Sosus

• a proper name, Plin. 36, 25, 60, § 184.

• the title of a book written by Antiochus against Philo, Cic. Ac. 2 (Luc.), 4, 12.

(Σῶσος). A celebrated artist in mosaic, who was working apparently at the time of the Attalidae in Pergamon. It was there that he executed his famous work, “The Unswept House” (ἀσάρωτος οἶκος), so called because remnants of food, and all that is usually swept away, were represented as strewn about in the most careless way upon the floor. “Much to be admired in this work” (says Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxvi. 184) “is a dove drinking, and darkening the water by the shadow of its head; while other doves are sunning and pluming themselves on the rim of the vessel.” This is copied in the mosaic (found in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli), now in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. See illustration under musivum opus, p. 1065; and pictura.