The party is over: The incredible unswept floor mosaics of Rome. Most mosaics tell stories of grandeur and beauty. But this particular type of mosaic floors tells us about the aftermath of the party. In hyper detail nutshells, olive pits, chicken feet, fruit rinds, and grape stems are strewn about in trompe l’oeil mosaic.

This is called asarotos oikos, or “unswept room” in Greek. Although Greek artists made the first “unswept room” mosaics, only later Roman copies survive.
So why would an elite Roman go to such effort and expense to make their dining room floor look like it was covered in messy left-overs?

Partly it was a kind of status symbol. These mosaics where made on the floors of triclinia, the dining rooms in upper class ancient Rome where party guests lounged on couches, picking at delicacies. This particular floor was unearthed among the remains of a roman villa and still emanates some of the atmosphere of the decadent boozy Roman banquets. The scraps of food cast long, erratic shadows in different directions, as if lit by the dancing flicker of oil lamps. It is definately no low budget feast - there’s fresh seafood, rushed in from the coast, including lobster and oysters, and strewn among the shells are expensive imports such as mulberries from Asia, ginger from India, and figs from the Middle East. The riches of a whole empire are scattered on the floor.
The mosaic implies a feast so lavish that, if it were actually served, it might have been illegal — a violation of Roman sumptuary laws, which capped how much a host could spend on any one banquet. The Lex Orchia, passed in 182 BC, limited the number of guests that could be invited to a single meal. But based on the accounts of roman feasts these rules were frequently flouted.
The motif is also part of the memento mori tradition -  reminder of death. In the classic roman story Satyrion, the host of a huge party says “Alas for us poor mortals … So we shall all be, after the world below takes us away. Let us live then while it goes well with us.”
From this perspective, the mosaic was a demonstration that even the finest feast is quickly transformed from sustenance into trash, just as the diner will be reduced in time to bones and dust. In other words, enjoy yourself, because it might be the last time.
The fascinating room scene included here is believed to be from a 5th century dining room floor. It shows an actual dinner in progress with an asaroton floor design in the room—OR does it show a dinner with a very messy bunch of people who have actually thrown their food on the floor? Its quite a “meta” take on the style.