On the Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court

a portion of the fiftieth referring to a lost or larger collection of works attributed to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, whose title concerns the probity and depravity of character, or of virtues and vices, thanks to the efforts of Peirescius Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, 17th-century scholar and Henrici Valesii Henri de Valois, 17th-century historian. The remaining titles of such a large, yet most useful, work are believed to have perished in an irreparable loss. But what if I were to contend that, with this volume I am now publishing, I am placing into the hands of learned men the first title of the aforementioned work, if not complete, then at least a great part of it? He once treated περὶ βασιλέων ἀναγορεύσεως concerning the proclamation of Emperors, de Imperatorum regumque renuntiatione concerning the renunciation (proclamation) of Emperors and kings, as is evident from Fabricii Johann Albert Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. Tom. VI. pag. 492. And yet, chapters 91 and following of this volume, from page 238 to page 251, not only convey in general the distinct ceremonies by which Emperors were accustomed to be proclaimed in the early age of CPleos Constantinople, but also, in particular, they describe the proclamations of Leo the Great, Leo the Less, Anastasius Dicorus, Justin the Elder, and Justinian the Great so clearly that nothing more could be desired, and they ignite a brilliant light for that part of history. I, for one, do not believe there exists anywhere a place in ancient monuments that explains the rites of proclaiming the Augusti, namely those old and purely Roman ones, as splendidly as the portion of our work of which I am now speaking. Everything about it breathes antiquity: speeches to the most valiant armies, Augustatic promises, and the acclamations of soldiers and the populace. Whoever compares these things with the writers of the so-called historia augusta Augustan History will not be able, without pleasure, to contemplate the image of old Rome in the new. Whatever may be the case regarding my conjecture, whether that portion of which I speak once belonged to the first title of that huge and celebrated Constantinian Library, or, if you prefer, the Pentecontateuchus a collection of fifty books, or not; I, for my part, do not doubt that it was culled from another ancient and distinguished book, the loss of which scholars of antiquity bear very heavily. I mean the books of Petri Magistri Peter the Patrician, 6th-century diplomat, a most illustrious man, Master of the Sacred Offices under Justinian the Great, and subsequently an ambassador to the kings of the Goths in Italy and to Chosroes of the Persians, which Suidas the Byzantine lexicographer praises as περὶ πολιτικῆς καταστάσεως concerning the constitution of civil government. Procopius mentions the man quite often, as does Cassiodorus. Nor