Recovering a disfigured Empire. Institutional maintenance in Tenth-century Byzantium

Abstract

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (945-959 AD) implements a peculiar institutional maintenance, based on the collection of books and materials from the past. A closer scrutiny of the sources shows some deeper meanings and reveals that the recurring metaphors of the body and the family shape his grand project, shedding light onto the institutional and social agenda which underpinned his embodied maintenance.

Keywords

• byzantium
• constantine vii porphyrogennetos
• collection of books
• metaphors of the empire as a body
• oikeiōsis
• excerpta constantiniana
• de cerimoniis
• embodiment
• imperial legitimacy