Late Antiquity Art

This fresco is from the Late Antiquity period in art history. We can see that all of the men are riding horses in this picture, and the man in the center is riding a chariot with two horses pulling him. It looks like in this instance and time in history that horses are seen as a status symbol, and the more horses you owned, the more powerful and wealthy you were perceived. The background is flat and plain. You cannot see a ground line, any trees, the sky, or any other indication of nature in this piece besides the horses. Animals are an indicator of wealth, but crops, gardening, fruit growing were viewed as an activity of the poor, so it wasn't often depicted in this period of art.