμπανον) or tympanum, was a type of frame drum or tambourine. It was circular, shallow, and beaten with the palm of the hand or a stick. Some representations show decorations or zill-like objects around the rim. The instrument was played by worshippers in the rites of Dionysus, Cybele, and Sabazius.

Throne of Maximian

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Icarius (Athenian)

In Greek mythology, Icarius was a man from Athens who welcomed the god Dionysus.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dalgic, Orgu (2015). "The Triumph of Dionysus in Constantinople: A Late 5th Century Mosaic in Context". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 69: 15–47 – via Academia.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Dalgic, Orgu (2010). "The Corpus of Floor Mosaics of Constantinople". Byzanz – das Römerreich im Mittelalter. Monographien des Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum. pp. 127–134.
  3. ↑ Campbell, Lewis (1898). Religion in Greek Literature. Longmans, Green, and Co. pp. 242–244.
  4. ↑ Stassinopoulos, Arianna; Beny (1983). The Gods of Greece. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc. Publishers. pp.  97–113. ISBN   0810909588.
  5. ↑ Cormack, Ryan (2000). Byzantine Art. Oxford University Press. ISBN   0192842110.
  6. 1 2 3 Weitzmann, Kurt (1951). Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  7. ↑ Buxton, Richard (2004). The Complete World of Greek Mythology. London: Thames & Hudson. pp.  20. ISBN   9780500251218.
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