Within the 500 years of history from the introduction of Christian art around 200 CE until the ban on religious images in eighth century Byzantium,a continuity between the classical religious tradition and Christianity is evident. Syncretism, or the assimilation of images from other traditions, defined the Late Antique period's aesthetic transition into the first three centuries of Byzantine art creating a bridge between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In late Rome, amidst a growing trend toward abstraction, classical forms and values were yielding to a symbolic realism in imperial secular art, setting the stage for later a