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Updated: June 6, 2025
From the pulpit of Niccola Pisano down to Mantegna's 'Triumph of Caesar, and the service Cellini designed for King Francis, the influence of this spirit can be traced; nor was it confined merely to the immobile arts the arts of arrested movement but its influence was to be seen also in the great Graeco-Roman masques which were the constant amusement of the gay courts of the time, and in the public pomps and processions with which the citizens of big commercial towns were wont to greet the princes that chanced to visit them; pageants, by the way, which were considered so important that large prints were made of them and published a fact which is a proof of the general interest at the time in matters of such kind.
When whatever is to be known about the practical exercise of this art is further brought to light, when the art is represented in all its fundamental features by a comparison with the Graeco-Roman and the Oriental Egyptian, little can remain to be done in this department.
In point of architectural style the Romans of this date who in artistic matters were but imitators of the Greeks and far less certain in taste than their masters affected the Corinthian, as being the most florid. Even this they could not leave in its native purity, but for the most part converted it into Graeco-Roman or composite varieties.
If this be really the case we can understand the connection of the symbol first with Orpheus, later with Christ, as Eisler remarks: "Orpheus is connected with nearly all the mystery, and a great many of the ordinary chthonic, cults in Greece and Italy. Christianity took its first tentative steps into the reluctant world of Graeco-Roman Paganism under the benevolent patronage of Orpheus."
There may be confusion and anarchy, but there is not mere pedantry and stagnation. Artists perhaps are over-conscious, always following some new prophet, but at least there is the conviction of sin in them, which is exactly what all the decadent artists of the past have lacked. The artistic decadence of the past which is most familiar to us is that of the later Graeco-Roman art.
The stately beauty of Hypatia, the seductive fascination of Pelagia, the childlike nature of Philammon, the subtle cynicism of Raphael Aben-Ezra, the mighty audacity of the Goths, the fanaticism of Cyril, and the strange clash of three elements of civilisation, Graeco-Roman, Christian, Teutonic give us definite impressions, leave a permanent imprint on our thoughts.
The Asian map of Christianity at the end, say, of the fourth century of the latter's existence, will show it very exactly bounded by the limits to which the Seleucid Empire had carried Greeks in any considerable body, and the further limits to which the Romans, who ruled effectively a good deal left aside by their Macedonian predecessors much of central and eastern Asia Minor for example, and all Armenia had advanced their Graeco-Roman subjects.
"Wal, now," drawled Jim, as he nervously stroked his beard, "let's take it easy. Which opening do all you fellers prefer?" No one answered. One man finally inquired. "How many kinds is there?" Jim said, "Wal, there's the Methodist, the Baptist, the Graeco-Roman, Episcopalian, and the catch-as-catch-can." "Give us the ketch-and-kin-ketch-as-you-kin," responded the spokesman.
And, it must be remembered that to understand the full significance of these phrases, we must bear in mind that the men of the Graeco-Roman civilization had put aside once and for all the 'natural' distinction between the 'Greek' and the 'Barbarian', had recognized that men were equal and alike, not different and unequal, that all men were possessed of reason, and all were capable of virtue, or, in the Christian terms, all men are the children of God and capable of communion with Him.
Of the works that were originally composed for recitation on the days of the festivals of Osiris, and were specially connected with the cult of this god, three, which became very popular in the Graeco-Roman period, may be mentioned.
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