Some Pagan Mythological Figures and Their Significance in Early Christian Art

Ever since the discussion of Orpheus in Bosio's Roma Sotterranea (1632, 627 ff) the problem of pagan mythological figures in early Christian art has aroused much attention. Until quite recently, however, it was generally believed that Orpheus was the only such figure to appear, so that discussion naturally centred on his peculiar acceptability to the Christians. But the discovery of important new material and the renewed interest amongst scholars in the pagan element in early Christian art have recently led to the consideration of other pagan gods and heroes in this light. Some of these characters appear only once or twice in Christian settings, or may have a Christian significance only on isolated occasions. But for all the five figures that will be studied here—Orpheus, Bellerophon, Sol, Ulysses, and Hercules—some kind of sustained Christian interpretation has been proposed, and in each case several representations are involved. The purpose of this paper is to collate the claims made for these various mythological figures, to re-assess some of the conclusions which were reached in earlier studies and have now been rendered out-of-date by the discovery of new examples, and to attempt some general conclusions about the role of these pagan mythological figures in early Christian art up to the mid sixth century.