The second of two opus sectile mosaics (composed of large pieces of precisely shaped colored marble, like a large puzzle) depicting a tigress attacking a white calf, which, given the horns, is probably a male (although in some species of cattle, females sport horns, so the jury is out).
The panels were apparently placed in the Church of Sant’Antonio, perhaps around the end of the 17th century. In 1892, the land having been expropriated after the declaration of Rome as capital of Italy, the Commissione Archeologica Comunale decided to move them from Sant’Antonio. They were installed in the Capitoline Museum in 1903.
Images that illustrated these munera or depicted animals kept in enclosures were popular for domestic decoration from the 1st century BCE on. It was the public appreciation for and pleasure at such displays, and the centuries long tradition of these images, that spurred Bassus to select them as a major subject of the panels in his hall. The tiger panels are larger than the other surviving panels, and constructed on a larger scale. The images commemorated a magnificent spectacle, one which required years of planning and the mobilization of resources of a personal, political, and financial nature. To depict these venationes was to epitomize these efforts on behalf of the Roman people, to vaunt Bassus’ ability to afford such a display, and to preserve the memory of his having done so.
As Bassus and his basilica were part of the Christian world, the symbology here is that the animal victims depicted symbolize the mortal body, the destruction of which by death is inevitable.
The tiger panels form a mirrored pair. In each panel a tigress, striped in serpentine against giallo antico, attacks a white bull. The combat—the outcome of which holds no suspense—is set on a dark serpentine ground of serpentine. Behind the tiger is a small tree, a branch of which bends over the tiger’s back in imitation of her curving tail. This tree and the brown spotted ground are the only indications of a landscape. The panels depict venationes, staged animal combats that were part of arena spectacles in the Roman world. Editores mounted both contests between animals and encounters that pitted humans against animals; the word venatio does not denote which type was meant, and might even mean simply the display and exhibition of animals.
Both tigers are made of giallo antico, with serpentine stripes. The tree and the earthen ground on the panel with the right-facing tiger are made of oriental alabaster (a calcite type, to be distinguished from the softer gypsum type). Leaves from the tree blossom in palombino bianco. The cow is executed in marmo bianco. The left-facing cow (this one) is also largely of marmo bianco, but its stone has a pale green veining On the panel with the left-facing tiger, the earth is composed of broccatello, and the tree is portasanta.
Roman, 2nd quarter of the 4th c. CE. From the Basilica of Junius Bassus on the Esquiline Hill in Rome.
Musei Capitolini, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome (inv. MC 1222)
