Cosmological Mosaic At Merida (Emerita) In Spain (mid second century A.D.). The imagery of the pavement has been compared with that of Aelius Aristides' encomium of
Rome, delivered in 144, in which Rome is likened to a sea into which all rivers flow and the Roman Empire is equated with the inhabited world. In the mosaic
personifications of the winds, seasons, rivers etc. frame a symbolic representation of the Mediterranean, and the central position was perhaps occupied by a seated figure
(now missing) of Rome.
There are at least three claims that Aristides has on our attention. One-perhaps the best known-arises from his encomium of Rome, delivered in the summer of 144, a fine,
flattering statement of the achievement of the Antonine Empire, from a grateful subject's point of view. A second rests on his achievement in extending the range of prose
oratory to include the hymn, hitherto the prerogative of poets. He is proud of this, and not unjustly. His prose hymns to Sarapis, Athena, and Dionysus have many
splendours; the hymn 'to the Aegean Sea', with its colourful vision of sea and islands, is perhaps the most attractive of all. Thirdly, Aristides is the author of a singular
spiritual autobiography (Hieroi Logoi), the day-by-day record of the interventions of the god Asclepius in his life, as adviser and healer. Hypochondriacs are not attractive
people; but the completeness of Aristides' record, his naive vanity and credulity, and the vividness of his language (for once not elaborate, indeed hardly Kunstprosa at all)
combine to produce a text which has claimed deserved attention from historians, psychologists, and students of the religious mind. Asclepius guided him in strange ways;
here he is on a short, but stormy, voyage from Clazomenae to Phocaea, along the coast of Asia Minor (2. 12-14):