Constantine VII

They will be like flowers we gather from the meadows to embellish incomparably the imperial splendor. They will be like a mirror, radiant and of a perfect clarity. And we will place them in the center of the palace [and] will see there what is appropriate to the imperial power and what befits the senatorial organization.

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (Medieval Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Πορφυρογέννητος; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Byzantine emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, and the nephew of his predecessor Alexander.

Quotes

• Over a long time many things can disappear which, while achieved in that time, are also consumed by it. Among these was the treatise outlining the imperial ceremonial, something valuable and important. Because this had been neglected and become, so to speak moribund, the imperial power was in fact unadorned and unattractive to look at. For just as when a body is not harmoniously fashioned, but has its limbs set in a contorted and ill-coordinated way, one would describe this as a disorder, so too when the imperial administration is not led and governed by order, it will differ in no way from an ignorant and servile way of life.
  Therefore, so that this should not be the case and we should not seem by acting in a disorderly fashion to be insulting the imperial majesty, we believed it was necessary to collect with unremitting effort from many sources those things which were devised by earlier generations and were made known by those who had seen them, and were seen by us ourselves and practised in our times, and to set them out in the present arrangement and to record for those who come after us, in the form of an easily comprehended account, the tradition of our ancestral customs which have been neglected. It was as though we were picking flowers from the meadows to set as an incomparable decoration for the imperial splendour, and as if we were setting up in the middle of the palace a radiant and newly cleaned mirror in which are seen what befits the imperial rule and what is worthy of the senatorial body, so that the reins of power will be managed with order and beauty.
  • De Ceremoniis (c. 956–9) Preface (tr. Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall, 2012)
    • They will be like flowers we gather from the meadows to embellish incomparably the imperial splendor. They will be like a mirror, radiant and of a perfect clarity. And we will place them in the center of the palace [and] will see there what is appropriate to the imperial power and what befits the senatorial organization.
      • Deno John Geanakoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization seen through Contemporary Eyes (U of Chicago P, 1984) ch. 4, p. 22