Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/336

318 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. Pagan mythological figures and decorative motives occur throughout the Roman catacombs, and upon the Christian sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries found at Rome and in the south of France.^ Some- times the pagan design is modified and given a Chris- tian significance; for example, the pagan type of Hermes carrying a sheep is transferred to Christ as the Good Shepherd. Again, the pagan subject appears to have become a Christian allegory ; ^ and a number of personifications pass on from the pagan antique into the Roman and Byzantine Christian art, an example of which is the mode of representing the river Jordan under the form of a river-god in mosaics in the churches of S. Giovanni in Fonte and S. Maria in Cosmedin at Ravenna. Perhaps most frequently the pagan image or pattern is retained as mere decoration. The early Christian paintings in the Roman cata- of the Sun in his chariot and also conchas sigillis ornatas, conchas et lacus cum sigillis, which sigilla were Victories and Cupids, but as refusing to make an Asclepii similacrum (De Rossi, Roma Soit., Ill, 578-579) . Cf . Miintz, Etudes sur la Peinture, etc., p. 2. Some- times the same workmen made objects with pagan as well as Chris- tian images upon them. Le Blant, Revue Arch^ologique, 1875, Vol. 29, p. 1 ; and Rev. Arch., 1876, Vol. 31, p. 378; Miintz, Etudes, etc., p. 3. 1 The vintage and seasons of the year designed in the usual pagan style appear upon Christian sarcophagi in the Lateran Museum ; cf., generally, Ficker, Die Altchristlichen Bildwerke im Christlichen Museum, des Laterans ; and for pagan themes upon Christian sarcophagi in Gaul, see Le Blant, Sarcophages Chretiens de la Gaule, Introduction, pp. iv-vii. 2 As in the representation of the myth of Cupid and Psyche and of Orpheus in the catacombs. See, generally, ELraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunat, I, 203-224.