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The floor was mostly made of local Dorset materials-black, red and yellowish stones, all of them set in that greatest of Roman building inventions, cement. As you went into the room, the first thing you'd have seen on the floor was a roundel, with the mythical hero Bellerophon riding the flying horse Pegasus and overcoming the Chimaera, a monster combining a lion, a goat and a serpent.It was a popular image in the Roman world, the hero zapping the forces of evil. But at the far end of the room, facing in the other direction, was another roundel. In earlier times in this sort of position you'd have expected to find either Orpheus, charming the world with his music, or the universally popular wine god Bacchus. But here we find Christ.
地板幾乎全用多塞特本地材料制成。黑色、紅色、黃色的小石塊靠羅馬的偉大發明一水泥黏合在了一起。進入房間后，首先映入你眼簾的是地板上的一個圓形裝飾圖案。神話中的英雄柏勒洛豐騎著會飛的天馬珀伽索斯，戰勝了長著獅頭羊身龍尾的怪獸喀邁拉。英雄戰勝邪惡是羅馬世界中常見的圖像，比如我們在沙普爾二世銀盤中看到的。但在房間的另一端，還有一個沖著相反方向的圓形圖案。在早年，這里通常會是靠音樂征服世界的俄耳甫斯，或是廣受歡迎的酒神巴克科斯。但這里出現的卻是基督。
The pairing of Christ with Bellerophon is not as incongruous as it might initially seem to us.Here's historian Eamon Duffy:
在三世紀至四世紀的英國，基督只是人們信仰的眾多神祇之一。基督與巴克科斯的組合在當時并不像今天這么突兀。歷史學家伊艾門達夫教授向我們解釋基督如何被納入諸神：
"I think, as a historian, what impresses me about it is the juxtaposition of powerful imagery from pagan mythology-the whole story of Bellerophon, Pegasus, the Chimaera-and the way in which Christianity adapts that material for its own purposes to convey the message of resurrection, of the triumph of life over death. And the implicit comparison of Christ's work on the cross to a hero slaying a monster;that paradox that the defeat of the founder of Christianity is actually a heroic victory.
我覺得這幅基督像不算太好看，瞧那肥下巴！令我感興趣的是將基督與異教神話中的柏勒洛豐、珀伽索斯和喀邁拉并列擺放的做法。基督徒用這些材料表現耶穌復活的信息，表現生命戰勝死亡， 并把基督被釘在十字架上與英雄殺死怪獸進行比較。這很有意思，認為這位基督教創始人的失敗實際上是一種英雄式的勝利…
