Figure 86 A Greek prayer book with its thirteenth-century text written at right angles over the tenth-
century text and diagrams of a work of Archimedes, as revealed by advanced imaging techniques. Private
Collection, on display at The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Source: Archimedes Palimpsest Image
Bank. Image produced by the Rochester Institute of Technology, Equipoise Imaging and Boeing LTS.
[http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/easton/Archie/093v-092r/093v-092rsp-dime.jpg. Creative](http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/easton/Archie/093v-092r/093v-092rsp-dime.jpg. Creative)
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License 3.0 (CC BY-3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (sites accessed March 29, 2016).
Christianity did not eliminate all traces of the pagan heritage, nor did it wish to. The Byzantine Empire,
which lasted until Constantinople was captured by Ottoman Turks in 1453, was based upon a civilization
that still preserved elements that could be traced with some pride to the early first millennium BC. The
language of the Byzantine court and the Orthodox Church were still essentially the language of Hellenistic
Athens, and the rhetorical training of bishops and courtiers was still based upon techniques illustrated
from Classical texts, which continued to be copied and read. A particularly interesting example of the
recycling of Classical literature is the eleventh- or twelfth-century drama in verse entitled The Passion of
Christ. This work is a “cento,” or a patchwork quilt, made up entirely of elements pieced together from
other works, about a third of it consisting of lines taken from fifth-century tragedy, mostly from Euripides.
The anonymous author of this cento was taking to an extreme the practice of adapting the text of Greek
tragedy for Christian purposes, a practice that is attested already in about AD 200. At that time, the
Christian convert Clement of Alexandria wrote a work in which he put into the mouth of Christ some lines
that Euripides had written to be spoken by the god Dionysus in his tragedy the Bacchae. The iconography
of the new religion also was heavily indebted to the conventions that had been established by the pagan
artists of Greece and Rome. For example, early Christian artists would portray Christ in the pose of a
bearded philosopher transmitting his wisdom to his followers (Figure 87; compare Figure 85). Or works