Ann Kordas; Ryan J. Lynch; Brooke Nelson; Julie Tatlock

An image of a painting is shown, partially obscured at the left side and at the bottom with green colors. In the image, a man is shown riding on a brown horse with brown, black, and red reins. The man wears a silver suit of armor with red trim, has brown chin length hair, a large nose, and long sideburns. An image of a face shows in the armor on his chest. He holds a long brown spear. Behind the man a black horse head is seen and a man’s eye under a silver helmet with brown feathers. Black trees are seen in the background and a grayish sky. — Figure 6.1 Alexander the Great. This first-century CE portrayal of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great is part of a large mosaic depicting the Battle of Issus (333 BCE) that was discovered in a home excavated in Pompeii, Italy. (credit: modification of work “Alexander and Bucephalus - Battle of Issus mosaic” by Museo Archeologico Nazionale – Naples/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

Chapter Outline

Introduction

In the first century CE, a wealthy Roman in the southern Italian town of Pompeii decorated his home with an elaborate mosaic portraying the decisive victory of the Macedonians, led by Alexander the Great, over the Persian Empire at the Battle of Issus (in modern Turkey) in 333 BCE (Figure 6.1). Why would a Roman invest in such expensive decoration to commemorate the three hundred–year-old victory of a foreign king in a distant land?

Beginning approximately 3,500 years before our time, the lands that border the Mediterranean Sea became increasingly linked by commerce and cultural interaction. These links culminated in the emergence of the Roman Empire, which had united all these regions by the first century CE. Greek colonists had settled the region of Pompeii some seven hundred years before this mosaic was produced, and Alexander, the hero of the battle, was a champion in Greek culture. With his iconic victory over the Persian “barbarians,” he represented the shared cultural legacy of Greeks and Romans. The history of the ancient Mediterranean world shows how this common culture developed over time.