Also worthy of note is that the upper arcade is depicted with a full proportional entablature (architrave frieze and cornice with wheel-and-bead molding), indicating that the artist was well aware of the classical orders and the arrangement. This knowledge and fidelity to order disappears as the Byzantine era emerges.

Thank you for all of the details, descriptions and labels!

Thank you guys for coming in clutch for my history essay🙏🙏

Thank you for this journey in the time of transition from paganism to christianity! As usual perfect!

Wonderful!

You’re voices make this even better

What a striking impression this sarcophagus makes! Takes me back to the earliest playlists, where seeing pieces like this felt more common while still managing to blow me away... “Traditio Legis” was interesting to learn about because I tend to associate Big G with being the Lawgiver and Jesus having more, “You guys just need to love each other” energy, lol. I’m also not used to seeing him in this Roman style. I wonder how the depicted scenes were chosen and ordered the way they were. I’m sure those details aren’t happenstance, but I can’t see what the connection is in how they’re presented. The infographic at the end was appreciated, though!

After Constantine converted it became very good for your political career if you converted too!

I had never before seen in reproductions of this important work the panels of putti and grapes, which reminded me of similar imagery featured on the porphyry sarcophagus of Constantine's daughter, also dating to the fourth century. One discerns here the foundations of the depiction of cherubs in subsequent Christian art, a transfer of pagan motifs into a Christian idiom. I wanted to point out that the date of 357 C.E. for Junius Bassus' monument is given at one point in the presentation (specifically at 2:43), while elsewhere in the upload, the date of 359 C.E. is otherwise attested.

I imagine that it was easy and fairly common for a polytheist to - at least initially - simply add Jesus Christ to the list of all the other gods that he or she worshiped. For many, there must have been a transitional period in which JC was treated the same as Venus or Apollo. Then as the 4th Century got underway, people would have focused on JC exclusively as the other gods fell out of imperial favor. That’s just a guess, but it at least seems possible!

A theory on this. Constantius II was Emperor at this time. He was a member of a Christian sect called Arianism, which was non-Trinitarian. I suspect that might be a factor in how Christ is portrayed in this sarcophagus, because in Arian Christian art in Italy from the Ostrogothic period, Christ is also portrayed without a beard.

Could the grapes with the Putti also be seen as Christian imagery? Like grapes symbolizing the wine which is the blood of Christ?

What is the song that plays at the beginning and end of the vid.

This is so Interesting! I wonder what Junius, a previously pagan Roman, might have thought of the fact that Jesus was crucified by Romans. And how Romans were not exactly painted in a favourable light in the bible or the Stories that became the bible later. Might he have felt some sort of guilt?

Wanna see the pagan sides too!

Interesting to note that early converts to Christianity were drawn to familiar transcendental themes from pagan narratives prior to the later victimization mindset from the retooling of Christianity of a bearded Christ.

Now let's have a look at the pagan side. :)