"Dionysian Eros or Erotic Dionysus? Sources and Meanings of Hybridization in the Bacchus Mosaic at the Naples Museum", Journal of Mosaic Research, Volume , Issue 14, 2021, pp. 289 – 300
Nava Sevilla Sadeh, "Dionysian Eros or Erotic Dionysus? Sources and Meanings of Hybridization in the Bacchus Mosaic at the Naples Museum", Journal of Mosaic Research, Volume , Issue 14, 2021, pp. 289 – 300.
Young Dionysus on a Tiger, a mosaic from the house of the Faun, Pompeii. Height: 165 x 165 cm, around 100 BCE. Su concessione del Ministero della Cultura – Museo Archeologico Nazionalle di Napoli – foto di Giorgio Albano (inv. 9991)
The splendid mosaic exhibited at the Archeological Museum in Naples presents two enigmatic hybrid images: a feline composed of a tiger and a lion, and a figure that combines the characteristics of both Dionysus and Eros. This study seeks to decipher the hybridization of these two mighty gods of the Roman world, Dionysus and Eros, as presented in the Naples museum mosaic. The main assumption is that two features link these two gods: madness, and the illusion of merging with the Divine. The hybridization of the two gods would seem to strengthen the significance of both and of their role as gods of transcendence, as revealed through an examination of Classical literary and philosophical sources.