A mosaic of Aion with the Seasons at Masseria Ciccotti (Lucania) and its 3rd-c. A.D. context

After an introduction on the Roman villas in Italy, especially those situated in the South, the author focuses on the villa at Masseria Ciccotti (Oppido Lucano, not far from Potenza). It was built in the central decades of the 1st century B.C., but restructured between the end of the 2nd century A.D. and the first half of the 3rd. Among the transformations detected in this period must be mentioned the re-flooring of the central residential area. Room 21 was now paved with a polychrome mosaic with the representation of Aion holding the ellipse of the zodiac, in the central octagon, and the personifications of the Seasons as female busts with varied attributes included in the four octagons set at the corners. To the East, this room opened to the peristyle and, on the West, a three-stepped ramp provided a ceremonial access to the large cenatio (room 13/14). This space consisted of a rectangular sector, the actual triclinium, with a U-shaped mosaic paired with a T-shaped opus sectile, and a vast unoccupied area, as a kind of prelude to the sector for the banquet. Both the opus sectile of the triclinium and the marbles revetments of the lower part of the walls in room 14 include marbles imported from the major quarries of the Mediterranean area. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the study of the pavement of room 21. The elaborate geometric decoration, which includes, among other patterns, lozenge stars, Salomon’s knots, chains of superimposed triangles, and two- and three-strand guilloche, provides a date within the first decades of the 3rd century A.D. Some other representations for the depiction of the seated Aion, wearing a mantle that falls down his left shoulder, leaving the chest bare, but covering the lower part of the body, are mentioned: the mosaics from Arles Trinquetaille, Shabba-Philippopolis and Córdoba (p. 280, note 39). In another sense, related to the ideology, is referred the Carthage’s Seigneur Julius mosaic of the late 4th century A.D. The appendix is devoted to analyse the geometric schemes used in the mosaic of Aion and the Seasons; some parallels from other sites are given (p. 283-285).