Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/100

 80 THE DECLINE AND FALL Offices of the palace, the state, and the army cloth or silk, almost concealed by a profusion of pearls and jewels : the crown was formed by an horizontal circle and two arches of gold ; at the summit, the point of their intersection, was placed a globe or cross, and two strings or lappets of pearl depended on either cheek. Instead of red, the buskins of the Sebastocrator and Ca?sar v.ere green ; and on their open coronets or crowns the precious gems were more sparingly distributed. Beside and below the Caesar, the fancy of Alexius created the Pan/u/per- sebastos and the Prutosehastos, whose sound and signification will satisfy a Grecian ear. They imply a superiority and a priority above the simple name of Augustus ; and this sacred and primi- tive title of the Roman prince was degraded to the kinsmen and servants of the Byzantine court. The daughter of Alexius applauds, with fond complacency, this artful gradation of hopes and honours ; but the science of words is accessible to the meanest capacity ; and this vain dictionary was easily enriched by tlie pride of his successors. To their favourite sons or brothers, they imparted the more lofty appellation of Lord or Despot, which was illustrated with new ornaments and preroga- tives, and placed immediately after the person of the emperor himself. The five titles of 1. Despot; 2. Sebastocrator; 3. Ca'sar ; 4. Paii/ii/persebastos ; and, 5. Protosebastos ; were usually confined to the jirinces of his blood ; they were the emanations of his majesty ; but, as they exercised no regular functions, their exist- ence was useless, and their authority precarious. But in every monarchy the substantial powers of government must be divided and exercised by the ministers of the palace and treasury, the fleet and army. The titles alone can differ ; and in cap " ; the crowns represented in the paintings are not high or pyramidal. The diadems of the Empresses had not the cross or the pearl pendants. As Gibbon says, it was only the crown and the red boots which distinguished the Emperor ; there were no distinctively Imperial robes, (i) On great state occasions the Emperor wore a long tunic (not necessarily purple) called a divcteston (Sifi-qTrja-i^ot') ; and over it either a heavy mantle (xXau.v'i) or a scarf (Ampo?) wound over the shoulders and round the arms. (2) As a sort of half-dress costume and always when he was riding the Emperor wore a different tunic, simpler and more convenient, called the scaramamrion (o-Kapa/idyyioi') and over it a lighter cloak (o-o-yioi-)- (3) There was yet another lighter dress, the colovion (koX6^io>), a tunic with short sleeves to the elbow or no sleeves at all, which he wore on some occasions. All these official tunics were worn over the ordinary tunic (,^iTi.ii) of private life. The only satisfactory discussions of these Imperial costumes are to be found in Bieliaiev, Ezhednevnye i Voskrcsnye Priemy viz. Tsarei ( = Byzantina Bk. ii., 1893) : for the aKapaixi.yyiuv.'P- ^'- KpAo^^ol■, p. 26 ; 6ip7)T)')o-ioi', p. 51-56 ; AJjpo? (which corresponded to the Roman trabea), p. 213, 214, 301. For the ewpaKtoi- wiiich was worn on certain occasions instead of the it^rjniaioi' see ih. 197-8 (Basil ii. in the miniature mentioned below, note 54, seems to wear a gold eu>pa.Ki.ov). Bieliaiev explains the origin of Si^,,r.(u^iur (6i^i7>i<rioi') satisfactorily from Lat. divitense {■p. 54).]