“But I’m a whiny little weenie who can’t accept that not everyone sees the world exactly as I do!”
Regards the new Alexander mosiac, this is much more likely to be a depiction of a scene from the Talmud, where bar Kamza offers a sacrificial calf on behalf of the Romans, to rabbi Zechariah Abkulas (see Gittin 55-57). This was in about AD 68, just prior to the Jewish Revolt. But bar Kamza was being devious here, because he had cut the calf’s lip (you can see the mark on the mosaic), knowing that Zechariah would have to reject the blemished Roman offering - and thereby offend the Romans, and in turn precipitate the Jewish Revolt. This was one of the ways by which the Jewish Revolt was deliberately contrived.
The question then becomes - who was bar Kamza. And the answer is quite surprising....
Ralph