ISic001904: Mosaic depicting wrestlers, with artist's signature
- ID
- ISic001904
- Language
- Ancient Greek and Latin
- Status
- edited
- Text type
- Artist's signature (and labels)
- Object type
- pavement
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- b.1: Bernabo Brea: ΑΓΑΘΩΝ ΕΙΚΙΑΣ; Guarducci (ap. Boeslager): Νείνας
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A mosaic 'doormat' at the entrance to the frigidarium of the insula IV baths at Tindari. A Greek inscription runs along the lower edge, above which is a rectangular black border surrounding a white field, on which are depicted in black tesserae two naked figures facing one another in a fighting stance, and behind each is depicted a large krater, a palm branch, and a victor's wreath, with a Latin label behind each figure's head. The lower left corner is lost and some of the tesserae of the Greek text are missing. The section containing the Greek text is 119 cm wide (originally 127.5) and 12-13 cm high.
- Object type
- pavement
- Object condition
- damaged
- Dimensions
- height: 81 cm, width: 143 cm, depth: cm
Material
- Description
- mosaic
- Type > subtype
- stone.mosaic > unspecified
Inscription
- Layout
- A single line of Greek along the lower edge, and two Latin labels in the main pictorial field.
- Text condition
- deteriorated
- Technique
- mosaic
- Pigment
- No data
- Lettering
Tall narrow letters with ovid form to the omicron and theta, with lunate epsilon and sigma and uncial omega. The Latin letters are also relatively tall and narrow, with the top of the A extended.
- Letter heights
- Line a.1: 62-75mm
- Line b.1: 92-108mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Tyndaris
- Provenance found
- In situ at the entrance to the frigidarium on the north side of the peristyle of the house at the northern end of insula IV, Tindari
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Tindari, Sicilia
- Repository
- Area archeologica di Tindari
- Autopsy
- 2022-07-14 Prag and Antoniou, on site
- Map
Date
later second or earlier third century CE (AD 151 - AD 250)- Evidence
- lettering, archaeological-context
Text type
commentary
The labels Verna and Afer can be taken to apply to the two wrestlers. Verna is the formal term for a slave reared as such from birth, while 'Afer' is the ethnic 'African', commonly applied to those from north Africa in the Roman period. Boeslager suggests that this, in context, means a Sicilian competing against an African. The reading of the artist's signature inscription has been somewhat debated, with the transcription of the name Νεικίας causing some initial difficulty (read as Νείνας), or else with the initial N attached to the preceding ΑΓΑΘΩ. it was Guarducci who proposed first that the lacuna at the start should contain ἐπ(ι) and so a traditional wish for good fortune, which in turn frees up the N for the name. (Note that the letters ΕΠ in the final word take up 80mm in width, while being more widely spaced than the letters at the start of the text; and the lacuna at the start of the text is 85mm wide, so the restoration would fit perfectly.) Bilingualism of this sort between content and artist's signature is not uncommon.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 698370
- EDR: 150007
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 70901006
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Bernabò Brea and Cavalier (1965) at 208 fig.25
- D. von Boeselager, Antike Mosaiken in Sizilien (Rome, 1983), at 203 no.9
- R.J.A. Wilson, Sicily under the Roman Empire: The Archaeology of a Roman Province, 36 B.C. - A.D. 535 (Warminster: Aris and Philips, 1990), at 315 fig.268
- Umberto Spigo, Tindari. L’area archeologica e l’antiquarium (Messina: Regione Siciliana, 2005), at 54 with fig.10
- M. Fasolo, Tyndaris e il suo territorio. Volume 1. Introduzione alla carta archeologica del territorio di Tindari (Rome: MediaGEO, 2013), at 58 no.4 fig.22
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 6/3/2026