Byzantine bureaucracy and aristocracy

Byzantine culture
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Throughout the fifth century, Hellenistic political systems, philosophies, and theocratic Christian-Eastern concepts had gained power in the eastern Greek-speaking Mediterranean due to the intervention of important religious figures there such as Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 – c. 339) and Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – c. 253) who had been key to developing the constant Christianized worldview of late antiquity.^{[1][need quotation to verify][2]}

By the 6th century, such ideas had already influenced the definitive power of the monarch as the representative of God on earth and of his kingdom as an imitation of God's holy realm.^[3] The Byzantine Empire was a multi-ethnic monarchic theocracy adopting, following, and applying the Orthodox-Hellenistic political systems and philosophies.^[4][5] The monarch was the incarnation of the law—nomos empsychos—and his power was immeasurable and divine in origin insofar as he channeled God's divine grace, maintaining what is good. He was the ultimate benefactor, caretaker, and saviour of the people: Evergétis, Philanthrōpía, and Sōtēr, anointed with all power, upholding the divine laws since he ought to emulate Christ first (christomimetes) in all of his divine, pious, loving orthodox attributes to all by being his earthly presence.^[6][7]

The people in turn were the monarch's paroikoi (subjects). He was the sole administrator and lawgiver of the holy Basileia and Oikoumene (commonwealth), with sole power over the state, the land, and his subjects, which he had achieved through God's appointment of him as king. This opened a new stage of reverence in which Hellenistic and Eastern court ceremonies such as proskynesis highlighted the divinity of the ruler and became standardized and very often mandatory.^[8] In practice, imperial power was exercised as administration—simplified and centralized through viceroys such as the Exarchos, Douk, Katepánō, Kephalai and the Strategoi who enjoyed the same omnipotence and the emperor's God given divinity in their respective governorships.^[9]

Such concentrations of power proved to be both a great internal weakness and the cause of various coups and rebellions in which viceroys with provincial armies and, sometimes, entire themes, would often challenge imperial power with claims of their own. In this way emperors such as Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963–969) and Heraclius (r. 610–641) achieved royal power for themselves.

There were no codified laws on the imperial succession, and the Roman Republic was never formally abolished. Theoretically, each emperor was formally elected, by both the senate (Synkletos) and the army. In practice, however, the Senate had lost all of its former powers and was mostly reduced to a ceremonial role, filled with relatives or close aristocrats to the Emperor; while the Army practically had a monopoly regarding elections. Emperors usually managed to secure succession for their children through indirect means, such as appointing them as co-emperors, and thus introduced various dynasties. The absence of codified succession laws and procedures, as well as the militarized state of the Empire, led to numerous coups and revolts, leading to several disastrous results, such as the 1071 defeat at Manzikert.

Applying Orthodox-Hellenistic political schemes, the monarch's household was the sacred kingdom Oikonomia, and he was its Christ-loving owner and manager Oikonomos, which meant that no individual or institution through the history of the empire truly owned any land in the face of state supreme ownership.^[10] Beneath the emperor, a multitude of officials and court functionaries—all directly chosen by the emperor or by one of his representatives—operated the empire's administrative bureaucracy. State officials acted not as magistrates or elected public legates, but as representatives, deputies, and viceroys of the monarch in his different domains throughout the empire. In addition to those officials, a large number of honorific titles existed, which the emperor awarded to prominent subjects or to friendly foreign rulers.

Over the more than a thousand years of the empire's existence, the Imperial administrative system evolved in its adoption of historic titles. At first, the various titles of the empire were the same as those of the late Roman Empire. However, by the era of Heraclius (r. 610–641), many of the titles had become obsolete. By the time of Alexios I (r. 1082–1118), many of the positions were either new or drastically changed. However, from that time on, they remained essentially the same until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453.