Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the court: the human element 151
worse. By weaving together disparate organizational strands with the thread
of kinship, the emperor could attempt to unite safely what earlier emperors
and custom had set apart. The value of reliable kinship ties across professional
divisions was obvious. For example, in 518 young Justinian was a candidatus,
one of the emperor’s personal bodyguards, in the palatine scholae
commanded by the magister officiorum, while his uncle was comes of the rival
excubitors. So Justinian was able to save one imperial candidate proposed
by his scholarii from being massacred by his uncle’s unit, and perhaps helped
to persuade some scholarii to back his uncle, who of course enjoyed his own
corps’ support. The rivalry between the two groups was in fact so intense
that some scholarii assaulted Justin. 86
Within the palace, the imperial family’s influence was consistently
rivalled by one group which was both intimately linked with them and often
kinless: the eunuch chamberlains, who staffed the imperial apartments. 87
Corippus aptly describes the essential duties of this ‘crowd of chaste men’:
they enjoyed full trust and authority within the emperor’s household,
served his table, prepared his bed and garments, and locked the emperor
and themselves in his bedroom every night. Their responsibility for access
to the imperial couple, and for carrying and keeping the imperial insignia,
created both visibility and the power that flowed from proximity. 88 The
eunuch castrensis or major-domo oversaw the lower palatine staff, whence
the latter’s collective designation as castrensiani. In this capacity he ran much
of the daily routine of the palace. Eunuchs were also influential in raising
the imperial children: Antiochus tutored Theodosius II and the pope
admonished Maurice’s sister to see that the eunuchs set a proper example
for the emperor’s children. 89
Their power reached into the highest affairs of state. Chrysaphius
arranged an assassination attempt against Attila and had a patriarch deposed.
Urbicius made the suggestion that led to his subordinate Anastasius’ imperial
election, and Amantius came close to imposing his own assistant in 518.
The schedule of bribes paid by Cyril of Alexandria furnishes a rough scale
of the value of the support of some dozen leading figures at court. Even
leaving aside the luxury goods, the grand chamberlain or praepositus sacri cubiculi
who headed the eunuch establishment leads the list with two hundred
pounds of gold. Though a second grand chamberlain – one of the two is
certainly the empress’s – received only fifty pounds, the other chamberlains
each received a hundred pounds. That is, their power was equated with that
of the magister officiorum, quaestor and praetorian prefect, who each received
the same amount. 90 But it was power of a very peculiar sort.
86 Const. Porph. De Cer. i.93. 87 Hopkins (1978) 172–96; Clauss (1984).
88 Coripp. Iust. iii.214–19; care of insignia: Claud. In Eutrop. i.417–23; Const. Porph. De Cer. i.91 and
93; Theoph. AM 6041. 89 Jones, LRE i.571; Malalas 361; Greg.Reg. vii.23.
90 ACO 1.4,pp.224–5.
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