Overview

The three essays collected in this volume examine the now famous mosaic from the tricliniar environment of the House of Aion at Nea Paphos from different points of view. The mosaic is exceptional not only for its artistic quality, but also for the information it offers about pagan religion at a crucial moment in the history of the ancient Mediterranean: the spread of Christianity promoted by the emperor Constantine after the victory of the Milvian Bridge over Maxentius (312 A.D.). As in a stratigraphic excavation, we have tried to extrapolate from the mosaic, and especially from the panel in which the seated Hermes hieratically presents the child Dionysus to the faithful - undoubtedly the most indicative for the history of pagan religion in late antiquity - the meanings hidden behind the images from the point of view of the culture of the first half of the fourth century A.D., in its transition from polytheism to a substantial henotheism of neo-platonic origin. Many exegetes have wanted to see in the mosaic a pagan reaction to the Christianity that was asserting itself in the Roman empire as the dominant religion, more probably it responds in a coherent way to the mentality of the pagan society of the time.

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