‘Good luck’ from Corinth : A mosaic of allegory, athletics, and city identity

The author describes and interprets a polychrome mosaic of significant size (9.10 m x 7.62 m) decorating Room C of the South Stoa on the forum of Roman Corinth, and dated primarily by stylistic means to the Severan era. The pavement contains a central panel of figural design flanked by smaller compartments with birds and floral motifs, all of which is framed by a guilloche band passing around and between the panels. Surrounding these units is a wide grid enclosing circular ornaments. The central panel represents a standing, nude athletic victor with a palm frond who faces a seated, half-draped female with an inscribed shield in one hand and a now-damaged water vessel in her other arm. The vessel’s contents spill into a basin resting on a single leg and called a sacred perirrhanterion. The shield bears a partially-preserved inscription identified as EYTYXIA (good luck). Through a detailed analysis, drawing upon literary and artistic sources, and referring to Corinth’s history in the Roman period, the author interprets the mosaic imagery allegorically. Corinth rose to prominence in the High Empire, especially as the site of the prestigious Isthmian Games. The victorious athlete in the mosaic is understood as Agon personified, and the seated female as the personification of the city of Corinth, who has associations with the goddess Aphrodite and with representations of Peirene, the local spring which symbolized the town in antiquity. The inscription on the shield affirms the pride and optimism of Corinth’s inhabitants. It is speculated that the patron of this work of art was a local official who served as the agonothetes of the Isthmian Games.