Note 215 — Chapter I · CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY[3]

Luitprand, Antapodosis, i, 6. A legend of a later age, no doubt, which may be quietly interred with Constantine’s gift to Pope Sylvester. We hear nothing of it in connection with Arcadius, Theodosius II, etc., and it is only foreshadowed in 797 by a late writer (Cedrenus, ii, p. 27), who would assume anything. The epithet became fashionable in the tenth century. One writer thinks the name arose from a ceremonial gift of purple robes to the wives of the court dignitaries at the beginning of each winter by the empress; Theoph., Cont., iii, 44.