Image Details

Short and muscular, Libra holds scales with black pans in his right hand and a royal scepter in his left hand. A light-colored, black-edged garment called a chlamys hangs over his left shoulder. It was Libra who greeted anyone entering the prayer hall of the synagogue.

Libra is uncircumcised, raising the possibility that the artist of the Hammath Tiberias synagogue mosaic was not Jewish. Like all 12 panels of the zodiac, Libra’s stands about 22 inches (55 cm) high and is framed by a twisted ribbon.