verses were also said by the Fathers to have contained many true prophecies concerning Our Lord. These, however, like the testimony of the Sibyls, were pious forgeries of post-Christian date.
Another fable of the pagan mythology reproduced in early Christian art is that of Ulysses and the Sirens. A sarcophagus in the crypt of Lucina represents the “much-planning” wanderer of Ithaca, bound to the mast, deaf to the blandishments of the rather harpy-like daughters of the sea, and so sailing safely by. Maximus of Turin, in the fifth century, explained the ship of Ulysses to be “a type of the church, the mast being the cross, by which the faithful are to be kept from the seductions of the senses. Thus,” he says, “shall we be neither held back by the pernicious hearing of the world’s voice, nor swerve from our course to the better life, and fall upon the rocks of voluptuousness.”[339]
These reminiscences of pagan art are more frequent in the sculptures of the sarcophagi, in which the classic type seems more persistent than in the paintings. Thus, in a bas-relief, in the Lateran Museum, of the ascent of Elijah in the fiery chariot to heaven, by a strange solecism Mercury is represented standing at the horses’ heads. This was probably the result of an unconscious imitation of some heathen design. On a sarcophagus from the Catacomb of Callixtus, in a harvest scene, is what seems to be a representation of Cupid and Pysche. This, however, was found buried beneath the floor, and bore indications of having been coated with plaster, as if in concealment of the heathen figures. On others have
been observed bas-reliefs of Bacchus attended by cupids, fawns and satyrs, the unfortunate Marsyas, the desertion of Ariadne, and the return of Ulysses. It is probable that some of these incongruities resulted from the sarcophagus having been carved by a pagan artist, inasmuch as sculpture was less likely to be practised by the Christians than painting. Indeed, some of these subjects, offensive to Christian feeling, have been carefully defaced with a chisel, or turned to the wall; as one in the crypt of Lucina, on which is a bacchanalian scene, while on the rough side, exposed to view, is inscribed the Christian epitaph. The sarcophagi of Constantia and Helena, daughters of Constantine, now in the Vatican Museum, bear vintage and battle scenes and Bacchic masks; and on that in which the Emperor Charlemagne was buried, probably of pagan origin, is represented the rape of Proserpine. On the gilded glasses of the Catacombs, some of which were evidently employed for festive purposes, pagan influence also appears in such representations as Achilles, Hercules, Dædalus, Minerva, the Graces, Cupid and Psyche, Neptune with his trident, and a river-god as the symbol of the Jordan.
Even in distinctively Christian subjects it is sometimes apparent that the artist had not freed himself from the influence of pagan types. Thus the Good Shepherd is represented with the short tunic and buskins of the Roman peasant, and often with the classic syrinx or rustic pipes, probably from some reminiscence of the popular rural deity, the god Pan. In the Lateran Museum is a manifest example—the sarcophagus of Paulina—of a pagan sculpture having been adapted as a Christian Good Shepherd. In a bas-relief of Jonah, in the Vatican Library, the classic influence is seen in the Triton blowing his horn, and Iris floating over
the vessel with her fluttering scarf, to indicate the subsidence of the storm. The ship is like the barges that navigate the Tiber, and the sea-monster that swallows the recreant prophet is like that which menaced Andromeda.
Christianity thus preserved amid the wreck of ancient civilization some germs of classic art, over which she brooded till they quickened under the more genial influences of later times. She became thus, as Dr. Lübke remarks, the mediator between the antique heathen life and the art of modern Christendom. That distinguished critic, Raoul-Rochette, has, however, attributed to pagan types too great an influence on the art of the Catacombs, and almost denies the latter all originality or distinctiveness of treatment; and he is certainly quite in error in speaking of the almost pagan physiognomy of the decorations of the Catacombs.[340] He was misled in forming these opinions in part by certain monuments in the Catacomb of Prætextatus, discovered and described by Bottari, and at first supposed to be of Christian origin.[341] This opinion, however, has been since refuted in an able monograph on the subject by Padre Garrucci.[342]
The exceptional and unique character of these monuments deserves a somewhat detailed examination. They occur in a gallery of the Catacomb, not far from the Appian Way. In the vault of an arcosolium is a representation of Venus—a subject never found in early
Christian art—accompanied by two genii as infants. Near these are the following epitaphs of a pagan priest and his wife:
NVMENIS ANTISTES SEBASIS VINCENTIVS HIC [EST]