Herakleitos (2nd century). Unswept Floor [mosaic]. Musei Vaticani, Museo Gregoriano Profano, ex Lateranese, Rome.

Unswept Floor is playfully illusionary, creating somewhat modeled subjects against a strictly flat background, which is literally the dining room floor. All objects are formatted with the same development, placing focus on what the individual objects say about the owners of the household. Celery stalks, fish, mussels, oysters, cherries and cherry pits, nuts, lobster stalks and bird claws are among the subjects. Many of these half-eaten or discarded morsels would have been luxury items in ancient Rome.

Neutral reds and reddish oranges are placed in a tetradic relationship with greens and blues. Relative warmth predominates, with moments of coolness and seemingly meandering directional forces providing some variety. Size, biomorphic shape tone, consistent focus and texturing bind the subjects together, while a complicated mass of directional forces and color purity offer variety, not to mention what the individual objects themselves are.

Works such as this show the Roman taste for casual, even playful, domestic art. It is a work detached from endorsement of the state nor ceremonial or intense religious content. Unswept Floor also illustrates the respect, or affinity, Romans had for the expressive prowess achieved by ancient Greek artists. It is a Roman copy of a similar mosaic created by the Greek artist Sasos in the second century bc in Pergamon. Much of modern knowledge of Greek expression is thanks to the respect of the Romans. Roman copies of Laocoön and His Sons, Alexander the Great Confronts Darius at the Battle of Issos, Diskobolos and this one are so true to the form and spirit of the Greek originals that positive confirmation of commentary by classical writers can in many cases be made.