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CHAPTER 6
EMPEROR AND COURT
michael mccormick
The figure of the late Roman emperor dominated his society as few rulers
before or since. To convey what it would be like to die and meet God, a
contemporary evoked the emperor emerging from his palace, and an age
obsessed with religion constantly linked emperor and God: ‘God needs
nothing; the emperor needs only God.’ The emperor’s body was human,
but his imperial power made him ‘like God’. Yet the all-powerful ‘Master
of Earth and Sea and Every People’ never appeared alone: he was always
accompanied by others, who bathed in the reflected glory of his splendour.
Onlookers envied the luck of his closest attendants and companions,
despite the realization that exalted rank at court was precarious. 1
The concept of court conveniently encapsulates the convergence of
people and structures at the pinnacle of late Roman society around this
awesome figure. The remarkable social group surrounding the emperor
encompassed but transcended the chief institutions of government and
now assumed more elaborate forms. The recent and definitive establishment
of imperial residences in the new capitals of Constantinople and
Ravenna helped precipitate this change. A travelling monarchy yielded permanently
to a sedentary one, and stable palace milieux began to drive roots
into capital cities. This occurred in both halves of the empire and affected
all other developments, although the evidence is much richer for the
eastern empire.
Obvious components like the government and kinship ties constituted
and shaped this milieu. Broader social factors were at work, too: friendship,
shared religious enthusiasms and hostilities, gender, common ethnicity and
professional experiences bound together and distinguished elements
within the court. On a linguistic level, the eastern court formed an enclave
of Latin or Latin–Greek bilingualism in a polyglot but Hellenized city:
though Greek ultimately prevailed, court jargon remained studded with
Latin loan words. The uniforms and insignia of government service visually
assigned to courtiers their social and institutional rank. The laws, too,
1 John Chrys. Ad Theod. laps. i, xi and xii; Agapetus, Capitula admonitoria lxiii and xxi; ACO 2.1.
p. 417.
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