Our space will not allow, neither is it necessary, that we should enter at any length into the history of Christian sculpture, since the same general laws of growth presided over this as over painting. It must be remembered, however, that sculpture was used much more sparingly, and did not attain its full Christian development nearly so soon as the sister art. There was no room for it in the Catacombs except on the faces and sides of the sarcophagi, which were sometimes used there for the burial of the dead; neither was it possible to execute it with the same freedom as painting. The painter, buried in the bowels of the earth, prosecuted his labours in secret, and, therefore, in comparative security, without fear of any intrusion from the profane; but the work of the sculptor was necessarily more public; it could not even be conveyed from the city to the cemetery without the help of many hands, and it must always have run the risk of attracting a dangerous degree of general attention. We are not surprised, therefore, at hearing that some of those sarcophagi which are found in the most ancient parts of the Catacombs seem rather to have been purchased from Pagan workshops than executed by Christians; those, for instance, on which are figured scenes of pastoral life, of farming, of the vintage, or of the chase, genii, dolphins, or other subjects equally harmless. Sometimes it might almost seem as though the subjects had been suggested by a Christian, but their Christian character blurred in the execution by some Pagan hand, which added a doubtful or unmeaning accessory,—_e.g._, a dog at the side of the shepherd. On some others there are real Pagan subjects, but these were either carefully defaced by the chisel, or covered up with plaster, or hidden from sight by being turned towards the wall. [Illustration: _Sarcophagus still to be seen in the Cemetery of San Callisto._] [Illustration: _Very ancient Sarcophagus, found in Crypt of St. Lucina._]