composition, used chiefly for the decoration of walls and ceilings, and personal ornament. This is indicated by the specific Greek name for true mosaic, xj/rj^oi xpvo-coi, evidently referring to the use of gilded glass tessera; in the mosaics of the Byzantine period, the manu- facture of which [tesserae] is so lucidly described by Theophilus the Monk [ioth-i2th cent, a.d.], Bk. ii, ch. xv, “ De vitro Graeco quod Musivum opus decorat.”
“Vitreas etiam tabulas faciunt opere fenestrario ex albo vitro lucido, spissas ad mensuram unius digiti, findentes eas calido ferro per quadras particulas minutas, et cooperientes eas in uno latere auri petula, superliniunt vitrum lucidissimum tritum ad supra. Hujusmodi vitrum interpositum Musivum opus omnino decorat.”
The earliest notice of mosaic is in the Bible in the story of Esther [circa b.c. 450], where, in the account [ch. 1] of the six months’ feasting held by Ahasuerus [Xerxes] to arrange the third invasion of Greece, we are told [v. 6J in the description of the palace of Shushan, “ the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pave- ment of red [porphyry], and blue [lapis-lazuli], and white [ala- baster], and black marble.” Mosaic pavements have not been found in the remains of Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian temples and palaces, but true mosaics have been found as a deco- ration of mummy cases. The Greeks carried the art to marvellous perfection, and Pliny naturally enough ascribes its origin to them. He particularly mentions the pavimentum asaro- tum of the Greek artist Sosus of Pergamus, representing the remains of a banquet, shewn on an apparently unswept [acrapwros] floor. “ The doves of Pliny,” represented with one drinking, and the others sunning and pluming themselves round the rim of a water-bowl, are universally known through the copies which have been reproduced of them in all ages and countries. The most interesting and valuable of all the ancient pictorial mosaics which have been preserved to our time is the one which was found at Pompeii, in “the house of Pansa,” representing the battle to
