Excavated: 1913 (no excavation report published; Vaglieri); 1970 (Pohl 1987, trench d).
Mosaic: SO IV, 81 nr. 125, tav. 139 (top).
Inscription: ---.
Date: 190-200 AD (SO IV).
Meas. of tesserae: 0.02 (SO IV).
Mosaic
General descriptionMost of the floor of the back room is lost, only some white tesserae have been preserved in the south-west corner. Here the model has a black frame. The floor of the east end of the back room and of the west half of the front room has been preserved. On the north-west side the front room is bordered by a short stretch of a wide, black band. It ends in an irregular way at the west end and in a regular way at the east end. The band is not precisely between stationes 49 and 50, but moved towards the south and on the area of statio 50. On the south side the front room is bordered by a thin, black band, five tesserae wide, on the axis of the central column. The west and east end of the band are missing.
Partly in the back room and partly in the front room is a black frame (three tesserae wide) with a depiction. Directly below the lower right corner of the frame is a small depiction of a fish. Below the lower left corner is a black patch. Further to the east is a small patch of alternating black and white tesserae.
TextNo text has been preserved.
DepictionsIn the frame (2.50 x 1.80) a Nereid is depicted. She holds a veil over her head. She is sitting on a sea creature. She is looking to the right, while the Nereid in statio 49 is looking to the left. A few horizontal lines below the fish indicate the sea.
Becatti
Nereid. Una figura di Nereide seduta sulla coda di una pantera marina rivolta verso destra, con pinna caudale trifogliata. La Nereide ha il torso nudo, la gamba sinistra piegata, la destra stesa, ambedue avvolte nel mantello; regge con ambedue le mani alzate le estremità d'un velo che si gonfia ad arco sopra la testa simmetricamente e in cui dettagli bianchi rendono le pieghe. La Nereide ha il corpo quasi di prospetto, i capelli raccolti in un ciuffo che sporge dietro la nuca.
Masonry
The back wall of the back room is of opus latericium. The room does not have a north wall. However, on the plans of Vaglieri and Gismondi is the east end of a north wall, and on the model a complete wall. Between stationes 49 and 50 the shallow foundation of a dividing wall was found, the upper part of which has disappeared (excavations Pohl). The south wall is of opus vittatum simplex.
The remains were found of two further dividing walls in the back room (excavations Pohl): one running north-south and set against the south wall at 1.70 from the back wall, one running west-east and set against the back wall, between stationes 50 and 49. The upper part of these walls has disappeared.
Interpretation
A Nereid is also encountered in the neighbouring statio 49. We may consider the hypothesis that stationes 49 and 50 formed an entity. It is significant that the left Nereid is looking to the right, the right Nereid to the left. The stationes are flanked by an office of the province of Mauretania Caesariensis, and by what seems to be an office of the provinces Hispania Tarraconensis and Baetica (stationes 51 and 52). Therefore, 49 and 50 may also have been used by representatives of a province.
Mosaic depictions of the Nereids are found in baths, and in various rooms in houses in North Africa, Spain, and Italy.[1] Their meaning is rather generic and not helpful. However, in ancient literature the Nereids take us to the Greek world, to Greek mythology and to the Aegean Sea.[2] This may have been the office of Achaea and perhaps also the west coast of Turkey. The Nereids may have been chosen because Greece wanted to present itself as a province of art and culture.
What obviously hampers this hypothesis is the apparent absence of any relation between Greece and the annona. We may think however of the import of marble that was quarried around the Aegean sea. Marble is also encountered in statio 12 (Simitthus).
An alternative explanation is that the offices were used by Sicily, with a reference to motherland Greece. In the Terme della Trinacria (III,XVI,7) an allusion is found to the square through the inscription, in mosaic, statio cunnulingiorum. Here too the triskeles, symbol of Sicily, is depicted in a mosaic. Perhaps the baths were frequented especially by Sicilians working on the square.
(1) Becatti 1961, 317-320; Neira Jimenez 1994; Neira Jimenez 1997.
(2) Daremberg-Saglio s.v. Néreus and Néreides.