Marble oscillum from the 1st century AD. Photo by Antonio Guillén, Museum of Badalona.
Oscilla very common ornamental elements in Roman gardens. They were votive plaques in the guise of a pelta which were usually decorated with motifs related to Bacchus. Oscilla tended to be hung between the columns in the peristyle so they moved with the wind. The oscillum from Baetulo bears the relief of a theatre mask and a lit torch on one side, with the depiction of two dolphins whose tails are wound around a rudder on the other (image alluding to the episode in which the god Bacchus turned Tyrrhenian pirates who wanted to sell him as a slave into dolphins).
