A particular form of amusement among the Byzantines is the installation of a Consul every year on the Calends of January in imitation of the old republican function at Rome. The person nominated assumes a gorgeous robe decorated with purple stripes and gold embroidery,[1] grasps a sceptre surmounted with a figure of Victory,[2] and proceeds in state to the Hippodrome, where he displays his authority by manumitting a number of slaves specially provided for the purpose.[3] He presides at the games from the Kathisma, and for the moment, if not the Emperor himself, as frequently happens, the pretence is made of regarding him as the sovereign of the Empire.[4] The year is legally distinguished by his name and that of his colleague of the West,[5] a series of public spectacles are exhibited for seven days,[6] he scatters
- [Footnote: consort; or, perhaps, of her own union with Martian, at first a private
soldier.]
- ↑ Called trabea or toga palmata; Claudian, Cons. Olyb. et Prob., 178; Cassiodorus, Var. Ep., vi, 1.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ammianus, xxii, 7. Julian, when at CP., in his enthusiasm for democratic institutions, followed the consul on foot, but, forgetting himself, he performed the act of emancipation, an inadvertence for which he at once fined himself 10 lb. of gold (£400).
- ↑ Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 25; Jn. Lydus, De Magistr., ii, 8, etc.
- ↑ Even under the barbarian kings in Italy, Odovacar the Herule and Theodoric the Goth, a consul was appointed annually at Rome in accordance with the arrangement made when Constantine decreed that the metropolitan honours should be divided between the old and the new capital.
- ↑ Nov. cv, 1, where they are enumerated. The regular cost of the display was 2,000 lb. of gold (£80,000), which, with the exception of a small amount by the consul himself, came from the Imperial treasury; Procopius, Anecdot., 26; cf. Jn. Lydus, loc. cit. Hence it appears that even the consulship need not be held by a millionaire; see p. 100.
