Browsing by Author "Caso, Laura"

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Achilles on Skyros in the emblema from the house of Poseidon at Zeugma: Caracalla and the power of images
(Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2022-08-29) Caso, Laura
This iconographic and iconological analysis has shown the existence of a long tradition about this subject, that is Achilles on Skyros in the emblema from the House of Poseidon at Zeugma. This tradition dates back to the 1st century AD and it concerns the Roman mosaic and painting. The model of Achilles on Skyros travelled from the West to the East, especially from Italy (Rome and Pompeii) towards the eastern part of the Roman Empire. This model arrived in Zeugma on the Euphrates at the beginning of the third century AD, under Caracalla (211-217 CE). The rich owner (dominus) and client of the Poseidon Villa was to be a high officer of Caracalla belonging to Legio IV Scythica or Parthica. In fact Zeugma became the settlement of this Roman legion and the outpost against the Parthians, above all during the reign of Septimius Severus (193-211 CE) and under his successor Caracalla. The dominus of the Poseidon Villa made the imperial propaganda his own by choosing the subject of Achilles on Skyros, which was very favourite by Caracalla on the ideological level, as the subject of Alexander the Great (Cfr. Cassius Dio, Herodian, Scriptores Historiae Augustae). The myth of Achilles on Skyros is very ancient (Cfr. Cypria, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides) and privileged by Roman (Domus Aurea) and Pompeian painting and mosaic dating back to the emperor Nero, ardent admirer both Achilles and Alexander the Great, as Caracalla.
The eagle symbol in the mosaic of the great palace in Constantinople
(Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2021-08-02) Caso, Laura
This iconographic and iconological research has shown the political value of the eagle symbol in the Palace Mosaic in Constantinople. Thus this subject has both ornamental and political significance, but political meaning is predominant. The chronology (532 as terminus post quem) and the historical-archaeological context have disclosed relations between the eagle symbol and the Emperor Justinian I. The eagle strangling a snake, in this perspective, becomes the symbol of supreme power of Justinian, while the snake is the symbol of all enemies of the empire. We can see these enemies in two masked heads in the frame. The first one evokes a subject very well characterized on the ethnic and physiognomic level, that is a Persian soldier, as Darius III, King of the Persians, and his soldiers in the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. This masked head recalls to mind the defeat of the Persians and the peace treaty between Justinian and Chosroes I in 532. The second masked head symbolizes Oceanus, the god of the mysterious west, i. e. it invokes the recovery of the Western Empire by Justinian (535-553). Therefore Justinian the Great was a new Augustus and, as the first emperor, politically exploited the language of images, especially the eagle symbol.