Chapter 2 The Importance of Being Splendid: Competition, Ceremonial, and the Semiotics of Status at the Court of the Late Roman Emperors (4th–6th Centuries)
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Abstract
With the advent of imperial monarchy, the traditional fields of competition for the Roman aristocracy gradually began to change until the ruler’s favour became the paramount (if not exclusive) object and goal of competition. It could both provide social status and guarantee advancement at court, and since it lay within the personal gift of the emperor, it could prove a positive force, strengthening the latter’s position as arbiter of competition and thus the security of his reign. This paper interprets aristocratic competition in this context as a specific form of social practice centered on the court itself, with its own rules and modes of expression. It attempts to clarify the micro-processes and discursive levels of courtly competition. Within the extremely competitive court society, the ability to communicate status and hierarchy was of fundamental importance. In Late Antiquity, court hierarchies were expressed on different and sometimes conflicting levels, perhaps the two most important of which were court titulature and questions of rank on the one hand, and formalized court ceremonial on the other.