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The Origin, Context and Function of Consular Diptychs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2013

Alan Cameron
Alan Cameron*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

Members of the late Roman élite commemorated the holding of certain offices by the distribution of ivory diptychs. This paper attempts to show how diptychs came to play this rôle; that they were not originally distributed by consuls but by any official who provided games; that they had nothing to do with the ecclesiastical diptychs that are first heard of at about the same time; that the custom spread from east to west, not from west to east; and that the earliest western consular diptychs are not illustrated with scenes from games because there were no multi-day consular games at Rome before the fifth century.

Keywords

diptychsivoryconsulsconsular gamespraetorian gamesmappasportulaeLate Antiquity
Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 103 , November 2013 , pp. 174 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 

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References

1 So the standard corpus, Delbrück, R., Die Consulardiptychen und verwandte Denkmäler (1929)Google Scholar. Tony Cutler and I plan to produce a new corpus in the near future.

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3 AE 1962, 183: Pflaum, H.-G., ‘Une lettre de promotion de l'empereur Marc Aurèle…’, Bonner Jahrb. 171 (1971), 349–66Google Scholar; translation adapted from Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (1977), 288Google Scholar.

4 Diss. 3.7.30. Two inscriptions from Ancyra refer to a man holding office ‘by a letter and tablets of the divine Hadrian’ (ἐξ ἐπιστολῆς καὶ κωδικίλλων θεοῦ Ἀδριανοῦ, IGR III.174–5).

5 V. Claud. 29.1, ‘suppositos aut etiam palam immutatos datorum officiorum codicillos’.

6 Or. 18, 224b; Or. 23, 293b (cf. 292b).

7 Though not all plaques were ivory. The insigne of the proconsul (ἀνθύπατος) consisted of ‘purple inscribed codicils’ (κωδίκελλοι ἁλουργοειδεῖς γεγραμμένοι, Philoth. 95.11), evidently the ἀνθυπατικόν described in Caer. 256 as a ‘purple quaternion’ (πορφυροῦν τετράδιον), implying a diptych, but presumably not ivory.

8 N. Oikonomidès, Les listes de préséance byzantines des IX eet X esiècles (1972), p. 93. 23; see too below.

9 See the commentary in A. Vogt, Constantin Porphyrogénète: le livre des cérémonies I–II (1935–1939).

10 ‘quae medio suo continebant diploma honoris in membrana exaratum’, J. J. Reiske, Constantini Porphyrogeniti de Caerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae ii (1830), 277. Given the verbosity of Byzantine chancellery prose (exemplified by Cassiodorus' Variae), it is unlikely that there was room on the panels themselves for the full text of the codicils.

11 Hardly papyrus or parchment, especially in view of the gold trim, though conceivably painted wood.

12 For a meticulous analysis of the various types, Grigg, R., ‘Portrait-bearing codicils in the illustrations of the Notitia Dignitatum’, JRS 69 (1979), 107–24Google Scholar; on codicilli see too Berger, P. C., The Insignia of the Notitia Dignitatum (1981), 175–83 and 275–81Google Scholar and Lizzi, R., ‘Codicilli imperiali e insignia episcopali: un'affinità significativa’, Rendiconti … Lombardo 122 (1988), 3–13Google Scholar.

13 See PLRE ii. s.v. ‘Fl. Intall.’ and ‘Fl. Val.’.

14 V. Marotta, Mandata Principum (1991), 12, 38, surely mistakenly, argues that codicils contained the official's mandata, instructions on his duties (on which see Millar, op. cit. (n. 3), 314–16).

15 Cod. Theod. 6.22.1. Berger, op. cit. (n. 12), 177 identified impressio as the carved or painted image shown on the exterior surface of the Notitia illustrations and scriptura as the ‘written part’ inside, but I suspect that both terms mean no more than ‘writing’.

16 M. M. Roxan and P. Holder, Roman Military Diplomas I–V; many colour images can be found by googling ‘Roman Military Diplomas’.

17 Cod. Theod. 6.22.5; Berger, op. cit. (n. 12), 175–6.

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19 οἱ βασιλεῖς τοῖς ἑαυτῶν ὑπάρχοις χρυσᾶς ὀρέγουσι δέλτους, σύμβολον τῆς ἀρχῆς (In illud vidi 2, PG 56.110).

20 And probably not Chrysostom himself, at the time he delivered this sermon still a priest at Antioch, as Montfaucon correctly inferred from PG 56.111; cf. his introduction, quoted ibid., col. 95.

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23 By ‘provided’ I mean paid for, as an obligation of the office held.

24 Symm., Ep. 7.76.

25 Ep. 5.56, to Sallustius, PVR 387.

26 In addition to 2.81 (twice) and 7.76, cf. 5.56 and 9.119.

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29 Cod. Theod. 15.9.1.

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33 For more detail, Cameron, Alan, ‘A note on ivory carving in fourth century Constantinople’, AJA 86 (1982), 126–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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35 Chastagnol, op. cit. (n. 32), 249.

36 Ep. 4.8.1 (more below).

37 ‘peracto munere candidato offerto’ (Ep. 2.81); ‘offero … filii mei nomine qui quaestorium munus exhibuit’ (Ep. 7.76); Ep. 5.56, sending Sallustius his diptych, remarks that he had missed the games.

38 Engemann, J., ‘Die Spiele spätantiker Senatoren und Consulen, ihre Diptychen und ihre Geschenke’, in Bühl, G., Cutler, A. and Effenberger, A. (eds), Spätantike und byzantinische Elfenbeinbildwerke im Diskurs (2008), 53–77Google Scholar; Olovsdotter, C., The Consular Image: An Iconological Study of the Consular Diptychs (2005), 123–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Of course, many consuls were also simultaneously prefects or generals, with heavy responsibilities, but games were their only obligation as consuls.

40 Diptychs are cited according to their numbers in Volbach, W., Elfenbeinarbeiten3 (1976)Google Scholar; 34 V = 34 Volbach.

41 Gaborit-Chopin, D., Ivoires médiévaux Ve–XVe siècle (2003), 43–4, no. 6Google Scholar. For the crown, J. Rumscheid, Kranz und Krone: Zu Insignien, Siegespreisen und Ehrenzeichen der römischen Kaiserzeit (2000), 38–9, 144–5, no. 66 for the Louvre diptych; Fishwick, D., The Imperial Cult in the Latin West II.1 (1991), 477–8Google Scholar, with 574–84 for the games they provided.

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43 See the wide-ranging discussion by Salomonson, J. W., ‘Kunstgeschichtliche and ikonographische Untersuchungen zu einem Tonfragment der Sammlung Benaki in Athen’, BABesch 48 (1973), 3–82Google Scholar.

44 For discussion of their dates, see Cameron, op. cit. (n. 27), 712–42.

45 As I argued in JRA 25 (2012), 509.

46 See Cameron, op. cit. (n. 27), 730–4. On surviving evidence all these extensions are western, and it may be that this sort of extravagance did not survive the sack of Rome in 410.

47 A. Cutler, The Craft of Ivory (1985), ch. 2.

48 Shelton, K., ‘The diptych of the young office holder’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 25 (1982), 132–71Google Scholar, at 133 (later in the article she questions the traditional identification).

49 Kruse (next note) follows Delbrueck in dating LAMPADIORVM to c. 425, without explaining either the genitive plural or how a man could be ordinary consul without appearing on the consular fasti.

50 Kruse, H., Studien zur offiziellen Geltung des Kaiserbildes im römischen Reiche (1934), 107–8Google Scholar.

51 ‘hic trabeam, Pauline, tuam Latiamque curulem’, Auson., Ep. 21.60; ‘bigarum quae triumphum vehebant…palmata amictus et consulari insignis amictu’, Symm., Ep. 6.40.1.

52 Earlier work on this panel is superseded by Shelton, K., ‘The consular Muse of Flavius Constantius’, AB 65 (1983), 7–23Google Scholar.

53 The Muse cannot be identified with any confidence, though by a process of elimination L. Paduano Faedo poses a choice between Polymnia or Calliope, both of whom, like the Muse of the panel, are usually shown holding a bookroll (‘I sarcofagi romani con Muse’, ANRW II.12, 2 (1981), 65–155Google Scholar, at 134–40).

54 Cameron, op. cit. (n. 27), ch. 10.

55 So Shelton, op. cit. (n. 52), 20.

56 So Shelton, op. cit. (n. 52), 21.

57 Cameron, Alan, ‘The Probus diptych and Christian apologetic’, in Amirav, H. and Romeny, Bas ter Haar (eds), From Rome to Constantinople: Studies in Honour of Averil Cameron (2007), 191–202Google Scholar.

58 Bowes, op. cit. (n. 31), 341.

59 Bowes, op. cit. (n. 31), 342.

60 So rightly Lavarenne in the note to his Budé edition; for wax masks, see Flower, H. I., Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 40–2 (add this text to the list of passages in Appendix A (pp. 281–325)); for busts, ibid., 79 n. 78, 94.

61 Sidon., Ep. 8.6.5.

62 So the translations of O. M. Dalton (1915), W. B. Anderson (1965), and A. Loyen (1970). The front leaf is now lost, but known from a sixteenth-century watercolour of both leaves.

63 For a host of illustrations, OLD s.v. and TLL VI.327 (metonymice i. q. consulatus).

64 Ennodius, Libellus pro synodo 133–4 (p. 67.2 Vogel).

65 On late antique consular lists see Croke, B., ‘City chronicles of Late Antiquity’, in Clarke, G. (ed.), Reading the Past in Late Antiquity (1990), 165–203Google Scholar; Muhlberger, S., The Fifth-Century Chroniclers (1990), 23–47Google Scholar; and (especially) Burgess, Richard, ‘Non duo Antonini sed duo Augusti: the consuls of 161 and the origins and traditions of the Latin consular fasti of the Roman Empire’, ZPE 132 (2000), 259–90Google Scholar.

66 Greek consular lists normally substitute the genitive absolute, as invariably in dates given on papyri (for a complete list of consulates in the papyri from 284–641, R. S. Bagnall and K. A. Worp, Chronological Systems in Byzantine Egypt 2 (2004), 172–216). Theon and the Fasti Heracliani use the nominative.

67 Ep. 3.59 and 61; Ep. 4.15; see Sogno, C., Q. Aurelius Symmachus: A Political Biography (2006), 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Ep. 1021 (οὐκ ἐλπιζόμενον).

69 On this motif see Shelton, op. cit. (n. 48), at 163–6; on the Stilicho diptych, see too now Kampen, N. B., Family Fictions in Roman Art (2009), ch. 6Google Scholar.

70 On the basis of these letters of Symmachus, Eastmond, A., ‘Consular diptychs, rhetoric and the languages of art in sixth-century Constantinople’, Art History 33 (2010), 742–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, strangely tries to explain the purpose of diptychs in terms of ‘epistolary theory’. But most diptychs were surely presented in person (as Sidonius describes) at the consular inauguration, especially in Constantinople, where everyone invited could easily attend.

71 Delbrueck, op. cit. (n. 1), 20; Cutler, A., ‘Five lessons in late Roman ivory’, JRA 6 (1993), 175Google Scholar and ‘Il linguaggio visivo dei dittici eburnei. Forma, funzione, produzione, ricezione’, in David, M. (ed.), Eburnea diptycha: I dittici d'avorio tra Antichità e Medioevo (2007), at 142–7Google Scholar.

72 See now Williamson, P., Medieval Ivory Carvings (2010), 35–8Google Scholar.

73 Cabrol, F., ‘Diptyques (liturgie)’, in Cabrol, F. and Leclerq, H., Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie IV (1920), 1045–94Google Scholar; Taft, R. F., A History of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom: vol. IV: The Diptychs (1991)Google Scholar; see Lampe, Patristic Lexicon. s.v. and TLL IV.1227 s.v. b for many references.

74 Bowes, op. cit. (n. 31), 347–50.

75 For colour photo, transcription and discussion of the eighth-century liturgical list on the back of the Clementinus diptych, see Gibson, M., The Liverpool Ivories (1994), 19–22Google Scholar.

76 Bowes's superficially attractive claim that liturgical lists ‘are strikingly similar to the consular diptych's original function as holder of consular lists, not simply in their shared enumerative form, but in their function as definers of community’ (p. 348), presupposes (of course) her hypothesis that they were indeed originally inscribed with consular lists. The same applies to her appeal to the garbled story in Quodvultdeus, Gloria sanctorum 15.23 (ed. R. Braun, 1964, p. 665. 23), about names of proconsuls inscribed calculis eburneis and read out to the people of Carthage.

77 Crum, W. E., ‘A Greek diptych of the seventh century’, Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 30 (1908), 255–65Google Scholar; see too entry 287 in the catalogue Ägypten: Schätze aus dem Wüstensand (1996), 259. The other surviving diptych is wooden, also seventh-century, a single leaf inscribed on both sides in Coptic: McCormick, M., ‘A liturgical diptych from Coptic Egypt in the Museum of Fine Arts’, Le Muséon 94 (1981), 47–54Google Scholar.

78 Juv. 10.36–43 and 11.193–5, trans. N. Rudd (1991); see Courtney's notes on both passages.

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80 Cameron, Alan, ‘The date of the Scholia Vetustiora on Juvenal’, CQ 60 (2010), 569–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 When these same scholia refer to circenses quos praetores edunt (on 11.195), the reference is no doubt specifically to the Ludi Apollinares (further below). For more on the praetor as president of the games, Salomonson, J. W., Chair, Sceptre and Wreath (1956), 34–7 and 82–8Google Scholar; for an engraving of a panel of a lost sarcophagus that may represent the praetor driving round the arena in a chariot, Beard, M., The Roman Triumph (2007), 283CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Martial 12.28.9–10.

83 Olymp. F 44 Müller = 41.2 Blockley, with Cameron, Alan, ‘Probus’ praetorian games', GRBS 25 (1984), 193–6Google Scholar.

84 Chastagnol, op. cit. (n. 32), 241, and, in a different context, in Le sénat romain sous le règne d'Odoacre (1966), 62 (‘la semaine des jeux consulaires’); repeated as if fact by (e.g.) B. Lançon, Rome in Late Antiquity (2001), 142.

85 Just., Nov. 105.1 (we have versions in both Latin and Greek), omitting rhetorical amplifications of the various events. On Justinian's reasons for reducing the programme, Cameron, A. and Schauer, D., ‘The last consul’, JRS 72 (1982), at 140–1Google Scholar; Meier, M., ‘Das Ende des Konsulats im Jahre 541/2 und seine Gründe’, ZPE 125 (2002), 277–99Google Scholar.

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87 On Polemius, see below; his secunda mappa on 13 January and consulis tertiae mappae on 19 April cannot be squared with Justinian's programme.

88 It is also possible that, though the festival lasted for nine days, only seven actually offered games.

89 McGeachy, J. A. Jr, Q. Aurelius Symmachus and the Senatorial Aristocracy of the West (1942), 99Google Scholar.

90 Cameron, Alan, ‘Consular diptychs in their social context: new eastern evidence’, JRA 11 (1998), at 401Google Scholar.

91 Bühl, G., ‘Eastern or Western? — that is the question’, in Brandt, J. R. and Steen, O., Imperial Art as Christian Art — Christian Art as Imperial Art (2001), 193–203, at 198Google Scholar.

92 First in Cassiodorus (Var. 3.48.9); in Polemius Silvius (on 7 January) it was Tarquinius Priscus. According to Quintilian (1.5.57), the word is Punic.

93 Bruun in RIC VII (1966), 41 n. 5, 534.

94 H. Stern, Le Calendrier de 354 (1953), 163; RIC VIII (1981), pl. 11, no. 298.

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99 Stern, op. cit. (n. 94), 155–8; see too Delbrueck, op. cit. (n. 1), 68–70; Ravegnani, op. cit. (n. 86), 192–5.

100 A. and E. Alföldi, Die Kontorniat-Medaillons I (1976), no. 461 and 481, Taf. 188. 1–2 and 192. 4; II (1990), 213–14; cf. Kent, RIC X (1994), 383 no. 2179.

101 In addition to Stern, op. cit. (n. 94), Levi, D., ‘The allegories of the months in Classical art’, Art Bulletin 23 (1941), 251–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stern, H., ‘Les calendriers romains illustrés’, ANRW II.12.2 (1981), 431–75Google Scholar; Courtney, E., ‘The Roman months in art and literature’, Mus. Helv. 45 (1988), 33–57Google Scholar; Hachlili, R., Ancient Mosaic Pavements: Themes, Issues, and Trends (2009), 191–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Discussed in detail by Akerström-Hougen, G., The Calendar and Hunting Mosaics of the Villa of the Falconer in Argos (1974)Google Scholar.

103 S. J. Saller and B. Bagatti, The Town of Nebo (1949), 269 and 277 with pl. 50.3; correctly interpreted by Stern, op. cit. (n. 94), 376–7.

104 Stern, op. cit. (n. 94), 221–2.

105 Levi, op. cit. (n. 101), 276; see the table of such activities month by month in the fold-out table at the end of Stern, op. cit. (n. 101), 431–75.

106 January is shown quite differently, pouring a libation, in earlier representations of the months, e.g. the second-century House of the Calendar in Antioch: S. Campbell, The Mosaics of Antioch (1988), 61.

107 See Salzman, op. cit. (n. 97), 79–82, citing earlier discussions.

108 ‘Une mosaïque de Carthage représentant les mois et les saisons’, Mémoires de la Societé nationale des antiquaires de France 57 (1896), 251–70Google Scholar, 257–8 for January; cf. Stern, op. cit. (n. 101), 466–70.

109 A rustic calendar from Saint Romain-en-Gal shows a mill making bread: Stern, op. cit. (n. 101), 445.

110 As do three late Greek poems (AP 9.383, 384 and 580); all the poems are discussed in detail by Courtney, op. cit. (n. 101).

111 Anth. Lat. 197 R (= 188 S-B); Courtney, op. cit. (n. 101), 57; Averil Cameron, Corippus in laudem Iustini Augusti Minoris (1976), 143 for the parallel accounts in both prose and verse.

112 Briefly, Cameron, op. cit. (n. 27), 787–8.

113 αἱ ἐν ἱπποδρομίαις εὐφημίαι καὶ τῶν θεατῶν αἱ κολακεῖαι, PG 63.462.

114 J. Martin, Libanios, Discours, II (1988), 200, 201–2; C. Datema, Asterius, Homilies I–XIV (1970), 42.

115 Göll (next note), 606–7; Cassiod., Var. 6.1; Dig. 1.10 includes manumission among the duties of the consul, citing Ulpian, De officio consulis 2, but does not specify manumission as part of his inauguration.

116 Göll, H., ‘Über den processus consularis der kaiserzeit’, Philologus 14 (1859), 586–612CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jullian, C., ‘Processus consularis’, Revue de phil. 7 (1883), 145–63Google Scholar; Salomonson, op. cit. (n. 81), 88–102 (claiming at 101 that it was Augustus himself who ‘instituted the investing games of the consulship’); M. Meslin Le Christianisme dans l'empire romain (1970), 23–70. Beard, op. cit. (n. 81), 385 n. 67 is rightly sceptical of the idea that consular games were a ‘regular obligation of the office’ as early as the second century.

117 Amm. Marc. 22.7.1–2.

118 Stern, op. cit. (n. 94), 32; A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae XIII.2 (1963), 263; Salzman, op. cit. (n. 97), 242.

119 The tertia mappa is on 19, not 13 April, as in Stern, op. cit. (n. 94), 163: Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. XIII.2. 264 and 267.

120 Cameron, op. cit. (n. 96), 193–229; J. H. Humphrey, Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (1986), 438–539; C. Roueché, Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias in the Roman and Late Roman Periods (1993); G. Dagron, L'Hippodrome de Constantinople: Jeux, peuple et politique (2011), ch. 1.

121 G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria (1961), 318–23.

122 Liban., Descr. Kal. 13 (ed. Foerster VIII. 476).

123 Foss, C., ‘Stephanus, proconsul of Asia, and related statues’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies (Okeanos: Essays presented to Ihor Ševčenko) 7 (1983), 196–219Google Scholar.

124 ‘Imperial virtue: four late antique statuettes’, DOP 50 (1966), 147–62Google Scholar, at 153.

125 M. Cima, ‘Gli horti liciniani: una residenza imperiale della tarda antichità’, Horti Romani: Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma … 1995 (1998), at 442–52.

126 Smith, R. R. R., ‘Late antique portraits in a public context’, JRS 89 (1999), 155–89Google Scholar, at 180.

127 Alan Cameron, Porphyrius the Charioteer (1973), 248–52; Dunbabin, K. M. D., ‘The victorious charioteer’, AJA 86 (1982), 65–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dagron, op. cit. (n. 120), 241–51.

128 Dagron, G., ‘L'organisation et le déroulement des courses d'après le Livre des Cérémonies’, Travaux et Mémoires 13 (2000), 1–200Google Scholar, at 142, 159–60, 171, 174; ‘From the mappa to the akakia: symbolic drift’, in Amirav, H. and Bas ter Haar Romeny (eds), From Rome to Constantinople: Studies in Honour of Averil Cameron (2007), 203–19Google Scholar; op. cit. (n. 120), 44, 131.

129 Liebeschuetz, W., Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (1972), 147Google Scholar.

130 AE 2004, no. 496; Carignani in, A.Ensoli, S. and Rocca, E. La (eds), Aurea Roma: dalla città pagana alla città cristiana (2000), 149Google Scholar; the fragment is now on show in the Crypta Balbi museum. Symmachus was consul in 391, Memmius quaestor in 393.

131 Gibson, op. cit. (n. 75), 17 suggests that the Liverpool Spielgeber is a quaestor, but he is clearly shown with a beard, whereas quaestors were usually still in their teens.

132 Beaujeu, J., La religion romaine à l'apogée de l'empire I (1955), 131Google Scholar.

133 Symm., Ep. 6.40.

134 O. Seeck, Symmachus (1883), lviii. It was presumably on this occasion that he delivered his panegyric on Theodosius (F 1–2, p. 340 Seeck; A. Pabst, Q. Aur. Symmachus: Reden (1989), 124).

135 Only one of Claudian's other consular panegyrics describes the consul's games (VI Cons. Hon. 543–660). Of the rest, two describe preparations for games (Theod. 270–332; Cons. Stil. 3.223–369), and the other two (III Cons. Hon. and IV Cons. Hon.) have nothing at all about games. The realization that the consul's inaugural games were normally given at court, a considerable journey from Rome, calls into question the standard assumption that consular panegyrics performed in Rome were delivered on 1 January.

136 Symm., Ep. 7.4, 7 and 8, with Callu's notes. The ‘greater’ games reserved for Rome are mentioned by Claudian at Stil. 3.225, and the separate preface to Book 3 makes it clear that this book at least was performed in Rome. But Books 1–2 say nothing about the Milan games, and their ending would be curiously abrupt if they were recited at court in their present form. S. Döpp, Zeitgeschichte in Dichtungen Claudians (1980), 182–7, argues that the three books were conceived as a unity. Perhaps rather 1–2 were modified after recitation in Milan to exclude the Milanese games and consular procession so that Book 3 made a more harmonious conclusion to 1–2.

137 Claud., Pan. VI Cons. Hon. 611–39, with M. Dewar, Panegyricus de sexto cons. Hon. Aug. (1996), 400–3.

138 Symm., Ep. 7.4. Young Memmius Symmachus, preparing for his own praetorian games the following year, would have been keenly interested in such details.

139 For a comparison of the various spectacles in Claudian's consular panegyrics, see Keudel, U., Poetischer Vorläufer und Vorbilder in Claudians De Cons. Stilichonis (1970), 133–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dewar, op. cit. (n. 137).

140 Stil. 3.347–9; despite caelato, the inscription was presumably painted in gold, whether onto an uninscribed tabula ansata (as on the Asclepius and Hygieia diptych) or in the crevices of the inscription to highlight it.

141 ἔχω τὴν τιμὴν λαβὼν ἐν τῇ φιάλῃ καὶ τῷ διθύρῳ γραμματείῳ, τὸ μὲν ἐλέφαντος, ἡ δέ ἐστιν ἀργύρου, Lib., Ep. 1021; cf. Pollux, Onom. 1.207. 5, Ἡρόδοτος ‘δελτίον δίπτυχον,’ οἱ δ' Ἀττικοι ‘γραμματεῖον δίθυρον’.

142 ‘exceptis consulibus ordinariis nulli prorsus alteri auream sportulam, diptycha ex ebore dandi facultas sit’ (Cod. Theod. 15.9.1). Presumably this means gold or diptychs, but there is neither connective nor disjunctive in the Latin.

143 McGeachy, op. cit. (n. 89), 99; Callu's note on Ep. 1.103.

144 ‘parvum munusculum’ (Ep. 9.93 and 107); ‘parva fatemur esse quae misimus’ (Ep. 9.104); see further below.

145 Diptychs ‘had no realizable value in themselves’ and ‘were difficult to recycle’, Eastmond, op. cit. (n. 70), 750. On the other hand, a diptych would have been non brevis if the word is viewed as implying size.

146 Justinian's magnificent consular diptychs date from 521, before he became emperor.

147 Delbrueck, op. cit. (n. 1), 5–6.

148 Though a passage of Boethius implies that it is was still an expensive sinecure (‘praetura magna olim potestas, nunc inane nomen et senatorii census gravis sarcina’, Cons. Phil. 3.4).

149 Cameron, op. cit. (n. 27), 468, 790–1.

150 Decor civitatis, decor Italiae: Monuments, travaux publics et spectacles au VI esiècle d'après les Variae de Cassiodore (2006), especially 303–440.

151 D. Mauskopf Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (2010), 59–60.

152 Ep. 8.37 (p. 290. 10 Vogel). The letter is dated to early 511; Ennodius had evidently not been on Boethius' original list.