ROMANO-BRITISH LEICESTERSHIRE
possible that more of the pavement might have been recovered and other panels with figures might have been brought to light. The fragment is an octagonal panel, evidently one of a set, perhaps nine in number, so arranged as to cover a square floor, the panels possibly containing alternately figure- subjects and ornaments (plate III). Such a disposition is suggested by the com- position of other pavements found in Leicester. The bands which formed the octagons are designed as a braidwork of two strands of quite simple character. This pattern is found as a universally dividing band between panels or as a border, not only in this country but almost wherever Roman mosaic pave- ments exist. The subject, however, is more important than its setting. It represents a youth leaning against a stag. He is nude but for a scrap of drapery depending from his shoulders and neck and partly upheld by his left arm, which is raised. His right arm is outstretched, and with his right hand he is caressing the neck of the stag, the animal returning the caress by bending its head towards him. In front of this group is a figure of Cupid, nude like the principal figure save for some drapery over the left arm. He stands with bow bent and arrow raised against the youth and his stag. The interpretation of the group has been a puzzle for many years, and strange have been the conjectures respecting it. One has it that it represents Diana and Actaeon, but it would be difficult to find either of these two personages within the bounds of the panel. Other conjectures made in 1782, when a drawing of the pavement was shown to the Society of Antiquaries, were that the subject was Hercules and the Idumean stag ; a ' fable of Venus ' who caused someone who had offended her to fall in love with a monster ; and, most fanciful of all, that it was Joab laying hold of the horns of the altar. Set- ting aside these absurdities it is not difficult to see that the group has to do with the myth of Cyparissus, which, as related by Ovid in the Metamor- phoses, was as follows : Cyparissus, a youth of Cea, had a tame stag of which he was inordinately fond. One day, he inadvertently wounded it, from which wound it died. The youth became so frenzied with grief for the loss of his favourite that Apollo, who loved the boy, in compassion for his unhappy condition changed him into the tree which bears his name, viz. the cypress, which became henceforth an emblem of sorrow and death. The figure of Cupid may have been introduced into the group to explain by his action the immoderate affection of the youth for his four-footed companion. It is much to be regretted that there is no adequate representation of this panel. The best, perhaps, is that in colours in Fowler's Pavements, dated 1 80 1, but the colouring is unsatisfactory. The late Mr. John Paul, F.G.S. of Leicester, made a useful identification of the materials of the tesserae employed in the mosaic. He says that in his opinion the white, grey, creamy white, the black, and a few pieces of liver colour in the horns of the stag, are all fragments of marble. The bluish grey is a limestone, probably from the coal measures, the tesserae of reddish brown and others of a yellowish brown are both limestone, whilst a brown and dull citron are both fine-grained sandstones. I am unable to determine from what locality these materials have been procured, but I think the prob- ability is in favour of Derbyshire for the marbles and limestones ; and the sandstones must I think have been from a distance. . . . The red tesserae are pottery, and . . . this is the only artificial material used. The art displayed by the composition is poor enough, but is neither better nor worse than that of many other examples of figure mosaic in this country i 193 2 5
