Introduction

Due to the fact that the Roman Empire underwent a radical religious shift, many religious images merged with familiar non-Christian images to communicate a Christian story. This example, from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, displays a beardless Christ as a shepherd, reflecting an image transmitted in many of Jesus's parables from the New Testament. The divine shepherd, however, is a prominent theme in Jewish (David) and Pagan (Orpheus) imagery. This work is one of many mosaics from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, Italy, built in the mid-fifth century.