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Byzantine Autocracy

With Diocletian the Principate of Augustus had become undisguisedly an absolute monarchy, and this constitution prevailed to the end. There is virtually no constitutional history in the proper sense of the term in the later Roman Empire, for there was neither evolution nor revolution. The monarchical system remained in all its essential points unchanged, and presents a remarkable example of an autocracy of immense duration which perfectly satisfied the ideas of its subjects. No attempt was made to alter it - to introduce, for instance, a limited monarchy or a republican government; all revolts and conspiracies were aimed at the policies of particular autocrats, not at autocracy itself; generally they only represented sectional antagonisms and personal ambitions. The emperors inherited a deeply rooted instinct of legality as a tradition from Old Rome; and this respect for law which marked their acts, along with the generally good administration of justice, was a palladium of the monarchy. They were supreme in legislation, as well as in the administrative and judicial spheres; but they were on the whole moderate in wielding legislation as an instrument of policy.

There were, however, recognized constitutional principles which it would have been impossible for the emperor to override.

(1) The elective principle, inherited from the Republic, was never changed. A new emperor had to be elected by the senate and acclaimed by the people. The succession never became automatic. But even Augustus had indirectly introduced the dynastic principle. Theodosius the Great, by causing his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, to be elected Augusti in their infancy, practically elevated the dynastic idea into a constitutional principle; henceforward it was regarded as in the regular course that the son born to a reigning sovereign should in his infancy be elected Augustus. Thus the election, though always an indispensable form, was only a reality when a dynasty came to an end.

(2) When the position of Christianity was assured by the failure of Julian's reaction, it was evident that profession of that religion would henceforward be a necessary qualification for election to the throne. This was formally and constitutionally recognized when the coronation of the emperor by the patriarch was introduced in 457, or perhaps in 450.

(3) The sovereignty of the emperor was personal and not territorial. In this respect it always retained the character which it had inherited as the offspring of a Roman magistracy. Hence no Roman territory could be granted by the emperor to another power. For instance, the Western emperor Conrad III could promise to hand over Italy to Manuel Comnenus as the dowry of bis wife, but it would have been constitutionally illegal for Manuel to have made such a promise to any foreign prince; an Eastern emperor had no right to dispose of the territory of the state. Tendencies towards a territorial conception begin indeed to appear (partly under Western influence) in the time of the Palaeologi, especially in the custom of bestowing appanages on imperial princes.

(4) While the senate of Rome generally lost its importance and at last became a mere municipal body, the new senate of Constantine preserved its position as an organ of the state till the fall of Constantinople. For the imperial elections it was constitutionally indispensable, and it was able sometimes to play a decisive part when the throne was vacant - its only opportunity for independent action. The abolition, under Diocletian's system, of the senatorial provinces deprived the senate of the chief administrative function which it exercised under the Principate; it had no legislative powers; and it lost most of its judicial functions. It was, however, still a judicial court; it tried, for instance, political crimes.

In composition it differed from the senate of the Principatc. The senators in the 4th century were chiefly functionaries in the public service, divided into the three ascending ranks of clarissimi, spectabilcs, illustres. The majority of the members of the senatorial order lived in the provinces, forming a provincial aristocracy, and did not sit in the senate. Then the two lower ranks ceased to have a right to sit in the senate, which was confined to the illustres and men of higher rank (Patricians). The senatorial order must therefore be distinguished from the senate in a narrower sense; the latter finally consisted mainly of high ministers of state and the chief officials of the palace.

It would be a grave mistake to underrate the importance of this body, through an irrelevant contrast with the senate of the Republic or even of the Principate. Its composition ensured to it great influence as a consultative assembly; and its political weight was increased by the fact that the inner council of imperial advisers was practically a committee of the senate. The importance of the senate is illustrated by the fact that in the 211h century Constantine X, in order to carry out a revolutionary, anti-military policy, found it necessary to alter the composition of the senate by introducing a number of new men from the lower classes.

(5) The memory of the power which had once belonged to the populus Romania lingered in the part which the inhabitants of New Rome, and their representatives, played in acclaiming newly elected emperors, and in such ceremonies as coronations. In the 6th century the factions ("demes") of the circus, Blues and Greens, appear as political parties, distract the city by their quarrels, and break out in serious riots. On one occasion they shook the throne ("Nika" - victory - revolt, 532). The emperors finally quelled this element of disturbance by giving the factions a new organization, under "demarchs" and "democrats," and assigning them a definite quasi-political standing in the public ceremonies in the palace and the capital.

The duty of providing partem et circenses was inherited from Old Rome; but the free distribution of bread cannot be traced beyond the 6th century (had the loss of the Egyptian granary to do with its cessation?), while the spectacles of the hippodrome lasted till the end. Outside the capital the people took little interest in politics, except when theology was concerned; and it may be said generally that it was mainly in the ecclesiastical sphere that public opinion among the masses, voiced by the clergy and monks, was an influence which made itself felt.

The court ceremonial of Constantinople, which forms such a market contrast to the ostentatiously simple establishments of Augustus and the Antonines, had in its origin a certain constitutional significance. It was introduced by Aurelian and Diocletian, not from any personal love of display, but rather to dissociate the emperor from the army, at a time when the state had been shaken to its foundations by the predominance of the military element and the dependence of the emperor on the soldiers. It was the object of Diocletian to make him independent of all, with no more particular relation to the army than to any other element in the state; the royal court and the inaccessibility of the ruler were calculated to promote this object.

The etiquette and ceremonies were greatly elaborated by Justinian, and were diligently maintained^ and developed. The public functions, which included processions through the streets to various sanctuaries of the city on the greit feast-days of the Church, supplied entertainment of which the populace never wearied; and it did not escape the wit of the rulers that the splendid functions and solemn etiquette of the court were an effective means of impressing the imagination of foreigners, who constantly resorted to Constantinople from neighbouring kingdoms and dependencies, with the majesty and power of the Basileus.

The imperial dignity was collegial. There could be two or more emperors (imperatores) at the same time; edicts were issued, public acts performed, in their joint names. Through the period of dualism, in the 4th and 5th centuries, when the administration of the Eastern provinces was generally separate from that of the Western, the imperial authority was also collegial. But after this period the system of divided authority came to an end and was never renewed. There was frequently more than one emperor, not only in the case of a father and his sons, or of two brothers, but also in the case of a minority, when a regent is elected emperor (Romanus I; Nicephorus II and John Zimisces). But one colleague always exercised the sole authority, was the real monarch, the "great" or the "first " Basileus; the other or others were only sleeping partners. Under the Comneni a new nomenclature was introduced; a brother, e.g., who before could have become the formal colleague of the ruler, received the title of Sebastocrator (Sebastos was the Greek equivalent of Augustus).