ROMAN MOSAICS AT SILCHESTER 69 



the serpent which, with the colour, gives it its won- 

 derful richness. For the same reason a crocodile bag 

 is more admired than one of cowhide, and a book 

 in buckram looks better than one in cloth or even 

 vellum. 



The old Romans must have felt this instinctive 

 pleasure of the eye very keenly when they took such 

 great pains over their floors. I was strongly impressed 

 with this fact at Silchester when looking at the old 

 floors of rich and poor houses alike which have been 

 uncovered during the last two or three years. They 

 seem to have sought for the effect of mosaic even in 

 the meaner habitations, and in passages and walks, and 

 when tesserae could not be had they broke up common 

 tiles into small square fragments, and made their floors 

 in that way. Even with so poor a material, and without 

 any ornamentation, they did get the effect sought, and 

 those ancient fragments of floors made of fragments of 

 tiles, unburied after so many centuries, do actually more 

 gratify the sight than the floors of polished oak or 

 other expensive material which are seen in our mansions 

 and palaces. 



There is doubtless a physiological reason for this 

 satisfaction to the eye, as indeed there is for so many 

 of the pleasurable sensations we experience in seeing. 

 We may say that the vision flies over a perfectly 

 smooth plain surface, like a ball over a sheet of ice, and 

 rests nowhere ; but that in a mosaic floor the segmenta- 

 tion of the surface stays and rests the sight. To go 



