SPARTA - 2000

Sparta. Electricity company works. A. Themos (Ε' ΕΠΚΑ) notes several locations in Sparta where the opening of trenches for electricity cabling has revealed fragments of walls and drainage channels among other architectural remains.

The most significant remains − an atrium with a marble-clad impluvium and an early fourth-century AD floor mosaic − lie beneath IX Merarchi Street on the west side of O.T. 150. The atrium was surrounded by a water channel; in its centre, a lead water-pipe connects with the impluvium. The floor mosaic, framed with a garland, has panels preserved on the north, east and west sides, although the south is largely destroyed. The north side has three parts: on the east, two erotes fish from a boat with a net; in the centre, Poseidon is seated on a hippocamp; on the west, two erotes fish from a boat with rods. In the centre zone on the west side, Aphrodite is seated in a conch borne on the shoulders of two Tritons: two erotes are depicted above the heads of the Tritons and below Aphrodite. In the central zone on the south side is one of the first depictions of Hypnos’ revelation to Dionysos of Ariadne sleeping on the shore of Naxos at the moment when she is abandoned by Theseus. The figures of Ariadne, Hypnos, Dionysos and Theseus are named.