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the physical context of power 141
have had a distinctive design. 31 Justin II added an octagonal and domed
Chrysotriklinos or Golden Banquet Hall. To judge from banqueting
arrangements from later centuries, this magnificent structure seated only
102 guests and so catered to particularly select gatherings. 32
Churches inside the palace met the imperial family’s normal religious
needs. The oldest, the Kyrios or Church of the Lord, lay in the Constantinian
part of the palace. The empress Pulcheria added the church of St Stephen
to house the relics of the first martyr. As already noted, Justinian built two
churches in connection with the Hormisdas palace. 33 The seclusion of the
imperial chambers or cubiculum was nearly complete: curiosity about their
appearance consumed even a prominent general and consul, and he incurred
the emperor’s wrath in finding out. 34 Normally, only court eunuchs, domestic
servants and the occasional doctor or privileged holy man might set foot
there. The empress occupied separate quarters that expressed physically the
segregation of men and women. Her chambers admitted privileged visitors,
perhaps because they functioned as her main reception space. 35 Who resided
in the palace beyond the imperial family, their domestic servants and the
security forces is an open question. The imperial family might well span generations:
Zeno’s mother-in-law, the dowager empress Verina, certainly continued
to live within the palace, as did, apparently, his mother, Lallis. 36 Unable
to dislodge his predecessor’s widow, Tiberius expanded the northern part of
the palace for his own family. 37 Foreign hostages also lived there, and
Theodora supposedly sheltered five hundred Monophysites in the palace of
Hormisdas. If they indeed occupied ‘every chamber and room’ and had to
subdivide larger rooms to fit, then this secondary palace normally housed far
fewer people. 38 Each high-ranking resident of the palace apparently constituted
a kind of organizational cell, since he lived with his own personal
domestic staff, including slaves, bodyguards and a cellarer, which in turn suggests
separate arrangements for food storage. 39
The infrastructure which supported the imperial household included
stables and baths. The sixth-century palace’s multiple cisterns made good
sense, given the city’s perennial problems of water supply, while Justinian’s
experience of the Nika revolt encouraged greater self-sufficiency for the
palace, which was now furnished with granaries and bakeries. 40 Nothing is
known about kitchens, workshops, storerooms, or sanitary installations.
The emperor’s duties exposed him to his people in the Hippodrome,
where he watched the races and patriotic displays from the kathisma, or
31 Oikonomides (1972) 164 n. 136; cf. Krautheimer (1966).
32 Oikonomides (1972) 196 n. 209; Deichmann (1976–89) iii.2.53, 64–9.
33 Mathews (1974) and Mathews (1971) 48–50; also Mango (1975). 34 Priscus fr. 63.
35 Marc. Diac. V. Porph. xlv; cf. Procop. Secret History 15.27.
36 Chron. Pasch. s.a. 477; John Ant. fr. 94 (Exc. de Insid. De Boor). 37 John Eph. HE iii.3.23.
38 V. Petr. Iber. pp.24 and 28–9; John Eph. V.SS.Or. xlvii. 39 V. Petr. Iber. pp.25 and 27.
40 John Eph. HE iii.3.23; Janin (1964) 211; Chron. Pasch. s.a. 532.
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