This mosaic dates from the time of Justinian I (AD 527-565), who restored the Great Palace after the destruction of the Nika riots in AD 532, and decorated the floor of a large peristyle court. Here, two boys, wearing tunics trimmed in blue and green, play hoops around a meta of the Hippodrome.
This detail in the Mosaic Museum preserves only a fragment of a much larger courtyard that shows wild, mythical, and domestic animals, and hunting and fighting scenes.
