The House of the Gorgons (I)
To the south of the workshops, the two flanking roads meet at a little square, approximately 60 metres to the north of the Porta Laurentina. In the resulting triangular space to the north of the square the small House of the Gorgons was built. It was named after three large heads of Medusa in mosaic, in rooms 3, 11 and 17 (the first one lost almost completely). It has been described in detail in the Topographical Dictionary. Here I will focus on the function of the building.
Plan of the House of the Gorgons.The building as we see it today was built during the reign of Constantine. In the second and third century it may well have had the same plan and function as in the fourth, but only excavations below the present floor-level can provide more information about the history of the building. The Constantinian building has so far always been regarded as a dwelling, hence the designation "domus" (see e.g. Becatti 1949; Meiggs 1973, 256; Boersma 1985, 193). The plan of the building certainly allows this interpretation: vestibule 6 with a bench, courtyard 10 with porticus, triclinium / accentuated room 11, cubicula / bedrooms (?) 3, 16 and 17, independent shop 4, door-keeper's rooms (?) 1 and 2, and kitchen 18. This interpretation is problematic however. The building is flanked by two major streets and situated at a square that is facing the nearby Porta Laurentina. No other Ostian domus from the third or fourth century is so "open" to the busy outside world (Bakker 1994, 173-174). When a domus is on an intersection, the main entrance or a side wall may be on a major street, but then the other road is invariably of less importance. Examples are the House on the Road of the Round Temple (IV,IV,7), the House of the Columns (IV,III,1) and the House of the Fortuna Annonaria (V,II,8). On such an exposed location one would expect to find rather an office of taxi-drivers (cisiarii). And there is an additional problem, namely the nature of the traffic through the city gate. The Porta Laurentina led to the area to the south of Ostia, today known as the Pianabella. On the west side of this plain, along the coast, was a long row of large and luxurious villas. On the plain itself were some farms, but it was primarily the major necropolis of Ostia, up to the Canale dello Stagno, at a distance of 2.7 kilometers from the Porta Laurentina (Heinzelmann 1998). This means that funeral processions must have passed the building daily, making its interpretation as a domus even more unlikely. According to Bodel the mortality rate may have been 40 per 1000, or 4%. This means that with a population of 50.000, 2000 people died in Ostia each year, or 5 to 6 per day on average (Bodel 1994, 41).
The west part of the building, seen from the north, from staircase 5. Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.Do the three gorgoneia help us in interpreting the building? Whether their number, three, is a reference to the three gorgones Stheno, Euryale and Medusa, I would not know. Numerous examples of gorgoneia can be found in Ostian wall-paintings, four in mosaics: in the House of the Eagle (IV,V,8), House of Apuleius (II,VIII,5), House of Bacchus and Ariadne (III,XVII,5), and Schola of Trajan (IV,V,l5) (Becatti 1961, nrs. 371, 153, 292, 379). The gorgoneia in wall-paintings are always small and never dominating. The mosaics are found in dwellings and seats of guilds. In three cases the gorgoneion is the central emblema, sometimes large, but never is the emblema dominating: instead they are incorporated in the rest of the mosaic and blended into its motifs. Furthermore, they are not behind a threshold. Our gorgoneia stand out because of their number (three), position (directly behind a threshold), size (on average about 2 x 2 m.), and domination over the remainder of each mosaic, also being the only figurative motifs in the mosaics. Apparently there was a strong relation between the whole building and Medusa.
The mosaic in room 11. Photo: Becatti 1961, Tav. LXXII.Below the head in room 17 is the text: Gorgoni bita! (read: vita). Becatti suggests that it should be understood as "Avoid Gorgo!". The implication is that the people inside the building were warning visitors to the building explicitly to behave properly, so that they would not undergo the wrath of Medusa. This is problematic inside a domus. It is awkward, to say the least, that the accentuated room / triclinium had to be protected in such an emphatic way. As a parallel one could think of texts painted on the walls of a triclinium in the House of the Moralist (III 4, 2.3) in Pompeii (CIL IV S III, 7698; cf. Dunbabin 1978, 161-164 on apotropaic signs in North African domus):
Abluat unda pedes, puer et detergeat udos; mappa torum velet, lintea nostra cave.
Lascivos voltus et blandos aufer ocellos coniuge ab alterius; sit tibi in ore pudor.
[Insanas] lites odiosaque iurgia differ si potes, aut gressus ad tua tecta refer.Let water wash your feet, let the servant dry them; the napkins cover the cushion, be careful with our linen!
Turn away lustful expressions and covetous looks from someone else's wife; speak with decency!
Please avoid quarrels and hateful arguments, or direct your steps back to your house.But that relatively small text (the height of the letters is 3 centimeters) cannot be compared to the size of and emphasis on the mosaics. And how to explain the ones in room 3 and 17? Does the rectangle behind the emblema in room 17 indicate that it was a bedroom? We know that the bedroom could sometimes be used to receive guests (Dio LXV,10,5 about Vespasianus), but guests would hardly be received in such an unfriendly manner. Or perhaps a table was standing on the rectangle, in which case the unfriendliness is still not understood. In my study of private religion I considered the possibility that the building was a luxurious brothel, where the guests could also enjoy a meal (Bakker 1994, 98-100). The famous lupanar VII,12,18-20 in Pompeii comes to mind of course. It has a triangular shape, being at an intersection of two roads (A. & M. De Vos 1982, 202-204). The owner could have feared misbehaviour of the guests. But even and perhaps especially in an expensive brothel the aggressiveness of the gorgoneia is hard to understand. It is this aggressiveness in combination with the dining room that leads to perplexity.
Room 17, seen from the west.
Photo: archives Archaeological Institute, University of Leiden.An alternative approach was made possible by Martin Henig's translation of the text Gorgoni bita: "Life to Gorgo!", instead of "Avoid Gorgo!" (Henig 1984, 168). It implies that a group of people cherished Medusa - quite surprising -, as if they formed a guild. In Ostia it is notoriously difficult to distinguish between domus and guild seats (Hermansen 1982, 55-89; Bollmann 1998). The presence or absence of small, private rooms is one reason to distinguish between the two, but unequivocal evidence is provided only by inscriptions found in situ. Therefore there are still uncertainties about the function of, for example, the House of the Round Temple (I,XI,2-3). Seats of guilds are often at locations that are much more exposed than the locations of the domus. Several are on the Decumanus Maximus. The House of the Wrestlers (V,III,1) is surrounded by three streets, a good parallel for the location of the House of the Gorgons. We should not necessarily think of a guild however, groups of people can gather periodically in other contexts. Thus the House Struck by Lightning (III,VII,3-4) was used by a family for funerary meals in honour of deceased family members (Van der Meer 2005; cf. Bakker 1994, 106).
Courtyard 10, seen from the north-west, from room 11. Photo: ICCD neg. N015534.When the text in room 17 is understood as "Life for Gorgo!", the problem of the aggressiveness disappears: the people in the building are in agreement about the help that they all receive from Medusa. But with what did Medusa help? Many inscriptions with a dative (like Gorgoni), but referring to living people and followed by vita have been found in North Africa. They were collected by Noël and Yvette Duval, who characterize them as apotropaic acclamations. There is a further parallel from Spain. They are documented on and behind entrances of houses, but also in baths and on honorary inscriptions. They concern individuals, families and perhaps other groups of people.[1] This could lead us to believe that our Gorgo too is a proper name, Gorgo or Gorgonius. However, such vanity, vainglory in a dining room and two other rooms stretches the imagination. The three depictions of the head of Medusa dominate the interior of the small building in a way that befits only a divine creature.
Averting evil is only half of the help given by Medusa: it leads to preserving or obtaining something good. In 1915 Frothingham wrote the following about Medusa (Frothingham 1915, pages 13 and 22):
"There is a group of Medusa monuments that seems to have escaped attention. This is the more peculiar because it is a fairly numerous and homogeneous group. It is the gorgoneion with vegetation. Probably the reason for the neglect is that this juxtaposition of the gorgoneion is found almost without exception in connection with tombs; sometimes on the architecture of the tombs themselves, but much more often on sarcophagi and urns. As all critics have taken the Medusa in connection with the tomb as an emblem of suffering and death, they have found it convenient to ignore the almost constant use of vegetation symbolism with the gorgoneion in this entire class."
"It is hard to see how justification can be found for any of the current theories to explain the frequent use of the gorgoneion in the decoration of tombs, sepulchral urns, and sarcophagi. These theories are that the Gorgon was used as an emblem of death or of pain, or as a protecting evil bogey. But if preconceptions are laid aside, and if the plain evidence of the monuments is alone admitted, the law of the association of ideas would seem to lead inevitably to just the contrary conclusion. Eros, the god of life, the dove of fertility, the Victories, the eagle and griffin of apotheosis, the first-fruits of the earth in the sacred basket or the horn of plenty; these and the rest all point to the Gorgon as the emblem of life, of victory over death, and of renewed life beyond the grave. This group will, I hope, help to destroy the delusion that Medusa's fundamental characteristic was apotropaic. This is a characteristic that not only was not fundamental but is nonexistent. She protected not negatively but positively."
An example of this way of representing Medusa in Ostia-Portus is a sarcophagus with two heads of Medusa, erotes and garlands, found in the Isola Sacra necropolis (Calza 1940, 193-194). In tomb 21 in that same necropolis her head was painted amidst flowers. More recently Medusa in funerary contexts was studied by Michel Fuchs, who concludes that here we should not think of her apotropaic aspects, rather "Medusa acts as a boundary maker indicating the passage between the world of the living and that of the dead" (Fuchs 2001).
Sarcophagus found in the Isola Sacra necropolis. Photo: ICCD neg. E069973.I suggest that we see this "positive" Medusa in the House of the Gorgons. It is true that the gorgoneia in the House of the Gorgons are not accompanied by vegetative elements, but the expression of the heads does not, on the other hand, inspire fear. The faces are calm. The strong presence of the Medusa in burial places combined with the location of the House of the Gorgons, opposite a gate leading to Ostia's necropolis, justify the hypothesis that the building was the office of the Ostian undertakers. Let us have a look at that profession in Italy.
[1] N. and Y. Duval 1972, 710-719; Spain (Tarraco): Gomez-Pallares 1997, 142-43 no. T3.
Felici [---] vita. On a keystone of an arch. [---]anovis vita. The mosaic-threshold of a house. Aelio Silvano vita cum suis. A mosaic, perhaps of a vestibule. Filadelfis vita. On a mosaic of Jupiter and Antiope, in baths. Spes in Cristo nostro Flabianis bita. On the lintel of the door of a house. Pancratio vita. On a base with an honorary inscription. Pompeianis vita, Amazoniis vita. The beginning and end of an inscription honouring a governor of Sicily, Iulius Claudius Peristerius Pompeianus. [---ino] Gentio vita. On a stone. Citrasis vita. On a stone (base?). Donato coro magistro vita. On a terracotta lamp. The meaning of coro magistro is uncertain: sculptor of figurines? Polychronis vita. A graffito. Spain: Leonti vita. On a mosaic of the triump of Dionysus.
