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Finem.

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haec rursus patienda manent.

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Adflictus vitam in tenebris luctuque trahebam.

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Tamen dies oritur

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The Wounded Eagle Rosa Bonheur circa 1870 Los Angeles County Museum of Art (United States) Painting - oil on canvas Height: 147.64 cm (58.12 in.), Width: 114.62 cm (45.13 in.)

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ἤ σε λανθάνει πρὸς τοὺς φίλους στείχοντα τῶν ἐχθρῶν κακά;

Sophocles, Antigone

Or does it elude you, the evils of our enemies creeping on towards our friends?

(via labentiasidera)

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Οἶδ’ ὅτι θνατὸς ἐγὼ καὶ ἐφάµερος· ἀλλ’ ὅταν ἄστρων ἰχνεύω πυκινὰς ἀµφιδρόµους ἕλικας, οὐκέτ’ ἐπιψαύω γαίης ποσίν, ἀλλὰ παρ’ αὐτῷ Ζηνὶ διοτρεφέος πίµπλαµαι ἀµβροσίης.

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Moon. It has torn its net, the algae green monster.

Ece Ayhan, from “A Flood of First Summer,” A Blind Cat Black and The Orthodoxies (Green Integer, 2015)

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RIP me

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By purple death I’m seized and fate supreme.

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THE MAUSOLEUM OF CONSTANTIA

The emperor Constantine chose Rome as the location for the mausoleum for his daughters Constantia (or Constantina) and Helena. The building was completed shortly before Constantina’s death in AD 354. To ensure his daughter’s salvation, the mausoleum was sited next to a large funerary basilica (which was not a church) built over the catacombs where the relics of Saint Agnes were buried. (The mausoleum is A-H on the engraving the groundplan by Piranesi seen below.) The basilica fell into ruin in the 7th century and today only a section of its outer wall still stands. The mausoleum, which was converted into the church of Santa Costanza in 1254, is well-preserved.

The centrally-planned structure consists of a two-storied, domed central space, in which the massive porphyry sarcophagus of Constantina stood, and a barrel-vaulted ambulatory. The building material is brick-faced concrete, with the exception of the paired granite columns of the circular arcade, which are spolia from two earlier buildings. The tall central space, which is lit by clerestory windows, contrasts with the shorter and darker, subsidiary space of the ambulatory.

The interior was originally covered in marble revetment, which was pillaged at a later date. Also lost is the dome mosaic, although a 16th-century drawing records its general appearance. The mosaics decorating the vaults of the ambulatory depict laborers bringing in the vintage and crushing the grapes, woodland birds and drinking vessels. This bucolic imagery is et into a lush vinescroll framework. These mosaics closely resemble the costly floor pavements with bacchic themes found in Roman palaces and villas—a luxury artform appropriate for an imperial building.

The vintage scenes befit not only Constantina’s social rank, but her religious beliefs. In the context of a Christian mausoleum, the grapes and drinking vessels refer to the wine of the eucharist and its promise of eternal life. Constantina’s sarcophagus reprises the same imagery for this reason as well. This assimilation or appropriation of traditional pagan imagery for Christian uses is one of the defining features of late antique art. The invention of a new Christian iconography creatively derived from adaptations of the classical tradition proves that, in the 4th century at least, the arts were hardly in decline.

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- i drift into the great unknown