Running, hurling a discus and power-walking (dumbbells in hand, arms properly swinging above the heart), the “Bikini Girls” gambol across the mosaic floor of a late-Roman villa, near Piazza Armerina in south-central Sicily.
The opulent, sprawling villa was built as a country hunting lodge by either the Roman emperor Maxentius (306–312 A.D.) or his son. Entered through a three-arched gateway, this pleasure palace contained, well, luxury—marble columns, an atrium with fountain and garden, elegantly porticoed latrines, suites for family and guests, and a bewitching network of cold, warm and hot baths. Covering the villa’s floors were 38,000 square feet of colorful—and sometimes wild, as in the tiger-hunting scenes—mosaic tableaux.
Another luxury: The stone tesserae in these mosaics are from North Africa, so it appears that the villa’s architect hired skilled North African craftsmen to lay the floors.
The Bikini Girls frolic on the floor of one of the villa’s frigidaria (cold baths). The scene actually consists of two registers, with the top row shown here. In the lower register, two women play a handball game, while three others are engaged in receiving or bestowing prizes.
Since many of the villa’s mosaics are depictions of daily activities—hunting, fishing, dining and a post-prandial massage or two—this mosaic may simply represent the fitness regimen of late-Roman imperial women. It has also been suggested, however, that the scene represents a female gymnastic competition, from the days when Roman subjects went in for all kinds of strange spectacles—not very different from today.
Running, hurling a discus and power-walking (dumbbells in hand, arms properly swinging above the heart), the “Bikini Girls” gambol across the mosaic floor of a late-Roman villa, near Piazza Armerina in south-central Sicily. The opulent, sprawling villa was built as a country hunting lodge by either the Roman emperor Maxentius (306–312 A.D.) or his son. Entered through a three-arched gateway, this pleasure palace contained, well, luxury—marble columns, an atrium with fountain and garden, elegantly porticoed latrines, suites for family and guests, and a bewitching network of cold, warm and hot baths. Covering the villa’s floors were 38,000 square feet […]
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