The state of emergency in the empire also led to a tightening up of the
administration and a change in the emperor’s role. The departments established
in the seventh century remained in operation – the logothesia, each
under the direction of a logothete – and we know about their organisation
in detail from the Taktikon Uspensky. The general (genikon) logothesion
was a sort of finance ministry, collecting taxes and distributing money.
The strati¯otikon logothesion was the department managing the army. The
logothesion of the Drome (tou dromou) managed the roads, intelligence and
diplomacy. Other departments or functions grew in importance during
this period, and there has been considerable debate as to their continuity
from Roman institutions. The sakellarios, originally a eunuch who kept
the emperor’s purse, became a key figure who, by the end of Theophilos’
reign, was the chief organiser of expenditure and had more authority
than the general logothete himself. Likewise, the office of the eidikon, a
treasury whose functions are unclear, makes its appearance in the ninth
century.103
The tightening up of the administration around the emperor enabled
him to govern more directly, especially since the offices of the logothetes
were located in the Great Palace. This immediacy of power is also a feature
of the military sphere: from the time of Heraclius, emperors had led their
armies into battle in person. This was particularly true under the Isaurians
and Leo V, who went on campaign nearly every year. This tradition of the
warrior emperor makes Irene’s reign even more anomalous: as a woman,
she could not lead the army.
In diplomatic relations with newer, neighbouring states, the emperors
continued a policy of impressing their subjects with the empire’s superiority
and prestige. Theophilos adorned the reception hall of theMagnaura with
a throne surrounded by automata of roaring lions and chirping birds in a
plane tree, which Liudprand of Cremona described in the tenth century.104
John the Grammarian’s embassy to Baghdad on behalf of Theophilos was
celebrated for its richness and splendour. The organ which Pepin the Short
received as a gift from Constantine V also contributed to the empire’s
renown amongst the Franks (see below, p. 414).
Imperial building projects had the same goal and here, too, Theophilos
was a master. He remodelled the Great Palace where, it is thought, Constantine
V had built the church of the Mother of God of the Pharos in
the previous century;105 of the many buildings added by Theophilos, the
best-known are the Triconch of the Sigma and the Sigma itself. Across the
Bosporus Theophilos constructed the Palace of Bryas, which has yet to be
identified with certainty, and he adorned St Sophia with the bronze doors
that are still in place.106
This restructuring of the emperor’s image went hand in hand with the
reinforcement of dynastic rule. From Heraclius on, rulers crowned their
eldest sons as co-emperors, although the form of coronation sometimes
varied. In 776 Leo IV added to the ceremony an oath of loyalty to both
emperors, which civilian and military officials, as well as notables, had to
swear; this vow not to accept any emperor other than Leo’s newly crowned
son Constantine was signed by all and deposited in St Sophia.107 The gold
coinage gives an excellent example of the insistence on dynastic rule under
the iconoclast emperors, for on their coins both the Isaurians and Theophilos
showed images not only of their descendants, sometimes including
their daughters, but also of their ancestors. So Constantine VI’s father,
grandfather and great-grandfather are all squeezed in on the reverse of his
nomisma.108 In this as in other areas, Irene is an exception; she was the only
sovereign in the history of the empire to put her bust on both sides of the
nomisma.
The Isaurians appear to have done most to boost the dynastic aspect of the
imperial office. Indeed, it was Constantine V who created the legitimising
concept of porphyrogenitus for his son Leo; being born-in-the-Porphyra –
the chamber in the imperial palace covered with red marble – would become
a prerequisite for the Macedonian emperors.109 At the Easter ceremonies
in 769, Constantine V made official the hierarchy of court titles given to
members of the imperial family: his sons were given the titles of caesar and
nobelissimos, as recorded in the Book of ceremonies.110 Indeed the emperor’s
reception for the poor – given on the eighth day after Christmas in the
Hall of the Nineteen Couches – should be dated to Constantine’s period
of rule, since a token of a ‘pauper of the Nineteen Couches’ dating from
his reign has been found.
World History
