Note 208 — Chapter I · CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY[3]

The conception of the sanctity of the Emperor’s person, which originated in the adulation of the proconsuls of the eastern provinces by the Orientals and in the subservience of the Senate to Augustus, attained its height under Diocletian (c. 300), who first introduced at Court the Oriental forms of adoration and prostration (Eutropius, ix, etc.). It was probably even increased under the Christian emperors, and Theodosius I was enabled to promulgate a law that merely to doubt the correctness of the Emperor’s opinion or judgement constituted a sacrilege (Cod., IX, xxix, 3, etc.).