The first Christian paintings were light and graceful sketches, after the manner of the older classic art; and but for the substitution of a Christian for a heathen conception--a biblical scene or character, as Daniel in the lions’ den, Jonah, or the Good Shepherd, or some striking Christian symbol--it would be difficult to distinguish them from contemporary pagan pictures.[336] While the principal figure gave an unquestionably Christian character to the whole, the accessories, divisions of space, colouring, and general treatment were quite in the manner of the antique. Garlands, festoons of flowers and vases of fruits; graceful arabesques, luxuriant vines, grapes, birds and genii; ideal heads, masks, and fabulous animals; hunting, vintage and harvest scenes, and pastoral groups; personifications of the hours, seasons, rivers, and the like, made up the _entourage_, or formed part of the picture. Thus the roof of a crypt in the most ancient part (probably of the first century) of the cemetery of Domitilla is completely covered with branches trailing in graceful curves with exquisite naturalness, and entirely free from the conventional 211 restraint and geometrical symmetry which indicate the subsequent decline of art. Among the branches flit birds, and winged genii like little cupids. Another specimen of great beauty, of the second century, in the Catacomb of Prætextatus, exhibits a well drawn harvest scene, with wreaths of roses, vine, and laurel, and with birds flitting about their nests. A fresco of the Good Shepherd and an inscription attest its Christian character. The drapery and drawing of the figures in the earlier examples are also exceptionally good. Several of the Christian symbols were common also to pagan art; as the palm, the crown, the ship, and others to be hereafter mentioned. They acquired, however, under Christian treatment a profounder and nobler significance than they ever possessed before. But there are other and more striking examples of the adoption, when appropriate to Christian themes, of subjects from pagan art. Orpheus charming the wild beasts with his lyre is a frequently recurring figure in the Catacombs, and is referred to by the Christian Fathers as a type of Him who drew all men to himself by the sweet persuasive power of his divine word. The victory of Our Lord over death and hell, and probably an ancient interpretation of his preaching to the spirits in prison,[337] may have found a sort of parallel in the beautiful legend of the faithful lover seeking in the under-world the lost Eurydice bitten by a deadly serpent; while, at the sound of his wondrous harp, gloomy Dis was soothed, Ixion’s wheel stood still, Tantalus forgot his thirst, and the stone of Sisyphus hung poised in air.[338] The Orphic verses were 212 also said by the Fathers to have contained many true prophecies concerning Our Lord. These, however, like the testimony of the Sibyls, were pious forgeries of post-Christian date.