or Goths. Victory is absent on this relief, but she is well represented on the lost base of the column of Arcadius and on the lost base traditionally attributed to the column of Constantine – in both cases Victory is in a central position, as a sort of intermediary between the defeated barbarians and the figure of the emperor, situated below. Upper panel The upper panel of the ivory is occupied by two angels bearing an imago clipeata, a large medallion bearing a bust of a young and beardless Christ, holding a cruciform sceptre in his left hand and making a traditional sign of benediction with his right (the ring-finger held over the thumb). The bust is framed by symbols of the sun to the left and of the moon and a star to the right. The pair of angels bearing an image of Christ here replaces the earlier image of two winged Victories bearing a personification of Constantinople to be found on the second panel of the previously-mentioned imperial diptych at Milan – the substitution is far from insignificant and implies a paradigm shift vital to the dating and understanding of the Barberini ivory. Kitzinger notes that the angel on the left echoes the emperor's turned head, and says "Christ makes his appearance in heaven at the moment in which the emperor stages his triumphal adventus on earth. It is a graphic depiction of the harmony between heavenly and earthly rule." Identification of the emperor The question of the identity of the emperor represented on the central panel is the central problem to have occupied commentators on the Barberini ivory – its first modern owner, Peiresc, recognised him without hesitation as Heraclius and identified the officer offering the statuette of Victory as his son Constantine III. Later identifications of the central figure have also included Constantine I, Constantius II, Zeno and above all Anastasius I or Justinian. The identification is complicated by the fact that the emperor shown is not necessarily the reigning emperor at the date when the ivory was produced. Thus the dating of the ivory is undeniably a useful indication in identifying the emperor but it is not conclusive in that regard. Anastasius From a stylistic point of view, the high-relief sculpture of the central panel is comparable to two other ivory panels dating to the start of the 6th century, each representing an empress –