Orpheus mosaic

[8] An arena programme recorded by Martial combined an acted-out scene of Orpheus charming the animals with the punishment of criminals by damnatio ad bestias.

[9] In what appears to be a unique feature of Orpheus mosaics from Roman Britain, the animals may be arranged parading in a circle around him, feet facing out, so that some are the right way up whatever angle the floor is seen from; nine examples are known.

[15] Another, from Newton St Loe, is now in Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, but between 1841 and 1851 had been moved to Keynsham railway station, and set in a floor there.

[19] A large example takes up all the floor of a room in the Villa Romana del Casale, Piazza Armerina, Sicily, one of the finest sites for mosaics.

Other notable examples are in Leptis Magna in Libya (in situ),[20] and in Palermo, Arles, the Musée gallo-romain in Saint-Romain-en-Gal Vienne, Perugia and the Bardo National Museum (Tunis).

The example in Zaragoza, now in the museum, came from the "Casa de Orfeo", which was located next to the Roman walls near the central market in Caesaraugusta, as the city was called.