thoodleoo:thoodleoo:thoodleoo:i really love this roman mosaic depicting some racehorses not just bec
thoodleoo:thoodleoo:thoodleoo:i really love this roman mosaic depicting some racehorses not just because these are some Very Spunky Boys but also because it gives us some roman racehorse names! these fellows are named pupillus (”orphan,” which…okay), amator (”lover-boy”), cupido (”cupid”), and aura (”breeze”)ok im sorry i cant not include my favorite racehorse mosaic. just LOOK at this fancy lad with his ivy!@almareda those are some really good questions!first off, here’s a link to a larger version of the image since the original link i included didn’t work. if you look closely, you’ll see that a lot of details on amator are actually painted on- possibly restorations of what the mosaic might have looked like? it’s hard to say without actually knowing the background of the mosaic (which sadly i have not found). the missing chunks of the mosaic are probably the result of damage over time, and the people who’ve worked on those mosaics just don’t have enough information to fill in the blanks on the missing tunicsas for the focus on the name of the horse- these are chariot horses! if you look at their tunics of the people leading the horse, we see red and white on the bottom too, and the juuuust a little trace of blue and green on the top. so, they represent the chariot teams! these are probably the charioteers based on the whips that they’re holding (there aren’t any amphorae around, so they’re not sparsores). these horses are likely the leading horse of each chariot team- it’s pretty common to see mosaics with the leading horse named.charioteers are sometimes, but not always, named with their horses. i’ve seen mosaics where the charioteer and the lead horse are named, where neither are named…and then there’s another one of my favorites- a beautiful chariot-racing mosaic from barcino where all of the horses on each team are named, but none of the charioteers are! -- source link
#tagamemnon#horses#long post