rites by which they celebrate themselves, they exhibit divine feasts, they go to war, they act in the camps, they return to the city triumphing, and they tread upon the vanquished necks of kings; they dispense A stipends to the soldiers, they instruct and equip fleets, they admit the envoys of foreign princes, they themselves send out their own, they unfold all their pomp and luxury, they depart at last amid the passing of need, to the majority, and are brought into their monuments. You may perambulate with this very book as your guide those sepulchral monuments of theirs, and examine the urn of each one with its inscribed names, in which there are some things which you would seek in vain in Du Cange’s *Byzantine Families*. You may penetrate also with this same guide into the very storehouses of the precious and significant objects of the Oriental Empire, and examine the wardrobe chests and other furniture. Better here, than anywhere else, can you see the ranks of the nobles, whether palatine or military, as well as those of the urban magistrates and others of lower standing, and, in the long porticoes, the numerous and varied swarms of the sacred guard stationed on duty. B I omit the rest, since it is abundantly clear from what has been said above that there is such variety, charm, and dignity in the matters exposed in this work that it will turn the studies of learned men toward itself and exercise them. It will please one, if I am not mistaken, to illustrate the department of the wardrobe, another the monetary matters, and another the duties of the imperial house. For although those things which were in use in the time of our Leo and Constantine differ from the earlier times of Theodosius and Justinian as much as the subsequent age of the Comneni and Palaeologi and the final era of the Byzantine realm differs from the age of our Porphyrogenneti, which is evident to anyone comparing Codinus with this work; yet those old times of the flourishing Roman empire and the Byzantine beginnings can be illustrated far more by this work than this work can be by Codinus.
There will, furthermore, be some who, from the tables of doles, or the annual stipends owed to palatine offices and others; and also from the tables of expenditures on certain maritime expeditions undertaken against the Cretan Saracens, will estimate the military capacity of the Byzantine empire, as it was then—both terrestrial and maritime forces—as well as the financial, and by setting up a calculation of Greek centenaria and pounds of gold against our own money, will discover how the opulence of the Byzantine kings and our own differs. There will be others who will pluck from here certain singular chapters for discussion; for example, what the constitution of the circus games was among the Byzantines, a matter most obscure; and, what is no less important, what was the state or the retinue of the Augustae of Byzantium; whether those emperors were anointed after the example of the Latins; how long the Latin language prevailed in C the Constantinopolitan court, and whether those orations uttered by the recently proclaimed emperors from the tribunal or the circus to the soldiers, which are read from page 239 of our edition, were recited in Greek in the same words, or whether they were first dictated in Latin and then turned into the Greek tongue by Peter the Patrician; which, to me indeed, seems probable. D
It fits. I seem to myself, by publishing this, to have published a particle of a work much desired, but long ago held for lost. That our Constantine expended diligent labor in collecting and digesting into certain titles the wisdom and memorable passages of the ancients, no one is ignorant. There were once fifty-three of those titles. To us, however, there have come down only the twenty-seventh title, concerning embassies, complete, through the work of Fulvius Ursinus and David Hoeschel; and a particle of the fiftieth title, the inscription of which is concerning the probity and depravity of character, or of virtues and vices, by the kindness of Peiresc and Henry Valois. The remaining titles, so great in number, but also most useful, are believed to have perished by an irreparable loss of the work. But what if I were to contend that, with this volume that I am now editing, I am placing into the hands of learned men the first title of the aforementioned work, if not entire, yet at least a great part of it? He treated long ago *περὶ βασιλέων ἀναγορεύσεως*, concerning the proclamation of emperors and kings, as appears from Fabricius, *Bibl. Graec.*, vol. VI, page 492. And yet the chapters of this volume XCI and those following, from page 238 to page 251, not only relate in general clearly the ceremonies by which, in the first age of Constantinople, emperors were accustomed to be proclaimed there, but also specifically follow through on the proclamations of Leo the Great, Leo the Younger, Anastasius Dicorus, Justin the Elder, and Justinian the Great so lucidly that nothing more could be desired, and they light a brilliant lamp for that part of history. I, indeed, do not believe that there exists anywhere a place in ancient monuments that sets forth the rites of proclaiming Augusti, those old and merely Roman ones, as splendidly as this particle of our work, of which I am now speaking. Everything breathes of its antiquity: the orations to the most brave armies, the *Augustatica* promises, the acclamations of the soldiers and the crowds. Whoever compares these with the authors of the *Historia Augusta*, as they are commonly called, will not be able to contemplate the image of ancient Rome in the new without pleasure. Whatever, then, may be the case regarding my conjecture, whether the particle of which I speak formerly belonged to the first title of that vast and celebrated—if I may say so—Constantinian library, or "Pentekontateuchos," or whether it did not: I, for my part, do not doubt that it was plucked from another ancient, distinguished book, whose loss those who are studious of antiquities bear most grievously; namely, from the books of Peter the Patrician, a most illustrious man, who was Master of the Offices under Justinian the Great, and who was subsequently an envoy to the kings of the Goths in Italy and also to Chosroes of the Persians, which Suidas praises, *Concerning the Constitution of Civil Government*. Procopius makes mention of the man frequently, as does Cassiodorus. Nor is his name unknown in Byzantine history, from the title of the Constantinian excerpts concerning embassies, which I mentioned above. There exist in that title certain fragments of his, no
CATHOLIC CHURCH. TENTH CENTURY. YEAR 959. C THE WRITINGS OF THE MOST WISE LORD AND EMPEROR CONSTANTINE PORPHYROGENITUS, ALL THAT COULD BE FOUND; THERE ARE ADDED: THE GOLDEN BULL OF THE EMPEROR ROMANUS THE YOUNGER FOR THE XEROPOTAMOU MONASTERY ON MOUNT ATHOS; FIVE DISCOURSES BY THEODOSIUS THE DEACON ON THE CONQUEST OF CRETE; THE ACTS OF SAINT NICON THE ARMENIAN MONK, WRITTEN BY THE ABBOT OF THE MONASTERY OF SAINT NICON IN THE YEAR 1150. EDITED BY J.-P. MIGNE, OF THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSAL CLERGY, OR THE JADELPHIA SCHOOL, IN THE COMPLETE COURSE OF ALL INDIVIDUAL BRANCHES OF ECCLESIASTICAL SCIENCE: PUBLISHER. D FIRST VOLUME. PARIS, AT GARNIER BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, AND SUCCESSORS OF J.-P. MIGNE, IN THE STREET CALLED AVENUE DU MAINE, 208. 1897.
TRADITION
A less than of later date than the age of Julian. But in our codex, chapter 87, book 1, page 229, not only is the embassy of Theudas, the Gothic king in Spain, to Justinian mentioned as if in passing, but in the same place the embassy of Anthemius to Leo the Great, which is also memorably described in its own right, is set forth, by which the Emperor of the West sent his laurel-crowned images and letters to the East. In general, all those matters which are read from page 225, chapter 84, up to page 251, chapter 96, as well as the last chapter of the first book, and perhaps many other things besides, I believe to be by Peter the Patrician, extracted from that lost book of his, as I said, *On the Constitution* (Περὶ καταστάσεως). The term *katastasis*, or constitution, promises not only precepts for the wise administration of the republic, but also an exposition of the rites by which civil business is conducted, and thus it pertains to the old B tactical or ceremonial books, about which we shall speak in the commentaries. The same dignitary, Peter - who held the position of Master of the Sacred Offices, to whose office and arrangement the master of ceremonies also belonged - likewise promises the same. Thus, this great fragment of Peter the Patrician shines in this first volume of this work like a little gem. But in the second, which, God willing, I shall prepare as soon as possible, among other excellent things, there will shine forth a long and distinguished book by a certain Philotheos, protospatharios and royal artoklines, in which he follows not only the order of divine banquets fully and distinctly, as nothing else could, but also, as pertains to his argument, the names and rights of precedence of dignities, both palatine and military, and [Ed. L. V.] urban as well, from the highest to the lowest, and likewise what are the axioms, or di- C gnities, what offices, with what rewards or insignias they are conferred, and also in what order and on what days one is invited to the sacred table, sits there, and is again dismissed, he reviews. Moreover, both volumes contain other monuments, from which Du Cange's *Byzantine Families* can be augmented, his *Christ-bearing Constantinople* corrected, the gaps of certain Byzantine historians filled, and certain chronological moments rightly established. To this pertain the narratives concerning the triumphs of Theophilus and Basil the Macedonian, in the appendix of the first book; likewise concerning the expedition of Himerius against the Cretan Saracens under Leo, called the Wise; and further, concerning the embassy of Romanus Lecapenus to Hugh, king of Italy, and the gifts sent to him for that purpose with the protospatharios Paschalius, so that he might bring the rebellious Longobardi, Landulf and Athenulf, brothers, and another pair of brothers, Gaimarius and Gaiferius, those petty-kings of Capua and Benevento and Salerno, into order. There also shines in this first volume chapter 96, page 253, the carefully published and as it were daily narrative of the sedition that arose in the royal city in the year of Christ 963 after the death of the younger Romanus, through which Nicephorus Phocas came to power in the empire. Although Cedrenus also narrated this matter in no perfunctory way, nevertheless, compared to the diligence, skill, and D trustworthiness of the man from whom that ninety-sixth chapter originated, it does not hold up. It is evident that the writer was present at the events as they were taking place. Those who love oriental history will find mentioned in the second volume a certain Dilemitic, Emir of Amida, a man and orator of Abu Chamdan sent to our Constantine. Whether this Abu Chamdan (for so he is called, according to the custom of those times, though not quite correctly, for Ibn Chamdan) was Naseroddaulah or his brother Saifoddaulah, both of them powerful princes throughout Syria and Mesopotamia and famous in oriental history, I shall inquire in the commentaries. Not to mention the lighter things, in the second book, among other inscriptions of letters sent by the Byzantines to other kings and masters of lands, there appear also inscriptions of letters, or [aurearum] bullae, as they called them, to the Protosymbulus of the Agarenes, who is the Bagdad Caliph, and likewise to the Lord of India (which inscription strikes me as indeed very strange: for I do not see what business the Byzantine emperors, our Constantine at least, had in common with the king of India, that is, of Arabia Felix, as I indeed believe): there appear in the same place localities of letter-inscriptions to the obscure petty-kings of Iberia, Albania, and Abasgia; whence an addition to the geographical knowledge of the tract verging toward Asiatic Scythia is made. Also mentioned are some Bulgarian princes, whom I have hitherto sought in vain in every history. I am likewise still searching, as to who they were and by whom those Spanish envoys were sent to our Constantine, of whom mention is made in the second book. Also known is that small piece which narrates with what retinue that famous Archontissa or Duchess of the Rus, Elga, or Olga, as others call them, came to CPl, and with what honors and gifts the Augustus of ours and his retinue treated her, in what chamber Constantine and his son Romanus, and in turn Helena Augusta and her daughter-in-law, received her, and for conversation, or also for banquets, and on what days they admitted her, and when they ordered her to stand before the Augusti, when to sit. Finally, what shall I say of the site and appearance of the city of Constantinople, or, as they call it, the topography, such as it was in that age, which is understood in many respects more correctly from this book than from Du Cange's *Christ-bearing Constantinople*, a book otherwise excellent and most useful, by a man most learned and most practiced in the history of the Middle Ages, especially Byzantine; yet some things nonetheless clung to that book which you would prefer to be absent, for which every fair person will easily grant pardon to a man so deserving of these letters. To this pertains, that I may briefly touch upon it, the fact that he placed the palace of Magnaura, in which the envoys were accustomed to be received and heard, in the extreme western part of the city, while it was part of the great palace situated at the Stenon, in which the emperors ordinarily lived. In this also, Ban- [Ed. L. VI] durius was mistaken, in that he places that famous "Golden Gate," so called, in the middle of the walls on the land, or western, side of the city. But it was so situated toward the bay of the Propontis that it could be approached by ships. I pass over other things, which grace and favo-
TENTH CENTURY. YEAR 950. INDEX OF AUTHORS AND WORKS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME CXII. CONSTANTINE PORPHYROGENITUS. Preface of the Editors of the Patrologia. col. 9. J. A. Fabricius’ Notice on the Writers of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. 11. ON THE CEREMONIES OF THE BYZANTINE COURT, two books, from the edition of Johann Jakob Reiske, with his Commentaries. 33. J. J. Reiske’s Preface. 33. Johann Heinrich Leich’s Dissertation on the Life and Deeds of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. 45. Of the Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court, book one. 71. Of the same Ceremonies, book two. 965.