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Villa Dar Buc Ammera

Unless otherwise indicated, pictures on this page © Marco Prins and Jona Lendering. Photos can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, but you have to acknowledge Livius.

The splendid ancient sea resort now known as Dar Buc Ammera can be found three kilometer east of modern Zliten, which in turn is east of the ruins of Lepcis Magna. The villa best known for its splendid mosaics, which today are on display in the Archaeological Museum in Tripoli.

Gladiator Mosaic

Four Seasons Mosaic

Round Mosaic

The most famous of these is the Mosaic of the Gladiators, which consists of a set of sixteen square fields decorated with geometric designs or representations of fishes. The edge is decorated with pictures of gladiatorial contests. It was the floor of a dinner room (triclinium).

The right-hand side shows fights between animals, which one could see in the circus before the afternoon. You can also see the execution of criminals thrown ad bestias, the usual item at noon. The gladiators, who performed in the afternoon, are shown on two lines of pictures at the top and bottom.


Musicians	Two fights	A fight and a victor


Musicians (note the organ!)	More fighting

Right hand side: fight between wild animals and -on this picture- criminals executed by animals. This is a common theme in ancient art, which is also shown on the fresco's from Mérida. In fact, we see how the government takes care of justice. The man who is killed has a dark skin and may be a native Libyan; it has been argued that he is one of the people taken prisoner by general Valerius Festus in 70, at the beginning of the reign of Vespasian, and executed in Lepcis Magna's Amphitheater (more...).

A comparable scene on the right hand side shows the execution of a criminal who has been tied to a pole and is brought into the arena, where a hungry panther will kill him. He may also have been one of the native Garamantes who were defeated in 70. They had sided with the inhabitants of Oea, who had seized the opportunity offered by the civil war of 69 to attack the people of Lepcis Magna.

Left hand side: fight against ostriches. The animals that were killed in the morning were preferrably exotic ones, and it is known that in the 70's of the first century, a man from Lepcis travelled all the way across the Sahara to look for unusual animals to be killed in the arena. Perhaps they met their end in the amphitheater of Lepcis, alternatively at the first performance in Rome's Colosseum.

The center of the mosaic: sixteen fields, often decorated with plates of marble arranged in geometric designs (opus sectile), or decorated with pictures of aquatic animals. They are very detailed and every single fish can be identified with one of the products for sale on the market in a Libyan market.

Here, you can see two gladiators in close combat. They can be identified as a murmillo (left: one greave, helmet's crest) and a thraex (right: high greaves). The man to the left appears to have advanced his right leg too far before his left, and has taken a backhanded draw-cut to the back of the thigh as a result. Blood is falling down and he will soon die a painful death, unless he receives a coup de grâce.

Thanks to Uwe Bahr and John Roberts for advice.

Four Seasons Mosaic

Round Mosaic

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