ROMAN ANTIQUITIES at the Metropolitan Museum

Speranza

RELIGION provided an impetus to the arts in Ancient Rome, and the Romans continued to build temples, erect STATUES, and make votive offerings to their gods undil the final vicdtory of Christianity over paganism during the fourth-century A.D.

Indeed, much of early Christian architecture and iconography draws heavily on Roman antecedents, and the imagery of the classical past continued to flourish in the secular art of both the Byzantine Empire and the successor kingdoms of the Franks, Goths, and Lombards in the West.