If possible there is still greater uncertainty about the second ivory, which is also of an architectural character and has lately been acquired by the Louvre authorities. It is without doubt Byzantine, and represents the conventional type of St. Paul, preaching to a distinguished and eager crowd. The relief of the ivory is very deep, and there is a certain boldness in the treatment of the mass of the crowd, also the city which towers over head, is of a very real structure and seems intended for some actual city. Comparing the round arched buildings with the types of architecture on the sixth and seventh century mosaics, Molinier and Saglio attribute this ivory to the same period, but Schlumberger cannot believe it to be more ancient than the tenth century. The deep red colour is the remnant of the purple stain, which was probably still further enriched by gilding. With few exceptions, it has been the common practice to colour ivories as well as statues, and though much at variance with our modern taste (which is founded on a mistaken appreciation of the tint of marble from which the colour has faded), it must have greatly enhanced the effect, especially in the smaller objects which enter almost into the province of _bijouterie_. In the eighth century the iconoclastic[14] troubles commenced; the movement was at first one of real reform, the charge of idolatry which had been brought against the Greek Christians by their Mahometan neighbours was not without foundation, but unfortunately the love of images was deeply rooted in the heart of the people, who transferred to these little pictures and images the same homage they had paid to their local protecting deities in pagan times. A powerful party, always a minority, gained the ear of the Emperor Leo III., the Isaurian (717-741), a man of low birth, who had raised himself to his high station by sheer merit on the field of battle, and though he has been bitterly abused by his enemies, he appears to have been quite above the average of imperial character, which, it must be confessed, did not reach an overpoweringly high level.