Wilpert,[6] however, declares that Nos. 3 and 4 are one long piece equal to the ancient toga: without which, by a decree of 382, the Senators were forbidden to appear in public, and which by more and more folding was reduced into the narrow Byzantine lorum. The feet were covered with red leather shoes, fastened by crossed ribbons with falling ends.
The Consul holds in his right hand the mappa circensis and in his left the scipio or sceptre. These sceptres are crowned by many devices—an eagle, busts of the imperial family and even two sitting figures.
As in the diptych of Orestes, there are often two female personifications of Rome and Constantinople; the former, on the Consul’s right hand, holds a tessera in her right and a spear in her left hand. Her helmet has three crests, while that of Constantinople only one. The latter holds up her right hand and bears a shield or standard in the left. These cities are sometimes represented in little medallions on the Consul’s chair (No. 17).
Very often above the head of the central figure were medallions with the portraits of imperial personages, or, perhaps, renowned ancestors. These niches were designed in imitation of those wooden shrines in which Roman households kept the waxen busts of their ancestors. Sometimes these diptychs were finished with a cross, and some have a medallion with the bust of Christ (No. 36).
The upper part was inscribed with the name and titles of the Consul, the last name always denominating the year.
Some early tablets have the name in the genitive, always a sign of antiquity, as Nicomachorum and Symmachorum (No. 58), Felicis (No. 3), Lampadorium (No. 33), and the plain tablets bearing the name Gallieni Concessi V.C.
V. Inl. or Vir Inlustris, V. C. or Vir Clarissimus, and even Patric. or Patrician, were personal titles and not hereditary. They denoted that the bearer had held high office. We also find Præfectus, and Comes domesticorum equites, or commander of the imperial bodyguard. To be called Vir spectabilis, or a respectable man, was then esteemed a high honour, while in our degenerate days it is almost considered an insult. But Cons. ordin. or Consul ordinarius was the real dignity, and with one exception always stood last.
In the lower division of the Orestes tablet, two servants pour money from sacks, doubtless commemorating the Consul’s largesse to the people. In some diptychs they scatter prizes for the Games, and often there are lively representations of the chariot races (No. 33), and the fights with wild beasts. Areobindus has left us the most varied pictures. A row of spectators look on at the struggling gladiators (No. 9), or Bestiarii fighting with all sorts of wild beasts, lions and bears (No. 7), a bull-fight (No. 10), and on an anonymous diptych at Liverpool (No. 51), five magnificent elans are being attacked by hunters.
The fights do not appear to have been very dangerous for the men; the scenes are often quite comic from the numerous precautions taken, especially on the Basilewsky tablet at St. Petersburg (No. 52). The fighters, carefully packed in leather protectors, bolt through doors with peep-holes, or climb into a sort of crow’s-nest, curling up their ferocious opponents at the end of extremely long spears. In fact there was every means of escape, trap-doors, turnstile exits, and even dummy figures to divert the attention of the animals. Perhaps it was necessary, for we read of Pompey providing six hundred lions for a single show, and of Trajan celebrating his Dacian victories by the slaughter of eleven thousand beasts. If these little precautions had not been taken, the entertainment might have ended abruptly, and more in favour of the lower animals than the lords of creation.
The fights of the gladiators represented on the Besançon tablet must have been more exhibitions of skill than struggles to the death.