Suburani

34. NATURA

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IMAGE GALLERY

A wall painting showing a woman in a long yellow dress walking away. In her left hand she holds a basket or cornucopia, and her right hand is plaucking a flower from a bush.

A fresco from Stabiae showing Flora, the goddess of spring.

The inside of passage through an underground tunnel with rough stone walls.

Alburnus Maior, modern Roșia Montană in Romania, was a Roman mining settlement founded in ad 106. It is one of the most extensive gold-mining systems in the Roman Empire, with over 4 miles of underground passages. In just over 150 years the Romans extracted about 500 tons of gold from the site.

A steep hillside made up of layers and layers of broken pieces of pottery.

Along the Tiber River in Rome stands Monte Testaccio, an artificial hill made almost entirely of broken amphorae, which had been imported to Rome containing olive oil.

A wall painting showing a moutain covered in vines. To the right stands a man dressed in a bunch of grapes holding a staff. To his side is a leopard, and beneath is a large snake.

This wall painting from Pompeii shows Bacchus, the god of wine, wearing a bunch of grapes. Behind him stands Mount Vesuvius, its slopes covered in vineyards. Before its eruption in ad 79, Mount Vesuvius had long been cultivated for the production of grapes and other crops. In fact, the volcanic ash that had spread across the land in previous eruptions was high in nutrients that made the soil fertile. These included zinc, chlorine, iron, cobalt, nitrogen, and boron.

On the left of this mosaic a man wearing a long-sleeved tunic raises a stick in his hands. On the right another man pushes a plow, drawn by two oxen. Behind the figures are trees bearing fruit.

This mosaic, from Cherchell in modern Algeria, shows an agricultural scene. Two oxen are pulling a plow, preparing the ground for sowing seeds. This scene is part of a larger mosaic which depicts different stages of farming.

A coin with the head of Nero, minted at Lugdunum in ad 66. The reverse shows Annona standing before a seated Ceres (goddess of the harvest). Between them is an altar with grain, and behind them a ship’s stern.

A dark-colored metal model of a leaping leopard. Its front and back legs are stretched out and it has small round spots on its surface.

This bronze leopard is about 9 inches in length.

A silver coin printed with an image of a plant with a broad stalk and six leaves branching off symetrically.

Silphium was so important to the Cyrenean economy that coins were printed with its image.

A mosaic with a large tiger sitting. below her are two small tiger cubs, one sitting and one running towards the mother. Anotehr cub sits on her back. There is a plain sandy-colored background.

This mosaic of a tigress and her cubs is from the third century ad. Tigers were imported from west and central Asia to Rome to appear in gladiatorial shows.

A waterfall flowing with water over two ridges into a pool, with verdant green trees on either side.

Some scholars have identified this as the spring addressed in Horace’s poem. It is located about 30 miles from Rome where Horace had a farm.

A marble statue of a nude man reclining on his side. He has long hair and a beard. His left arm is leaning on a sphinx and small children are climbing on him.

This statue is a personification of the Nile River, celebrating the fertility that the river’s annual flooding brings. The sphinx that he is reclining on, and the crocodile and mongoose, are distinctly Egyptian. This statue is an eighteenth-century copy of a Roman original.

A colorful wall painting with a peacock sitting on a fence facing a white dove sitting on a decorated stand. In the background is a lush garden.

This wall painting from Pompeii shows a garden with a bird and a peacock.

Two golden bracelets that are formed in the shape of snakes wrapping themselves around in a circle.

Two bracelets in the shape of snakes,from Pompeii.

A bronze coin with a man shown side on sitting on a chair. Around the edge are words written in capital letters.

This coin, minted in Rome in ad 22–23, shows the seated Tiberius. Around him is inscribed:
CIVITATIBVS ASIAE RESTITVTIS
The cities of Asia re-established

A wall painting showing mask painted with a face and brown hair. It is surrounded by vine leaves of various green colors and bunches of grapes.

This wall painting, from the House of Popidius Priscus in Pompeii, shows a mask on a bed of vine leaves and grapes.

A stream of red liquid lava pours down the side of a blackened slope. Clouds of smoke billow from it.

Lava pouring from Mount Etna in Sicily. It is one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

A photo of a bright sun in the sky above a forest of tall trees. Around the sun is a white circle of light.

A parhelion, or sun dog.

A carved stone relief showing a temple with four columns and steps, with an altar at the front. It is leaning to the left at a slight angle.

This relief from the house of Caecilius Iucundus in Pompeii shows a scene from the ad 62 earthquake. The building is thought to be the Temple of Jupiter in the Forum of Pompeii.

Two terracotta pots with lids. Inside one is an egg. To the side are a few small metal objects including some nails and a coin.

These items were found in Sardis. They are thought to have been placed there as a votive offering. The bronze coin, minted under Nero, has an image of the god Zeus Lydios, a local god of storms and thunder, probably chosen specially as a plea for no more earthquakes.

In this painting a volcano is erupting and spewing lava into the air Lava also pours down the left side and creates a flowing orange river downwards. Smoke billows into the night sky. In the forefront of the painting silhouettes of people can be seens, watching the eruption.

Pierre-Jacques Volaire painted ‘The Eruption of Vesuvius’ in 1771. Mount Vesuvius erupted six times between 1707 and 1794, in the same period that the archaeological site of Pompeii was first systematically excavated, making the volcano a popular subject for contemporary artists.

A rough piece of marble carved in low relief. On the left an older man in a long tunic sits, working delicately with a tool. On the right stands a nude young man who is holding in his right hand a large wing of feathers.

A marble relief showing the craftsman Daedalus fashioning and fitting wings for his son Icarus.

A painting showing a rural landscape on a hill overlooking the sea. In the foreground a man pushes a plough attached to a horse, tilling the earth in lines. Below him a man, leaning on a staff and surrounded by sheep, stands and looks up at the sky. To the left at the bottom of the cliff sits a man at the edge of the sea. Floating on the sea are big sailing boats. On the left, near a boat, two bare legs can be seen disappearing into the water.

'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus' was painted around 1560. It was thought to be by the Dutch Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, but recent analysis has led some experts to believe it to be a copy of Brueghel’s by an unknown artist.

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