Celts and Caracalla: A Prisoner Mosaic from Thysdrus, Severan Spectacle and Foreign Policy

Steven L. Tuck (Miami University)

A mosaic discovered at Thysdrus and published in 1961 is an unusual, almost unique, image of prisoner execution in an arena in Roman Africa. I agree with K.M.D. Dunbabin (The Mosaics of Roman North Africa: Studies in Iconography and Patronage [Oxford 1978] 66-7) who concluded that “the mosaicist has intended to represent a particularly memorable incident.” While all authors who have written on the mosaic accept the identification of prisoner execution and the proposed date of 180 C.E., the full subject and context have, I believe, been misidentified and misunderstood.

The prisoners are taller than their captors, lighter skinned, clean shaven, but with long droopy mustaches and blond hair shown volumetrically separated into rising locks. Rather than local prisoners, Germans, or generic barbarians the Thysdrus damnati are precise images of Celts as seen in Hellenistic and Roman art and as described by Diodorus Siculus. The trophies in the arena also display the large ovals shields that J.R. Marszal, (The Representation of the Gauls in the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods [Bryn Mawr 1991] 20) calls “particularly Gallic.”

The portrayal of Celts suggests the Severan period rather than the Germanic wars. The appearance of Severan prisoners in an African arena is consistent with the imagery of Septimius Severus and Caracalla following their campaigns in Britan and Parthia. The relief of the Severan arch at Leptis Magna shows a triumphal style profectio with captives while a Caracallan trophy from Morocco displays a captive Celt and Parthian together.