It is part of a stock of popular imagery that survived into medieval times. The visual representation of a fighter doing battle with a serpent or dragon employs a traditional and enduring iconographical formula of some antiquity and wide diffusion throughout the Near Eastern world. Conclusive evidence points to the fact that the iconographic semantics of the medieval Western Asian equestrian dragon-fighter in its heroic as well as saintly incarnation owe much to ancient prototypes that germinated in the syncretistic melting pot of the great Near Eastern religions.
Close parallels in iconography between the Iranian and the Judaeo-Christian traditions expressing the fundamental juxtaposition between victor and vanquished, and the latter often characterised by ophidian features, may in large part be due to the influence of Iranian dualistic notions, and specifically Zoroastrian eschatological thought systems. Representations of a triumphal rider trampling or slaying a fallen enemy are frequent in antiquity but acquire a moral significance only under the emperor Constantine in the early fourth century – a century later than analogous imagery on the investiture relief of Ardashīr I (r. Images of dragon-slaying by Eastern Christian warrior saints allegorise the overthrow of evil forces, a topos that appears first on the eastern confines of the Byzantine Empire in Transcaucasia.
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