Sileno e re Mida: ebrietà e sapienza in un mosaico romano di Matilica

Abstract

This paper describes and analyses two polychrome figurative panels of a Roman mosaic found in Matelica (Marche-Italy). The protagonist of both representations is Silenus, Dionysus’ wise preceptor. The first one, which finds a precise confirmation in Virgil’s sixth Eclogue, depicts a drunken Silenus bound by the shepherd-boys Chromis and Mnasyllus in the presence of the Naiad Aegle. The second panel, inspired by Theopompus’ work, represents the meeting between Silenus and Midas, in particular the moment when Silenus pronounces the sentence about the misery of man and his precarious existence to the foolish Phrygian king. This colorful mosaic decorated a large and sumptuous banquet room. Exactly in the moment of worldly pleasure and consumption of wine, the images of the mosaic were intended to remind the rich and cultured owner and his honorable guests of the fragile balance of life and the ineluctable human fate, but also the happiness that they could produce a fair government and a wise administration in the public sphere.