Sosus of Pergamon was a Greek

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

artist of the second century BC. He is the only mosaic artist whose name was recorded in literature. After the conquests of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

, the Greeks of major centers such as

Pergamon Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; grc-gre, Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a ...

and

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

displayed their wealth in decorations that included mosaics.

Works

The two famous works of Sosus include:

The Unswept Floor

This depicts the floor of a room covered with the remains of a feast, including fish, fruit and other fragments of food.

Doves Drinking from a Bowl

A mosaic from

Hadrian's Villa Hadrian's Villa ( it, Villa Adriana) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising the ruins and archaeological remains of a large villa complex built c. AD 120 by Roman Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli outside Rome. The site is owned by the Republic of ...

, now in the

Capitoline Museums The Capitoline Museums (Italian: ''Musei Capitolini'') are a group of art and archaeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The historic seats of the museums are Palazzo dei Conservatori and Pala ...

, depicts a group of doves on a round bowl. As described by Pliny, one dove is drinking while the others are sunning themselves. ''The Doves of Pliny'', or the ''Capitoline Doves'' depicts the doves artistically but realistically. The mosaic is made only of cubes of colored marble, without any colored glass as in other mosaics. It was discovered in 1737 during excavations at Hadrian's Villa led by Cardinal

Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti (24 January 1685 – 14 January 1764) was a Roman Catholic cardinal, an antiquarian and philologist, and a collector of antiquities whose ambitious excavations at the site of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli rewarded him ...

, who thought it was the mosaic that Pliny had described, although other scholars think it is a copy of the original that was made for Hadrian. The Hadrian's villa mosaic has in turn been copied many times in many formats.

References

Citations Sources * * * * {{Authority control Mosaic artists Ancient Greek artists 2nd-century BC Greek people People from Pergamon