Single-Zoned Frieze Sarcophagus of a Child

This fourth-century box was reworked from an older piece of architecture and later reused. It was later provided with a lid that has been similarly reworked from a piece of architecture. The lid bears the monogram of Christ and gives the name of a thirteen-month-old child, Theusebius, in its two-column inscription. His parents Rufinus and Severa liberally praise his innocence, Christian virtues and the fact that he was baptized, in the certainty that their son would be “reborn in Christ” and had attained the “seat of eternal life”. The carved scenes – Mary with the Christ Child, the three Magi (one of them in the background), the deceased boy in the attitude of prayer between two bearded apostles (?), Noah in the Ark and Peter’s Miracle of the Spring – refer to baptism, faith and salvation. Children’s sarcophagi have survived in large numbers and reflect the high childhood mortality rate in antiquity. The antique version of the Magi’s departure is extremely rare: the Magi take leave of Mary and the Child having left their gifts, but glance once again at the star, which has not changed position. Before beginning their journey home, they are warned in a dream not to return to Herod (Mt. 2:12). Other sources speak of the appearance of an “angel in the shape of the star that had previously shown them the way” (Arabic Infancy Gospel 7). In this image the star commands the departing Magi in its own voice. Only two other, much later, sarcophagi (one formerly in Marseilles, now lost, and the other in Milan, San Celso) repeat this visual theme, previously unknown in Early Christian art. It was formerly believed that the earliest representations of this subject dated from the beginning of the Middle Ages. But the medieval examples differ in their representation of the three Magi asleep; an angel appears before them and delivers the command in the dream.