Page 250 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

the procedure for conducting the envoys into and from the imperial pres-
ence, and particularly the observation of precedence in rank. The rank
of western palatine officials is to be equated with that of their eastern
counterparts for the purpose of their disposition in audiences; no provi-
sion is made for envoys who are not courtofficials.
The western envoys meet first with the magister officiorum, who investi-
gates the purpose of their mission; even at this initial meeting, the envoys
are to be arranged by rank. When the envoys are later summoned to
court, they are conducted by an official of equal rank (or a representa-
tive) to assemble in the schola of the magister officiorum, after which they
greetother courtofficials and change into chlamyses. 11 When the silk
curtain veiling the emperor is raised, the envoys enter the consistorium,
perform obeisance, and state their purpose to the emperor. 12 Initially,
the members of the legation form a discrete group, but after the em-
peror proclaims his acceptance of his western colleague, they disperse
among other officials attending the consistory, according to their rank.
This disposition, and the equation of rank, are visible affirmations of the
unity of the empire: officials are servants of the one imperial author-
ity, whether in Rome, Ravenna, or Constantinople. 13 On the occasion
of Leo’s recognition of Anthemius, both the current prefect of Con-
stantinople and his predecessor declaimed panegyrics on both emperors,
perhaps in their capacity as presidents of the Senate of Constantinople.
The proceedings may be recorded – presumably this is the source of Leo’s
proclamation recognising Anthemius – and the emperor may choose to
hold impromptu discussions with the envoys, though it is assumed that a
formulaic exchange will be the norm. During a later audience, the west-
ern envoys again assemble with their eastern counterparts, and receive a
donative determined by their rank. Upon their departure from the impe-
rial consistorium,the magister officiorum receives letters from the emperor,
and in turn formally presents them to the envoys for transmission to the
western augustus.
That this procedural outline concentrates on observation of precedence
in rank and on the role of each palatine official is a function of De ceremoniis

11
For the palatine officials involved in different stages of the reception of envoys and their introduc-
tion into the imperial presence: Mary Whitby, ‘On the Omission of a Ceremony in Mid-Sixth
Century Constantinople: candidati, curopalatus, silentarii, excubitores and Others’, Historia 36 (1987),
466, 468–83.
12
For the curtain (De cer. i, 87, 89 (Reiske 394, 406)) cf. Fredegar, Chron. ii, 62.
13
In the early fifth century, too, palatine officials and military commanders passed conspicuously
from the jurisdiction of one emperor to another at certain public occasions: Gillett, ‘Olympiodorus
of Thebes’, 23 n. 100 (joint imperial appointment of senior officials at the time of the dynastic
wedding of Valentinian III and Licinia Eudoxia in 437); PLRE ii, ‘Fl. Ardabur Aspar’, 166 and
Bagnall et al., Consuls LRE, 403 (the eastern general Aspar as western consul for 434).
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