SCULPTCP.E. The earliest of the arts to fall, at the decline of the Roman Empire, was sculpture. The carvings on the Arch of Constantine, the Column of Theodosius. and the Imperial portraits of the Fourth Century, show this to have been -0„ even in the ease of the most pretentious monu ments. A few works of Christian sculpture of pre-Constantinian date come before this eom plete decadence. Such are the statue of Saint Ilippolytits and that of the flood Shepherd in the Lateran Museum, and a few of the sarcophagi (q.v.). The latter form the hulk of early Christian marble sculpture during the Third, Fourth, and Fifth centuries, after which there was very little sculpture on a large scale of any sort. These sarcophagi, after the fashion of the earlier ones of the Etruscans and pagan Ifomans, had a line of reliefs covering face and sides. Sometimes, even, there were two superposed rows of figures. Alany subjects were usually crowded together, though sometimes such scenes as the crossing of the lied Sea, or Jonah swallowed by the whale, oveupy the entire front. The scenes are with evident relation to funerary ideas and belief in future life, and are thus very. instructive. (See leoNocttANtr.) 1104 of
them occur also in the eatiewnh The technique begins to decline in the Fourth Cells Wry. as is shown by the liberal use of the trepan, the loss of finish, and of good proportions. The museum of the Lateran contains the largest col lection. but there are many in Aries. In fact, throughout the Roman world a style prevailed. Tille reophagi in Ravenna show the stiffness and limitations of the latest sar vophagi—those of the Fifth and Sixth centuries. To this time probably itch tugs the last colossal statue of antiquity—the bronze emperor found at Barletta. hard in its style, showing the loss of ability since the time of the famous bronze statue of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( Fifth Cen tury). After the Sixth Century no attempt was made at monumental sculpture, the religious .scruples of the Iconoclasts hastening the total downfall, which was complete both for the East and the \Vest. The eclipse was to last about six centuries.