48
and
of Caricature
Hijivry
Grotehue
{hip which had been declining in charaeter during the later periods of
the empire, only continued in the courfe of degradation afterwards.
Thus, in the firfi Chrifcianedifices, the builders who were employed, or
at leafi many of them, mutt have been pagans, and they would follow
their old models of ornamentation, introducing the fame grotefque
Saturn Dewour ing lzis Clzild.
figures, the fame malks and moniirous faces, and even fometirnes the
fame fubjecis from the old mythology, to which they had been accuiiomed.
It is to be obferved, too, that this kind of iconographical ornamentation
had been encroaching more and more upon the old architectural purity
during the latter ages of the empire, and that it was employed more
profufely in the later works, from which this tafte was transferred to the
ecclefiaftical