Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

35 Diplomacy and espionage 247
himself may inform him, if he wishes, through a silentiarius, that he may come,
and a silence takes place, and the arms are held up and the labaresioi stand by, and
when he comes forward the magister receives him into his schola, and he leaves
him seated and gets up, and he indicates (his arrival) to the emperor; he receives
him inside, either in the portico or in the Augusteum itself. 11 If the ambassador
has gifts of his own, he announces this a day before through the magister, in order
that they may be received, and if the emperor allows this, he shows them to the
magister in the schola, and they are recorded for him. And it is necessary [p. 409]
that the magister goes to the emperor in advance to show him the record of the
gifts. And the ambassador, if he wants them to be received, goes in and asks the
emperor, in order that he may receive his gifts. And if the emperor allows this, his
men come in, bearing his gifts, and a similar procedure takes place with regard
to the royal gifts, and a conversation takes place. It is essential that the emperor
again remembers the king of the Persians and his disposition continuously and in
a positive way, and if there is peace, they also talk about that kind of thing, and the
emperor dismisses him, and he awaits the magister outside, and the magister comes
out, bids him farewell and dismisses him himself. On the other days he sends for
him, and they discuss matters. And if he decides to do so, he allows the magister or
other magistrates together with him to talk with the ambassador outside. If there
is complete friendship between the states, the king has to send someone to visit
him continuously and to find out how he is, and also to send him food, and gifts
of friendship during our holidays and during his special days, and to entertain him
in all sorts of ways.
Numerous and wide-ranging works of literature are accredited to the Byzantine
emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905–59), who from 949
to 959 ruled as monarch. 12 The author’s aim was to acquire knowledge on
a number of different topics, to put it to paper and make it accessible for
practical purposes. His work De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae is an encyclopaedia
compiled on the basis of the records in the imperial archives; it
is tremendously important with regard to the protocol at the Byzantine
court and the administrative hierarchy of the Byzantine Empire. It is an
example of a genre that was popular during the ninth and tenth centuries,
namely the Taktika, handbooks made up of lists of Byzantine offices and
titles that were instructive if one wanted to learn about and follow royal
protocol. Obviously, these texts are also a valuable source for the modern
historian as they provide much information about the administration and
bureaucratic hierarchies of this period. The passage gives detailed instructions
concerning the arrival of a high ranking Persian diplomat and most
likely has to do with the journey of the Persian ambassador Yazdgushnasp
11 For the archaeological remains of these buildings see Bardill 1999: 216–30, esp. 227, with further
references on the role of the Augusteum in entertaining officials.
12 On the author and his work see Toynbee 1973; Sevcenko 1992: 167–95.