These gladiatorial fights ceased after the generous act of the monk Telemachus. He, after travelling to Rome from the far East with the set purpose, stept down into the arena, at the triumphal games of the Emperor Honorius (404), and tried to part the combatants. He was stoned to death by the enraged multitude; but his death was not unavailing, for his memory was respected, and these degrading exhibitions were for ever abolished.
Basilius, Consul at Constantinople, 541, was the last of the Consuls before the Emperor Justinian, impatient of the empty show of power, absorbed the office among his other titles, and from that time the Emperors always went through the form of being made Consul once on their accession. Basilius is represented on the first leaf of his diptych (No. 37) standing by the figure of Constantinople, who holds a standard on a gigantic pole. Below is a minute chariot race. On the second leaf, which has been cut, a figure of Victory holds an oval medallion portrait of the Consul. Below is an eagle with outstretched wings. These two leaves, though widely separated, were proved to be a pair by the likeness of the thin sickly face of the Consul on each leaf. This diptych varies considerably from the contemporary design, and though all idea of the real structure of the body, and of the hang of drapery from the limbs has disappeared, still it shows so much originality and clever portraiture, that Graeven, after a careful consideration of the fashion of the dress, attributes it to an earlier Consul Basilius of 480, at a time before the grouping had become so stereotyped.
The number of these carvings given away was so considerable that all were not of the same richness. There are many tablets of simpler design and rougher make, several being smaller and in camel bone (No. 43). These were, as already stated, intended for persons of lower degree.
The decoration consisted usually of a medallion, inscribed, or with the bust of the Consul, surrounded by foliated scrolls (Areobindus has left several of this latter kind among his numerous diptychs). The Barbarini leaf has a charming variation, the bust being inclosed in a garland bound with hanging ribbons (No. 41). Some are fully inscribed (No. 35), and others have only a monogram like that formed from the Greek letters of the name Areobindus (No. 12).
Justinianus, Consul at Constantinople in 541, and afterwards Emperor, has, in addition to his names, a Latin dedication framed in a circular moulding of delicate honeysuckle pattern. The diptych of Philoxenus at the Bibliothèque nationale (No. 29) is quite a new departure. Three medallions, linked by knotted cords, contain the portrait of the Consul, his name and titles in Latin, and below, a female bust, who, some think, represents his wife. She is more likely to be the personification of Constantinople, judging from the absence of the fashionable headgear, the hair being simply parted under a narrow diadem, and from the standard she grasps in her hand, which is embroidered with a garland in the same fashion as that held by Constantinople in the Basilius diptychon. The faces are well characterized and the whole workmanship is excellent, round it is an elaborate border, the spaces being filled in by a Greek verse, which runs as follows:
“I Philoxenus being Consul, offer this present to the wise Senate.”
There is a simpler diptych of this Consul at Liverpool, which bears a Greek dedication to a friend.
The most important among the anonymous consular diptychs is the fine one preserved in the Cathedral Treasury at Halberstadt (No. 38) on which the bearded Consul stands among his friends, the group being varied on each leaf. Above, in a narrow division, are two small imperial figures seated on a wide throne with the figures of Rome and Constantinople; at the back stands a Victory, as in the similar design on a coin of Theodosius I. Below, in another narrow division, are pathetic groups of captive barbarians. The inscription has been cut from the top, but the whole style points to an early date, and Meyer places it between those of Asturias and Boethius in the third quarter of the fifth century.
The tablet of Lampadius at Brescia is especially interesting for the large picture it gives of a chariot race, showing the quadrigas rushing past the spina or turning post.
The Consul, clad in the trabea sits with two companions behind the richly carved cancelli or balustrade. The only similar representation is on the magisterial diptych at Liverpool (No. 51), but the identification is very confusing. In the Brescia tablet the central trabea-clad figure and the man on his left both hold the mappa, but on that at Liverpool there is, more reasonably, only one starter, but he is on the left of the central figure, who holds a libation cup instead of the mappa, and all three figures have the same un-consular dress. Meyer points out an inscription announcing the restoration of the Flavian Amphitheatre by Caecina Felix Lampadius, in the second half of the fifth century; the inscription being in the genitive is also a sign of antiquity. But the smooth and rather too minute workmanship connect it with the best diptychs of the early sixth century, and so Molinier attributes it to Lampadius, Consul at Constantinople in 530, and the same year as our old friend Orestes ([Fig. 4]), and the smooth finish of the Lampadius tablet can be contrasted, not altogether unfavourably, with the rougher modelling of what had become by then almost a provincial school.