The Romans took palms for their symbol of Victory. There is a sarcophagus in the Vatican on which is carved a Roman conqueror with captive barbarians kneeling before him, and the winged Victory who crowns him with laurel holds a palm in her left hand.
Simon Maccabees, after he had taken the Tower of Jerusalem, entered it ‘with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees and with harps.’[148] And the seers of Scripture saw palms in heaven: ‘A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds and people, and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.’[149] ‘These be they that have put off the mortal clothing and put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God; now are they crowned and receive palms.’[150]
Palms were therefore the meed of martyrdom, the symbol of the martyrs’ victory over death.
‘... The angel said
God liketh thy request,
And bothe with the palme of martirdome,
Ye shallen come unto His blissful rest.’[151]
During the first three centuries of Christianity Christian art concerned itself almost exclusively with the events recounted in the Old and New Testaments and the Apocryphal Gospels. ‘But during the fourth century artists began to represent the acts of the martyrs, at the bidding of Saint Basil, who called to his aid illustrious painters of athletic combats, to paint with resplendent colours the martyr Barlaam, the crowned athlete, whom he found himself unable adequately to describe.... A fresco came to light in 1887, under the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo on the Celian Hill, which shows three Christians being put to death beneath the rule of Julian the Apostate, kneeling with eyes bound and hands tied behind their backs. This may be considered as the first representation of a martyrdom....’[152]
Sixtus III (432–440), as is shown by the inscription which is read above the principal door of Santa Maria Maggiore, had had the instruments of their martyrdom painted only beneath the feet of the martyrs.
‘Ecce tui testes uteri sibi proemia portant