Mosaic Work

One form of two dimensional early Roman artwork that has survived into modern times is mosic work, both on walls and floors. Mosaics are elaborately assembled pictures created from thousands of tiny fragments of stone, rock, glass etc arranged so that they come together into a large detailed image or pattern. Here is one example:

This image is a close-up of a beautiful early Roman mosaic called "The Dionysian Procession." It depicts the traveling groups of Dionysian zealots in all their splendor and at the rear of the procession you see a camel being ridden, and this is a clue as to the cultural influences on Rome at the time. This mosaic is actually the floor of a building in Tunisia. 

The mosaic work of the Romans continued to improve with time and eventually there was a split between mosaicists who worked on floor mosaics and commanded a reasonable fee for their work, and those with the added skill and talent to work on walls as well, creating the far more difficult wall mosaics for which they were paid substantially more. This truly impressive form of artwork shows the ingenuity and creative genius present in Rome from the beginning.