This, and another panel on the wall of the presbytery representing Solomone the martyrdom of the Maccabees (see image above), are representative of the Hellenistic tradition that revived around the time of emperor Heraclius. It is interesting to look a set of silver plates found in Cyprus in the late 19th century, the so-called David plates (see below), depicting the life of this Old Testament king. The set of dishes also dates to the early 7th century. The pose of the protagonists (in particular the ‘heroic’ pose of Goliath about to strike), the folds of the clothing, the seated Genius and the two cities facing each other on the upper panel all belong to a revival of Classical art in this period, and which we would see again in the Macedonian Renaissance of the 9th-11th centuries, and then again during the Palaeologan era and the Italian Renaissance. The impulse for such rebirth of Antiquity no doubt came from Constantinople itself, and demonstrates the vitality and dynamism of the artists of the imperial capital, as well as the prestige associated in the West with both with Classical Antiquity and the (Byzantine) Roman empire. The frescoes and the David plates are a testimony to a period of profound changes, yet at the same time that saw men looking back into the past to find new inspirations.
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