Local artisanship absorbs Roman influences

The gladiator mosaic perfectly illustrates the taste of property owners who were keen to build a residence in keeping with their social status.

Found in Flacé-lès-Mâcon, in 1893, the mosaic shows the skill of the workshop and a careful selection of materials: certain tesserae made of fine-grained, coloured limestone, of the type found on the Côte Dijonnaise, were laid alongside others made of pâte de verre imported from Palestine. The tesserae made of pâte de verre add colour and highlight the central depiction. The addition of black lines around the edge creates a uniform background against which the gladiator stands out, an effect that is accentuated when the work is laid flat on the floor.

Another form of decoration in villas, mural paintings were developed based on Italian models. The Third Pompeian Style, which favoured the use of pastel-tone decorations on black walls, rapidly spread in Gaul from the late first century BCE.

Examples of black monochrome mostly decorated reception rooms and peristyles*. Among the painted wall plasters found on Rue Tilladet, in 2005, the drinking horn, a Dionysian symbol, may have come from a dining room.

*peristyle : a row of columns surrounding an inner courtyard