Dionysos's discovery of Ariadne on Naxos [3rd-4th C AD] -

Dionysos's discovery of Ariadne on Naxos [3rd-4th C AD] - Syria - Kyoto, Japan, Miho Museum - wm; Kimon Berlin

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Surrounded by a running wave pattern that may allude to the island setting of the story, the main scene is framed on each side by a long, rectangular border with a central figural vignette. To the sides of the vignettes are three-dimensionally rendered meanders. In the corners are figural busts. From the orientation of the main panel, the vignettes above and below it, and the busts, the best vantage point for viewing the composition was from the bottom of the central composition. The two vignettes on the sides are oriented so that the bottom of their scenes is turned outward from the central panel. The vignette at the top, in which the central figure is a replacement, shows three men in a canopied boat, perhaps on the Nile or Orontes River. The scene to the right, also heavily restored, features a shepherd, his right leg covered by a himation. He sits on a rocky outcrop, playing his panpipe as a pair of horned cattle search for grass. Along the bottom is an offering scene, in which a veiled woman extends a pair of lighted torches toward a man who is about to slit the throat of an animal before a fire. The sacrifice takes place in front of a temple-like structure with a pedimented facade that sits on a three-tiered platform. On the left side is another bucolic scene, of a shepherd sitting on the ground as a pair of goats graze nearby.

Three of the figures in the corners wear wreaths that identify them as members of Dionysos's retinue. In the upper left corner is Bakche, who personifies the frenzied female followers of Dionysos. In the upper right is Pan the half-goat, half-human son of Hermes, a god of pastures, whose bestial abandon is characterized here by his wildly askew hair. In the bottom right corner is a bust of Lyde, who wears gold fibulae, or pins, at her shoulders. In the lower left is Thiasos, who personifies the entire group of maenads, thyiads, satyrs and silenoi that Dionysos's retinue comprises. The setting of the central panel in a hilly landscape; the smaller outdoor scenes, three of them among hills; and the presence of the rustic deity Pan may allude to the pastoral setting of Dionysiac revels, where delirious maenads were often pursued by lustful satyrs, or to the countryside of the Syrian province the mosaic came from, which was largely farmland.

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Inscribed between Ariadne and Satyros is >Pamphilos Agroikos Ergasato< “Pamphilos made this [image of] Agroikos”, making this one of the rare instances in which a mosaic was signed. Based on the choice of syntax and the conventional nature of the scene, it has been suggested that this inscription, which also appears on another mosaic, identifies the executor of the mosaic rather than the author of the design. It has been further argued that the use of the adjectival noun, Agroikos, and the likeness of the similarly inscribed mosaic to another known to have come from Antioch, in which Dionysos is labeled Agros, may well indicate a common source for the works.

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