Agencies of Ornament in the Mosaics of the Roman Home

This paper considers ornament’s affective and agentive spectrum as experienced in Roman mosaics. As a case study, I look at several houses in ancient Acholla, Tunisia, during the mid-2^ndcentury CE. Ornament, I argue, emphasizes materiality in the affective relationship and distribution of agency between individuals and mosaic surfaces. The ability of the Roman home to affect social relations across human actors was dependent upon the experience of mosaic assemblages as topographies: The surface agency and affective sensuality of mosaics vitalized by the materiality of ornament created an animate spaces that were points of reference for social identity. The individual tesserae, geometric patterning, and figural vignettes come together to form an assemblage that is rich with topographical diversity, but I argue that it is the non-figural patterns that unite the mosaic assemblage to form a holistic surface. Mosaics as surfaces have agency, affect, and materiality that is activated by the diverse topographies built by non-figural patterning. The topographical map of patterns within mosaic forms a floor’s own internal spatial world while simultaneously serving as an interface between an individual and the structure of the home. As such, I suggest that mosaic assemblages articulate surface in that is simultaneously both structure and ornament. Mosaic floor are integral to the architecture of which they are a part they demonstrate a vital, material power—a concept commonly reserved for objects rather than the built environment.