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the court: the human element 155
a manager of imperial estates. Simultaneously – and most revealingly – it
earned him the hatred of his Byzantine staff: his cellarer refused to supply
oil for his devotions, and his bodyguards and slaves tried to kill him. Their
grievance shows how the hostage system, beyond its geopolitical intent, was
supposed to function. Nabarnugios had been sent from Georgia to achieve
glory among the Romans but, instead of sharing in his worldly success as
their master was assimilated into court society, his Roman household was
being dragged down by his monkish desires. To escape from his gilded captivity
required the miraculous intervention of the martyrs of Sebasteia, who
guided the young man and his eunuch friend through the watch-posts that
protected the sleeping palace. 102 This story parallels our limited evidence for
the young Theoderic’s decade at the court of Leo I and suggests the roots
of the Ostrogothic king’s later emulation of imperial ways at Ravenna.
One final group added their voice to the sometimes cacophonic chorus
of court life. Although it may not have changed the structures of social
access to the emperors, Christianization helped transform the kind of
people who used them. Leaders of the institutional church clamoured for
the emperor’s ear and the bishops of Constantinople became a regular
presence at court, routinely introducing visiting prelates to the emperor, for
instance, or participating in the discussions surrounding an emperor’s election,
as well as performing the sacred functions court life demanded. 103 Not
to be left on the sidelines, the pope established a permanent ambassador
or apocrisarius to the emperor, whose inclusion among the influential figures
targeted by a Merovingian diplomatic mission reveals his perceived value in
lobbying the court. 104
Even more novel was the access granted to holy men. Through their
feats of asceticism and putative proximity to the supreme emperor in
heaven, these rugged and malodorous individuals supposedly escaped the
court’s networks of power and pressure groups, conquering a significant
position on its fringes like their prototypes on the edges of Syrian villages.
Thus Hypatius established himself near the suburban palace of Rufinianae.
Daniel the Stylite climbed a column overlooking the Bosphorus and was
soon enjoying imperial patronage. Like other Syrian holy men, Daniel arbitrated
between conflicting factions, and made predictions for courtiers and
emperors alike; his biography opens a fine window on court life. 105 The
concerted opposition of Justinian’s chief financial officials and generals
delayed his risky plan to invade Africa until an eastern holy man’s vision
supported the war. 106 We have already seen Theodora’s role in housing the
schismatic Monophysites she favoured right under her orthodox husband’s
nose in the palace of Hormisdas.
102 V. Petr. Iber. pp.25–35;cf.PLRE ii s.v. Petrus 13, Proclus 3.
103 Coll. Avell. cxvi.25; Const. Porph. De Cer. i.92. 104 Epist. Austras. xxxii.
105 Brown, Society 132–9; Callin. V. Hypatii viii.1–7. 106 Procop. Wars iii.10.18–21.
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