This chapter focuses on dining as a key social ritual in which emperors and courtiers articulated and negotiated relationships among themselves. It also includes a briefer discussion of hunting and related activities as contexts for such negotiations, attested for at least a few emperors. The chapter discusses where imperial banquets (convivia) were staged, which kinds of courtiers were present, and how participants interacted. Conviviality was a central mode of communication among emperors and their courtiers. Our sources offer many moralizing accounts about convivial practices that reveal participants’ attempts to control one another, to enhance their own status, and to seek advantage relative to other participants. Imperial hunting in the wild is attested for some emperors (especially Hadrian), and some others hunted in the arena. Representations of imperial hunting are ideologically charged, assuming that ‘the hunt is the emperor’, just as the sources assume that ‘the dinner is the emperor’.

The texts and images in this chapter illustrate events involving the Roman imperial court that can be regarded as rituals. These included regular occurrences that took place on a daily or near-daily basis, such as the salutatio, dinners, and religious sacrifices. They also included special occasions like festivals, diplomatic receptions, lavish banquets, and the acclamation of a new emperor. Some of these events occurred in court spaces, and involved a wide cross-section of the court community. These ceremonies functioned as displays of consensus among members of the court community, as their actions demonstrated shared values and expectations. Others did not consistently take place in court spaces, but merit inclusion here because they involved key members of the court community. The sources show how the rules and expectations of these rituals were subject to modification both by emperors and courtiers, who experimented with new types of address, greeting, and physical contact.