During the Imperial period, bath buildings were an essential part of the daily life of the Romans, and were built all over the empire, often funded by generous benefactors who would record and commemorate their munificence on inscriptions. While the vast majority of these commemorative inscriptions were written on stone plaques, an interesting, smaller subset consisted of inscriptions created in mosaic technique as part of the mosaic floor of a room, inside a bath complex. Some fifteen such inscriptions are known from Italy, and are dated to the late Republican and early Imperial periods. While the text of such mosaic floor inscriptions does not differ much from text on other support, their context and visual aspects do.

This talk will therefore tackle the issue of the materiality of these mosaic floor inscriptions, looking at their design, their architectural setting, their effect on the circulation of the bathers, and—asking more questions than offering answers—it will lead us to ponder over the intentions the benefactors had in setting them up, and the reasons that led to the progressive disappearance of the practice during the 1^st cent. AD.

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