On the Issue of a Narrow Dating of the Manuscript of the Treaties De Cerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae (Leipzig, Univ. Bibl. Rep. I 17)
Abstract
The paper offers new arguments for the more exact dating – autumn-winter of 963 – of the manuscript of the treatise De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae (Leipzig, Univ. Bibl. Rep. I 17). At the end of the list of the tombs of the emperors in the Mausoleum of Constantine the Great in the Church of the Holy Apostles, included in this compilation treatise, the scribe missed three empty lines. The last emperor in the list of buried emperors is Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus; there is no sarcophagus of his son Roman II, known from the later lists of tombs. The list ends with a mention of the “small sarcophagus” (τὸ λαρνάκιον); and there is no indication, whether there was someone buried there. Judging by the chronicles of Yahya of Antioch and Leo Deacon, as well as The Brief History by Michael Psellos, since the death of Emperor Roman II there was a constant danger of the liquidation of his children – Basil, Constantine and Anna. Apparently, this small coffin was prepared for them, and the scribe of the codex left a place to finish the final distribution of the last representatives of the imperial house in the mausoleum. However, all the children saved their lives, and three blank lines in the manuscript were never filled. Consequently, the manuscript was already completed after August 16, 963, and it is unlikely that the work on it was completed much later than the autumn-winter of 963.
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