File:Pella Mosaics I – The Lion Hunt (49988918902).jpg

Beautiful pebble mosaic with lion hunt from an impressively large house at Pella, the Macedonian capital and Alexander’s birthplace. Two hunters frame the lion. Their foreshortened bodies are modeled in stylized chiaroscuro in a rich repertoire of earth tones. Nearly identical in pose, the hunters are essentially nude, their short cloaks highlighting rather than hiding their nudity. They are sometimes identified as Alexander and his companion Craterus, known to have come to Alexander’s assistance at a difficult juncture of a real-life hunt. The hunter on the left—often assumed to be Alexander—wears a hat and grasps a broken lance near the tip with his right hand. He holds his sheathed sword with the other. Bare-headed, the other hunter has just pulled his sword out of its scabbard and gathers force to strike the lion. The lion turns its head emphatically toward one hunter in an aggressive grin highlighted by its protruding tongue, while its body is directed toward the other hunter. When compared to the leopard’s predicament on the plate, the lion’s divided attention in the mosaic is perhaps less surprising, as the staging aims to underscore that the animal must guard itself from two sides and two opponents.

In lower position two fighting centaurs

Source: Ada Cohen, “Turning Heads: Alexander and the Animals”

Pebble mosaic Ca. 325 – 300 BC From the “House of Dionysus”, Pella