ALT VAULT FRESCO AND FRIEZE, DOMUS TRANSITORIA, C1 CE. PALATINE MUSEUM Two sections of a C1 CE Roman fresco. The upper delicate vault decoration is painted on a white ground with floral tendrils, stylised blossoms, golden medallions, and diamond lozenges with small figures. Rough cavities indicate missing elements; based on examples beneath the Cœnatio Jovis, these held blue glass hemispheres. Below this runs a continuous plaster frieze depicting a Dionysiac narrative. A draped Maenad on the left and a reddish nude Satyr on the right bracket a central group of figures. Originally in Room A2 next to the palace nymphaeum, the white vault and its blue glass inlays would have been animated by the light of playing water before the Great Fire of 64 CE.

ALT VOTIVE RELIEF DEDICATED TO APOLLO PATROOS, C. 350 BCE. NY CARLSBERG GLYPTOTEK A Classical Greek marble relief carved within an architectural frame representing a sanctuary. On the right, four male worshippers, two bearded adults and two youths wrapped in himations, approach a rectangular altar where a small nude acolyte tends the ritual fire. A ram is led for sacrifice. As the ancestral deity of the Athenians, Apollo Patroos was central to civic identity; reliefs like this were typically commissioned by families or civic brotherhoods to mark the formal introduction of young men into the citizen body. On the wall above the altar hangs a small votive tablet (pinax). This recursive, self-referential detail serves a dual purpose: it marks the sanctuary as a space already layered with previous offerings, and it permanently memorialises the commissioner's own act of piety within an ongoing cycle of divine reciprocity.

ALT FRAGMENT OF A NILOTIC EMBLEMA FROM THE ASÀROTOS ÒIKOS, EARLY C2 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS A highly detailed early C2 CE Roman mosaic fragment of a Nilotic landscape, now mounted vertically on a wall in the Museo Gregoriano Profano. The scene features three wading birds—including an ibis and a duck—standing on uneven ground around a small, stylized tree. The central image is bounded by an original ancient mosaic frame, consisting of an inner geometric band resembling colourful gemstones and an outer band of black vine scrolls on a white background. Originally, this was a surviving piece of the central emblema of a dining room floor excavated on the Aventine Hill in 1833. While the famous "unswept floor" border of this room is set into the museum floor elsewhere, this central fragment is displayed separately in the entrance vestibule.

ALT FLUTED SPOLIA COLUMNS, C1 CE, IN THE CORTILE DELLE SUORE, C15. HOSPITAL OF S. SPIRITO IN SASSIA Looking up at the upper loggia of the Nuns' Courtyard in the Santo Spirito hospital complex, we see two ancient fluted marble columns with Ionic capitals supporting the arches of an ochre loggia beneath a wooden beamed roof, with a potted purple plant on the ledge between them. These lonely examples are the only fluted spolia in the entire complex. They are remnants of the imperial Horti Agrippinae buried directly below. These gardens hold a dark history: Seneca records in De Ira, On Anger, that Caligula would stroll here along the river by lamplight, having senators flogged and beheaded, asking wryly "how very small a favour it would have been to wait until morning, and not to kill the Roman people's senators in his slippers." Saved from this bloody past, these columns witnessed more centuries of healing in this oldest of European hospitals.

ALT SARCOPHAGUS WITH EROTES CARRYING THE ARMS OF ACHILLES, C. 160 CE. MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, VATICAN MUSEUMS A deeply carved Antonine marble sarcophagus, found in 1776 in the Vigna Moroni along the via di Porta S. Sebastiano, whose excavated finds were soon bought by Pius VI Braschi. The high relief features a swarm of Erotes struggling under the weight of military gear. In their role as divine assistants, they are aiding Thetis in transporting the newly-forged arms of Achilles after Patroclus was killed wearing the originals. Two larger Erotes hold up the central shield, decorated with a Gorgoneion meant to strike fear into enemies. Beneath, a tiny Eros wrestles a satyr. This is a classic allegory for "Love conquers all," proving Eros can defeat earthly chaos as easily as the Erotes carry the weapons of war. The narrow lid features Erotes with garlands flanking a blank tabula. By wrapping the deceased in the legendary armour of Greek myth, the composition replaces death with heroism.

ALT FRESCO FROM THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII, 62-79 CE. POMPEII A brilliant example of late Fourth Style painted illusion designed to artificially expand a small space. The artists relied on clever visual tricks and a top-to-bottom progression from light to dark. At the pinnacle, a bright white background serves as the sky behind spindly fictive architecture. Below this, three large yellow-ochre panels dominate the middle ground, their borders subtly curved to suggest luxurious draperies stretched tightly across the void. Behind the lower halves of these faux cloths sits a solid wall of rich red cinnabar, while the lowest register grounds the composition with a heavy black dado decorated with reeds. By layering these elements, the painters successfully push the physical boundaries of the room back into a deep illusory space. In the centre, a tiny vignette grounds us with a peaceful scene of xenia, featuring domestic poultry pecking near a small stepped altar.

ALT ROMAN MOSAIC EMBLEMA OF A LEOPARD FROM FALERIO PICENUS, MID-LATE C2 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS A Roman mosaic panel featuring a leopard walking left, depicted with brown and ochre tesserae, framed by a guilloche border. Falerio Picenus was a pristine Roman town until 1777, when Pope Pius VI's excavators arrived to furnish the Museo Pio-Clementino. Stripped from a private domus and cemented into the Scala Simonetti as spolia, this emblema invites reflection. Devoid of Dionysian symbols, the leopard is pure physical threat. Yet, frozen in mosaic, it is utterly tamed. For the Roman diners reclining above it, this apex predator was a conversational set-piece about empire, bringing the wild safely into the domestic sphere. Ultimately, the true predator was not the leopard, but the papal excavators. The homeowners were safe from the beast beneath their feet, but Falerio Picenus had no protection from the C18 diggers who tore the town apart to feed the Vatican collections.