Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2025
The final chapter demonstrates what the implications of the model developed are for one of the central figures of Late Antique society, the emperor, which plays a crucial role in current interpretations. Building on and nuancing the two current frameworks, constitutionalism and acceptance theory, the chapter argues that we can make sense of imperial power in Late Antiquity by seeing it as a virtue-based social role and tied into practices that both enabled the emperor to exercise power and constrained it. Whilst a long scholarly tradition considers that the Later Roman Empire is marked by the expansion of imperial power and an increased distance between emperor and subject, symbolized in the expansion of bureaucracy and ceremony, it is argued here that even in this period the role of the emperor was conceived of, and exercised, in interaction with other individuals and the people.
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