Decadence or Hedonism? The Abject as Sublime in the Asàrotos òikos Mosaic Floor from the Vatican

Abstract

The depictions in the so-called Asàrotos òikos (“unswept floor”) mosaic from the Vatican have remained puzzling, although it seems clear that waste is portrayed (fig. 1). The images depicted in the main parts of the mosaic have been recognized as remnants of food (such as cherries, grapes, leaves, nutshells, lobster claws, fish skeletons, oysters, chicken bones; fig. 2), and even a tiny mouse appears among them. Another part of themosaic features Dionysian tragicmasks (fig. 3).Mosaics belonging to this genre have been interpreted as a symbolic representation of the Roman elite. However, the proximity of reversal images in the mosaic