This face of Christ from Dorset was made in the last century of Roman rule in Britain,which was in many ways a golden age.It was a lavish world,in which the ruling class could spend enormous sums of money,decorating their villas and putting their wealth on display in the form of spectacular tableware.In the cases around us you can see the hoards of silver vessels,spoons and even pepper pots,like the ones I talked about last week,that show a society that seems to have accommodated itself comfortably to both paganism and Christianity.The great silver dish found at Mildenhall in Suffolk shows Bacchus drunkenly cavorting with pliant nymphs,while the spoons found in the same hoard carry Christian symbols.A pagan dish with Christian spoons-that pretty well sums up Britain at this period,and it wouldn't have disconcerted anybody at the time.In Britain of the third and fourth century,Christ is merely one god among many others.