A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

Plate 1.10: Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (359). Like the Meleager relief (Plate 1.4), the figures on this
sarcophagus, carved nearly in the round, gesture and interact. But their subject is now entirely Christian.
Reading the scenes from left to right, they portray: (top) Abraham and Isaac; Peter’s arrest; Christ
enthroned between Saints Peter and Paul, his feet resting on the scarf of Heaven; Christ’s arrest; the
judgment of Pilate; (bottom) Job sitting on the dunghill, comforted by friends; Adam and Eve; Christ’s
triumphal entry into Jerusalem; Daniel (clothed by a later, prudish carver, but originally naked) in the lion’s
den; the arrest of Saint Paul.

The Barbarians

The classicizing style exemplified by Junius Bassus’ coffin did not long survive the

sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. The sack was a stunning blow. Like a married

couple in a bitter divorce, both Romans and Goths had once wooed one another;

they then became mutually and comfortably dependent; eventually they fell into

betrayal and strife. Nor was the Visigothic experience unique. The Franks, too, had