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 […]
