u/Aterrian

1. Villa of the Mysteries - Dionysiac Frieze (1st century BC to 2nd century AD). Really natural figures, which would not be replicated like this for over a thousand years.

2. Portrait of a Young Woman with a Stylus and Wax Tablet (55-79AD).

3. Fayum Mummy Portrait - Roman Egypt (1st-3rd century AD). Byzantine iconography will later inherit the technique, which was encaustic on wood panel, and the enlargement of the eyes.

4. The Good Shepherd - Catacomb painting under Rome (200-400AD). Early christians disguise biblical stories as Roman, for example here Christ is portrayed like a Roman ram-bearer.

5. Apse mosaic - Santa Pudenziana (390AD). Constantine has legalised Christianity. Christ is portrayed enthroned in gold and purple. Disciples look like Roman senators. Shepherd is now imperial!

6. Justinian and Theodora mosaics - San Vitale (547 AD). Intentionally flat to make the figures seem more celestial. Emperor and empress are portrayed as liturgical participants. Merging of state and church.

7. Christ Pantocrater - St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai (6th century AD). Oldest surviving panel icon.

British Museum intel:

“Marble sculpture showing an African acrobat on a crocodile. Roman, 1st century Bc or lst century AD.

The statue may show a member of the Tentrytae tribe of Egypt, famous for diving on the backs of crocodiles in the Nile. Crocodiles were first exhibited at Rome in 58 BC and the crowd loved them. Perhaps acrobats like this one performed in the arena and were then immortalised in stone.

GR 1805.7-3.6 (BM Cat Sculpture 1768)

Townley Collection”