[208] The conception of the sanctity of the Emperor’s person, which originated in the adulation of the proconsuls of the eastern provinces by the Orientals and in the subservience of the Senate to Augustus, attained its height under Diocletian (c. 300), who first introduced at Court the Oriental forms of adoration and prostration (Eutropius, ix, etc.). It was probably even increased under the Christian emperors, and Theodosius I was enabled to promulgate a law that merely to doubt the correctness of the Emperor’s opinion or judgement constituted a sacrilege (Cod., IX, xxix, 3, etc.).
[209] Cod. Theod., VI, viii; Cod., XII, v.
[210] Theophanes, Cont., iv, 35; cf. Symeon, Mag., p. 681, where the invention is ascribed to Bp. Leo of Thessalonica under Theophilus. The stations by which an inroad of the Saracens was reported c. 800 are here given. Its use for signalling at this date cannot be asserted definitely, but it was a relic of old Byzantium erected as a nautical light-house; Ammianus, xxii, 8.
[211] Codin., p. 81; the particular area to which this name was applied seems to have been a polo ground; Theoph., Cont., v, 86, and Reiske’s note to Const. Porph., ii, p. 362. It was encompassed by flower gardens.
[212] Marrast has given us his notion of these gardens at some length: “Entre des haies de phyllyrea taillées de façon de figurer des lettres grecques et orientales, des sentiers dallés de marbre aboutissaient à un phialée entourée de douze dragons de bronze.... Une eau parfumée en jaillissait et ruisselait par dessus les branches des palmiers et des cedres dorés jusqu’à hauteur d’homme. Des paons de la Chine, des faisans et des ibis, volaient en liberté dans les arbres ou s’abattaient sur le sol, semé d’un sable d’or apporté d’Asie à grands frais.” La vie byzantine au VIe siècle, Paris, 1881, p. 67.
[213] Labarte gives these walls, towers, etc. Doubtless the palace was well protected from the first, but did not assume the appearance of an actual fortress till the tenth century under Nicephorus Phocas; Leo Diac., iv, 6.
[214] Codin., p. 95 (?); Const. Porph., i, 21, etc. Probably a structure like the elevated portico at Antioch mentioned by Theodoret, iv, 26.
[215] Luitprand, Antapodosis, i, 6. A legend of a later age, no doubt, which may be quietly interred with Constantine’s gift to Pope Sylvester. We hear nothing of it in connection with Arcadius, Theodosius II, etc., and it is only foreshadowed in 797 by a late writer (Cedrenus, ii, p. 27), who would assume anything. The epithet became fashionable in the tenth century. One writer thinks the name arose from a ceremonial gift of purple robes to the wives of the court dignitaries at the beginning of each winter by the empress; Theoph., Cont., iii, 44.
[216] Anna Comn., vii, 2.
[217] The archaeological student may refer to the elaborate reconstructions by Labarte and Paspates of the palace as it existed in the tenth century. Their conceptions differ considerably, the former writer being generally in close accord with the literary indications. Paspates is too Procrustean in his methods, and unduly desirous of identifying every recoverable fragment of masonry. Their works are based almost entirely on the Book of Ceremonies of Constantine VII, but even if such a manual existed for the date under consideration the historical reader would soon tire of an exposition setting forth the order and decoration of a hundred chambers.