The gate of the year

Mosaic from the House of the Wounded Bear, at Pompeii (I century A.D.).
The pictured animal seems to refer to the spectacles in the Circus, during which several wild animals were hunted. The ancient sources, however, linger less on the bear’s fierceness, than on its maternal instinct. For example, Pliny (Natural History, VIII, 126), reports that the bear’s cubs are born almost lacking any form and were molded by their mother, that licked them for a long time. This tradition shall be resumed in the Middle Ages, when the bear became a being on the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead, that was able to bring back to life its own cubs, which at their birth were blind and almost lacking life. Also the intercourse customs of the animal were, according to Pliny, similar to the human way, because bears were deemed to embrace themselves and to lie down next to one another.

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeii_-_Casa_dell_Orso_Ferito_-_Bear_Mosaic.jpg]




Animals

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Mosaic from the House of the Wounded Bear, at Pompeii (I century A.D.). The pictured animal seems to refer to the spectacles in the Circus, during which several wild animals were hunted. The ancient sources, however, linger less on the bear’s fierceness, than on its maternal instinct. For example, Pliny (Natural History, VIII, 126), reports that the bear’s cubs are born almost lacking any form and were molded by their mother, that licked them for a long time. This tradition shall be resumed in the Middle Ages, when the bear became a being on the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead, that was able to bring back to life its own cubs, which at their birth were blind and almost lacking life. Also the intercourse customs of the animal were, according to Pliny, similar to the human way, because bears were deemed to embrace themselves and to lie down next to one another. [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeii_-_Casa_dell_Orso_Ferito_-_Bear_Mosaic.jpg]