The stunning mosaic gives us clues to Britain's place in the wider Roman world, experts say.
The mosaic was described last month by Historic England as "The 11m x 7m floor has three panels showing a climatic moment from the Trojan war in which the Greek hero Achilles fights, kills and then ransoms the body of his Trojan opponent Hector.
And what the mosaic - dated to between the 3rd and 4th Century AD - reveals may overturn popular ideas about life under the Emperors. For around 350 years Britain was part of the Roman world, but historians are not clear whether Imperial rule ended swiftly and violently or simply ebbed away.Was it a barely pacified, muddy hut-filled foggy rock on the edge of the known world or a fully paid-up member of the imperial fan club?How the mosaic room may have been used in its heyday - this reconstruction based on Lullingstone Villa
"This reinforced the idea of Britain as something of a cultural backwater, lacking in the sophistication of a proper classical education.Hector's body is weighed against gold, crucially a scene not in Homer's account of the Trojan war "And you don't pay all that money for such a floor and keep it to yourself, so it was designed to be shown off.
But nothing, not even Rome, lasts for ever. The mosaic shows a high quality repair in one corner, but then decline sets in.Then, at some later point, the fires have been lit on the once glorious floor.
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