Interior decoration in Hellenistic houses: context, function and meaning

The author looks at mosaics and wall paintings in the Hellenistic period as components of the decoration of houses, settlements and regions, using case studies. At the level of the house, the decorations in the House of the Mosaics at Eretria allude to a variety of themes – conviviality and luxury, cult, athletics and the gymnasium, masculinity and power. Here the mosaics and paintings were supplemented by ornamental lions' head spouts on the roof and a display of Panathenaic prize amphorae, as well as sculptures and furnishings. At the level of the settlement, the decorations of Delos show social pressures to aspire to the same ideals and luxury-markers as their neighbours. On the level of the broader region, the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean as a whole, pavements in Pergamum and Alexandria may have belonged to royal palaces, and fine-quality work on Rhodes and Samos (perhaps carried out by the same craftsmen or workshop) suggests commissions for public buildings or at least for wealthier patrons than those on Delos. In any case, those houses which have yielded interior decoration in the Hellenistic world represent only a relatively privileged minority.