Carved for a Roman city prefect who was a newly baptized Christian at his death, the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus is not only a magnificent example of "the fine style" of mid-fourth-century sculpture but also a treasury of early Christian iconography clearly indicating the Christianization of Rome--and the Romanization of Christianity. Whereas most previous scholarship has focused on the style of the sarcophagus, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon explores the perplexing elements of its iconography in their fourth-century context. In so doing she reveals the distinction between "pagan" and...
Carved for a Roman city prefect who was a newly baptized Christian at his death, the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus is not only a magnificent example...