THE PRIVATE HOMES (DOMUS) AND THE MOSAICS


Much can be learnt about private buildings in Augusta Taurinorum from the examination of their floors.

The distribution of floors or their preparations (layer of compacted mortar levelled over a ventilation course composed of pebbles set in the soil )indicate the planimetric layout of the buildings , while the covering techniques illustrate the way individual rooms were used.


In 1st and 2nd-century AD homes, reception rooms were usually decorated with mosaics, "stone carpets" intended to provide every visitor with a visible demonstration of the householder's wealth and standing in society. Sober and elegant compositions were the rule throughout Piedmont, nearly always in black and white with geometrical motifs, such as dotted patterns composed of small crosses or more elaborate octagons and squares. Colours were very rarely employed, whether for the whole of a mosaic, or for signed figurative inserts. Cement floors are much more common than mosaics.

They are composed of mortar mixed with crushed bricks ("sherd rubble") or gravel on a ventilation bed of pebbles. Associated at times with stone, marble or vitreous paste tesserae (tiny blocks) they can in this case be interpreted as beds for the laying of mosaics, whereas most of them are true floors, simple, inexpensive and functional in a single colour, rarely adorned with marble slabs or geometrical patterns composed of mosaic tesserae. As in the case of floors in local stone slabs or simple dirt floors, those in cement are mostly employed for accessory premises, service rooms and passages in keeping with the organic ranking of the decoration accorded to the several parts of a house.


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