Thisbe and Pyramus with Typo

The mosaic is particularly interesting because it depicts a rare (and enormous) "typo." This is supposed to be a mosaic of the story of Thisbe and Pyramos -- the story written down by Ovid from which Shakespeare adapted Romeo and Juliet and the story that appears as a sub-plot in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." In the legend, Thisbe and Pyramos are youths in Babylon whose parents dislike each other but who fall in love by talking through a crack in the wall between their homes. This mosaic is supposed to depict their fateful meeting that results in their double-suicide. The problem with this mosaic is that rather than showing the Pyramos who committed suicide when he thought Thisbe had been eaten by a great cat (a leopard in this mosaic), the artist put in the river god Pyramos with his seaweed hair and horn of plenty. The mosaic artist probably did not know the story and was just working from a book of standard themes -- and chose the wrong Pyramos to draw!