“House of Menander” in Mytilene

In Archaic times, the part of the land opposite the island of the city of Mytilene, west of the bank of Euripos, was extensively used as a cemetery. During the early Hellenistic period, when the expansion of the city outside the boundaries of the small natural fortified island began, it was used for purely residential purposes. Wealthy social classes settled southeast of the hill of Agia Kyriaki, as indicated by the luxurious villas that have come to light from the rescue excavations on the occasion of public and private works, statements to the economic prosperity and general bloom that Mytilene experienced, especially during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. One of these is the so-called “House of Menander”, located in the  area of Chorafa of the Asia Minor refugee settlement on Krinagoras Street, 500 m. east of the ancient theatre of the city.

The name of the house is representative and relates to Menander (342/1 – 292/1 BC) and his work, the great comic poet of antiquity and leading figure of the New Comedy, which was the main theme of the mosaic decoration of the floors. Part of it first came to light in 1930 but the entirety of the house was systematically traced and excavated by the Archaeological Service from 1961 to 1963 and 1973 to 1975. More recent research, which largely supplemented the archaeological data, was carried out by the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lesbos between 2010 and 2015, as part of the project: “Unification of the Archaeological Sites of Mytilene” (NSRF 2007-2013).

The habitation of the site was continuous from the Late Classical/Hellenistic period to the Early Byzantine period, as was the continuous use of the cobbled road with an E-W orientation, which was found at the northern end of the house. From the excavation data, it appears that the latter had a stone culvert and clay pipes, while later it was repaired and acquired a monumental colonnade, of which two columns and two marble octagonal bases with relief floral decoration are preserved today.

The “House of Menander” was built after the 2nd c. AD, on earlier remains of the Hellenistic period. At least two building phases can be distinguished, while the best preserved is that of the second half of the 3rd c. AD, during which the repair and covering of the mosaic floors took place. Shortly afterwards, it was destroyed by fire. Typologically, it is one of the late Roman houses with a central courtyard and a peristyle, around which there are stoae and behind them wings with rooms opening on three of the four sides. The main rooms of the north and west wings are preserved, as well as the northwestern part of the atrium. The rest of the building was destroyed during the construction of an early Byzantine house which occupied a large part of the courtyard and the southeastern wing and the houses in the Asia Minor refugee settlement which were built much later, at the beginning of the 20th c., after the liberation of Lesbos and the Asia Minor Catastrophe.

The central courtyard was covered with marble slabs and had three columns on each side, which housed four stoae. The preserved floor of the northern stoa is decorated with a mosaic depicting intersecting circles with inscribed rhomboidal motifs inside them and four metopes with scenes from famous works by Menander: The Helmsmen, The Woman from Leukas, The Hated Man, The Phantom. The decoration of the mosaic floor of the western stoa is similar: in the same pattern of intersecting circles, three smaller metopes depicting theatrical masks can be seen and next to them is an elongated, rectangular panel with a fishing scene inside it.

The “official” rooms of the house, the so-called hall (reception and meeting room) on the west and the triclinium (banqueting room) on the east, which communicated with the central courtyard and with each other through doorways, are found on the north wing.

The hall is adorned with a square mosaic floor depicting Orpheus, the great musician and epic poet of antiquity, whose cult had a long tradition and was of particular importance in Lesbos. Orpheus, dressed in a sleeved tunic, a short veil, a Phrygian cap and shoes, is depicted sitting on a rock playing his lyre, captivating the animals and the elements around him. His figure is placed in the centre, within an octagonal frame, while next to him are four animals (a bird, a fox, a waterfowl, a reptile) and a tree, which is not untouched by the music, as indicated by the curvature of its trunk and branches, which lean towards the hero’s side. Around the octagonal shape, symmetrically and in a star-shaped arrangement, rectangular, triangular and rhomboidal frames are positioned, in which animal figures representing the main species in nature and plant motifs are depicted. The square frame of the mosaic consists of two narrow, unadorned bands, within which a third, wider one is inserted, decorated with a series of superimposed black triangles on a white background. Next to the entrance of the room, a brick altar and a marble-lined offering table were found.

The triclinium, in the middle of the north wing, is decorated with a mosaic floor, the emblazonment of which is in the opposite arrangement from that of Orpheus in the hall, as it is turned facing the north, that is, to the side of the klinai of the convives. The latter occupied the pi-shaped area along the sides of the north, east and west walls of the room, the floor of which was decorated with geometric motifs, and more specifically, with a grid of rhomboidal motifs within elongated, rectangular frames. The main decoration of the mosaic unfolded in a T-shape formation at the free space in the centre of the room. A total of ten enclosed panels can be distinguished, delimited by a rope-shaped braid and organised in two groups. The first group is made up of four panels, arranged in a row next to each other, depicting (from left to right): a bust of Menander, a scene with three actors from the comedy The Necklace, Socrates with his disciples Simmias and Cebes and a bust of the muse Thalia with a staff and theatrical mask. The second group consists of six panels, arranged three by three in two rows, depicting scenes from well-known comedies by Menander: The Girl from Samos, The Ladies who Lunch, The Litigants (in the upper row), The Girl Possessed by a God, The Dagger, The Woman from Messene (in the lower). In the southwest corner, next to the doorway opening between the two rooms, a small cesspit with extensive traces of burning surrounded by clay slabs was found.

Inscriptions at the top of the panels inform us about the titles, the scenes of the plays and the names of leading actors and actresses. The compositions are governed by characteristic symmetry, harmony and balance: the figures of the actors, seated or standing, are highly expressive and often in intense motion, always three in number (with the sole exception being that of the scene from the play The Woman from Leukas where a fourth figure is also rendered but in a smaller scale at the end of the panel). The artist of the mosaics of the “House of Menander” is distinguished for his frontal representations in the conception of his scenes and the simplification and schematisation of his figures. Of particular interest is the depiction of Socrates with his disciples, which reinforces the view that the Platonic dialogues were recreated theatrically in late antiquity.

The preserved rooms in the west wing of the house seem to have had a less significant function, as indicated by the smaller dimensions and the simpler geometric decoration of the mosaic floor (enclosed rosettes in rhomboid and rectangular frames). The southernmost had a well and was probably a semi-outdoors area. The rooms of the eastern wing had a similar structure, which, however, is not preserved, as it was destroyed in ancient times by the construction of an early Byzantine building that occupied the southeastern part of the house: at least eight rooms can be distinguished that extend outside the boundaries of the archaeological site, with internal walls forming further auxiliary rooms and built structures.

The existence of the built altar and the table of offerings in the hall, as well as the small cesspit in the triclinium, seem to have served the needs of domestic worship. From the particular themes of the mosaic decoration (depictions of Menander and his works as an exponent of the New Comedy, as well as Orpheus, a figure associated with the arts and theatre), it seems more likely that the building was the headquarters of an association of actors dedicated to Dionysus or the villa of a wealthy citizen, interested in philosophical matters and with artistic concerns and a particular love of music and the theatre.

After the discovery of the house and the gradual uncovering of its decorated floors, an effort was started to detach and remove the mosaics from the archaeological site, in order to transfer them to the Archaeological Museum of Mytilene for protection and preservation. The painstaking and lengthy cleaning, maintenance and restoration work was completed in the 1980s, while officially, since 1998, the mosaic decoration of the “House of Menander” has been the main exhibit of the New Archaeological Museum of Mytilene. Today’s visitor can see the preserved architectural remains of the “House of Menander” in the archaeological site on Krinagoras street, in the Settlement area, which is permanently open to the general public.

Location

Municipality: Mytilene

Municipal Section: Mytilene

Location: Krinagora Street, "Chorafa" position.

Images

Skip to content