When ancient Greeks asked, “Which way to the men’s room?” they weren’t trying to find a lavatory; they were looking for the dining room. The Greek aristocrat’s dining room, or androµn (literally “men’s room”), took its name from the custom of separating men and women at meal time. Only men, and the occasional courtesan, took part in ancient dinner parties.
This mosaic fragment— found in 1833 in front of the Aurelian wall, south of Rome’s Aventine Hill—is a second-century A.D. reproduction of a popular design by the second-century B.C. Greek mosaicist Sosos. Signed by one Herakleitos, the mosaic depicts an androµn floor littered with food after a dinner party. In the traditional Greek feast, guests reclined on couches placed atop a raised dais; they would toss chicken and fish bones, lobster and urchin shells, and unconsumed vegetables onto the floor.
These stag banquets were usually followed by lavish drinking parties known as symposia. Ancient writings are scattered with lewd references to the courtesans and flute girls present at symposia—and to an excessive fondness for drink. (According to an anecdote by the historian Timaeus [c. 356–260 B.C.] of Tauromenium, in Sicily, one group of young men got so drunk they imagined they were on a storm-tossed ship; to keep their host’s house “afloat,” they tossed his furniture outside.)
More often, symposia were well-regulated, highly ritualized events that provided an opportunity for intellectual discussion. Strict rules dictated how much wine should be served, how much water should be mixed with the wine (Athenians considered drinking undiluted wine barbarous) and how quickly the wine should be consumed.
Sosos’s original Unswept-Floor mosaic probably decorated the palace of Eumenes II (197–159 B.C.) at Pergamum, in Asia Minor. The first-century A.D. Roman historian Pliny tells us that Sosos’s designs were all the rage among the Roman elite: Copies of this mosaic have been found in Pompeii and on the Aegean island of Delos. A copy of a different mosaic by Sosos—showing doves drinking at a birdbath—was commissioned by the Roman emperor Hadrian (117–138 A.D.) for his elaborate villa at Tivoli.
When ancient Greeks asked, “Which way to the men’s room?” they weren’t trying to find a lavatory; they were looking for the dining room. The Greek aristocrat’s dining room, or androµn (literally “men’s room”), took its name from the custom of separating men and women at meal time. Only men, and the occasional courtesan, took part in ancient dinner parties. This mosaic fragment— found in 1833 in front of the Aurelian wall, south of Rome’s Aventine Hill—is a second-century A.D. reproduction of a popular design by the second-century B.C. Greek mosaicist Sosos. Signed by one Herakleitos, the mosaic depicts […]
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