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- [Dr. Zucker] The Ancient Roman Emperor Hadrian
built a lavish villa near Tivoli,
and in the dining room there was a floor mosaic.
And we're looking at a fragment of that,
which shows two centaurs and three large cats.
- [Dr. Harris] And it's made of tiny pieces of natural stone
that must've taken an enormous amount of patience to create.
- [Dr. Zucker] Especially if you consider that
this is a small fragment of a very large floor mosaic.
These are tiny pieces of tesserae,
and they are put together so that they really do
create a sense of an image that can be read really clearly
even though these are pieces of stone.
In fact, these kinds of mosaics might give us an indication
of what Greek painting looked like,
since so little Greek painting has come down to us.
We know from written accounts that the Greeks believed
that their painting was their greatest art.
We generally think of Ancient Greek sculpture
or Ancient Greek architecture, or perhaps vase painting,
but all of that, according to the Greeks themselves,
paled in comparison to the work that they did on walls.
And yet almost none of that survives.
So the mosaic's really valuable in giving us a sense
of what the Greeks had been able to achieve.
- [Dr. Harris] What I love about this mosaic is the drama.
We have a centaur, a mythical creature
that's half man, half horse, and he's involved
in this battle against these three wild cats.
And he raises his arms and is about to hurl a rock
down at a tiger, who's attacked another centaur.
Behind him is another wild cat who's been felled.
- [Dr. Zucker] Probably a lion.
- [Dr. Harris] You'll notice that the centaur,
while he's about to hurl a rock
at the tiger down to his left,
looks up at a leopard who's about to attack him.
So we really have a sense of a split second in time.
- [Dr. Zucker] It's true.
In fact, if you look at the glances,
it's really interesting.
Our eye first goes from the centaur to the tiger,
and we notice that the tiger
has just felled another centaur.
The tiger looks back at the centaur,
but the centaur doesn't look at the tiger.
The centaur's eyes have been caught by the leopard.
He knows he's about to throw the large boulder,
which tells us about the strength
of centaurs, but also realizes that he's
in real danger from that leopard.
So there's this kind of triangulation
of the glances of the figures.
- [Dr. Harris] So that centaur that we see in the center
really expresses physical strength,
but also a sense of worry and concern.
- [Dr. Zucker] You know, it's interesting,
my guess is that the Greeks, and later the Romans,
might have identified more
with the centaur than the wild cats.
Usually when we see centaurs, they're in battle with Greeks,
and the Greeks are those that we feel sympathy for.
That is, they are the fully civilized, whereas the centaurs,
who are still half-wild, are the aggressors.
Here, that's reversed, and our sympathy goes to the centaur
because of their human qualities,
even if they are still half of nature.
You know, the Greeks, and later the Romans,
really saw themselves as separate from the chaos of nature,
and here the centaur represents a kind of brutality,
but nothing compared to those cats.
- [Dr. Harris] And I think that's beautifully expressed
by the emotion that we see in the centaur's face.
We really read that as a complex human emotion
of worry and fear, but also strength.
And yet the animals have no emotional depth.
So I think you're right, we're meant to identify
with that figure of a centaur even though he's half animal.
- [Dr. Zucker] And you'll notice that, draped over his arm,
he's actually got the pelt of a leopard,
so there may be good reason for the leopards to be annoyed.
- [Dr. Harris] So you said that this might give us an idea
of what Ancient Greek painting looked like,
and in this mosaic we see what we see
in Ancient Greek sculpture, which does survive,
and that is an interest in human anatomy and naturalism.
- [Dr. Zucker] In fact, if you look at the rendering
of the centaur, which is obviously an impossible creature,
it is so beautifully rendered that we almost believe
that it's possible anatomically.
Look at the way, for instance, the abdomen
moves into the chest of the horse,
and we can imagine the way the backbone
of both the animals sort of align and become one.
There really is this sense of believability
even in this impossible creature.
- [Dr. Harris] And we have a very realistic illusion
of a rocky landscape for these figures to occupy.
The figure of the fallen centaur on the left
and the fallen lion on the right
are foreshortened, helping to create this illusion of space.
- [Dr. Zucker] Look at the beautiful foreshortening
in the still upright centaur, and the way
in which the horse's renders are going back in space.
It's really beautifully done, and the fact that it's done
in stone makes it even more impressive.
- [Dr. Harris] It's really a remarkable achievement.
- [Dr. Zucker] And I would love to have seen this in its
greater context in Hadrian's dining room, in his palace.
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