The pose of the figures is somewhat uneasy, and contrasts unfavourably with the grace of the Bacchantes on the beautiful private diptych, part in the Musée de Cluny, and part in the Victoria and Albert Museum (No. 58), which probably formed the cover of a marriage contract between the families of the Nicomachi and the Symmachi. These tablets, though nearly of the same date, adhere closely to some Greek model, and though gaining much in beauty, lose in originality.
Camille Jullian in an interesting article[2] points out how in the midst of thoroughly Roman surroundings, it is only the energetic face of Stilicho which is not Roman in type and betrays his barbarian origin.
The short tunic worn by Stilicho is embroidered all over with pictures of his wife and son, his long chlamys having only portraits of the boy. It was a popular custom at this period to have the portraits of near relations embroidered on State garments, especially pictures of children. The poet Claudian in his panegyric on Stilicho, alludes to scenes from the lives of Eucherius and his little sisters being embroidered on the robe of their father. More often the portrait was on a square of stuff, or segment, which was let into the front of the garment (see Fig. 5).
The first diptych of certain date is that of Probus, Consul at Rome, 406, No. 2 (Fig. 3), and probably intended as a gift for the Emperor Honorius, who is depicted thereon as a figure of heavy proportions, borrowed from the common type of imperial statue. The head is evidently a portrait, as even at the most decadent period there was always a striving, even if an unsuccessful one, after portraiture and naturalism.
It is interesting to note the nimbus round the head of Honorius. In heathen times the nimbus was given to the immortals[3] and to images of the deified emperors. Christian art adopted it, but not invariably, and it appears to have been regarded more as an attribute of power than saintliness. Though Christ and his disciples and the Old Testament[4] heroes received it, it also encircled the heads of the great people of this world. We find it on the celebrated Justinian mosaics at S. Vitale in Ravenna, and on the medals of Justinian, and as late as the eleventh century on the plaque of the Emperor and Empress, Romanus and Eudoxia, in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris (Fig. 20).