In the later catacombs, the change of belief, which was wrought outside of them, is plainly visible in the change in the style of Art. Byzantine models stiffened, formalized, and gradually destroyed the spirit of the early paintings. Richness of vestment and mannerism of expression took the place of simplicity and straightforwardness. The Art which is still the popular Art in Italy began to exhibit its lower round of subjects. Saints of all kinds were preferred to the personages of Scripture. The time of suffering and trial having passed, men stirred their slow imaginations with pictures of the crucifixion and the passion. Martyrdoms began to be represented; and the series--not even yet, alas! come to an end--of the coarse and bloody atrocities of painting, pictures worthy only of the shambles, beginning here, marked the decline of piety and the absence of feeling. Love and veneration for the older and simpler works disappeared, and through many of the ancient pictures fresh graves were dug, that faithless Christians might be buried near those whom they esteemed able to intercede for and protect them. These graves hollowed out in the wall around the tomb of some saint or martyr became so common, that the term soon arose of a burial _intra_ or _retro sanctos_, _among_ or _behind the saints_. One of the most precious pictures in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, precious from its peculiar character, is thus in some of its most important parts utterly destroyed. It represents, so far as is to be seen now, two men in the attitude of preaching to flocks who stand near them,--and if the eye is not deceived by the uncertain light, and by the dimness of the injured colors, a shower of rain, typical of the showers of divine grace, is falling upon the sheep: on one who is listening intently, with head erect, the shower falls abundantly; on another who listens, but with less eagerness, the rain falls in less abundance; on a third who listens, but continues to eat, with head bent downward, the rain falls scantily; while on a fourth, who has turned away to crop the grass, scarcely a drop descends. Into this parable in painting the irreverence of a succeeding century cut its now rifled and forlorn graves.