Ferocious Elegance

In Sicily’s Villa Romana del Casale, the fourth-century A.D. Roman mansion decorated with the most extensive collection of mosaics to have survived the destruction of the empire, the Cyclops depicted on the floor of the Vestibule of Polyphemus has three eyes. Two regular eyes, normally set, and another, smack in the middle of his forehead, give a wistful, puzzled look to the traditionally one-eyed monster who sits amid his flock of sheep, preparing to devour the slaughtered, half-eviscerated ram that lies across his lap. Beside him stand Odysseus and his men, offering the Cyclops the chalice of wine that will, they hope, get him drunk enough to allow their 030escape from his lair. Behind the Cyclops is the mouth of his cave, and behind that, the cone of Mount Etna.