It is clear from the sources that under some emperors, the Roman imperial court could be a social space characterized by violence. This chapter offers a general framework for understanding the key dimensions of court violence – its aetiology, its impact on the court’s image, and the institutions and ideologies restraining it. Drawing on insights into human violence offered by evolutionary psychology, the chapter argues that the latent human capacity for violence was triggered by a court environment with high levels of physical danger, status consciousness, and competition for resources. But in almost all societies, culture and institutions serve to restrain interpersonal violence, to a greater or lesser degree. The second part of the chapter therefore examines the limits placed on court violence by the emperor’s guard forces (the praetorians, the Germani corporis custodes, and the equites singulares), by Roman legal culture, and by Graeco-Roman political theory and ideology.

Most of the textual sources concerning the imperial court are relatively short; many recount anecdotes illuminating a single moment, a memorable saying, or a specific practice. The surviving works of history and biography do, however, contain a few longer narratives of connected sequences of events at court. Such narratives most commonly occur when historians and biographers describe crises, when events at court had wider implications for the political history of the Principate. Prompted by this observation, this chapter presents a selection of the richest crisis narratives. The narratives presented relate to: the fall of Claudius’ wife, Messalina; the loss of position at court suffered by Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, and her ensuing murder by her son; and the assassinations of the emperors Domitian and Commodus.

This introduction begins by surveying earlier scholarship on the Roman imperial court, arguing that the landmark works have been unduly confined to the court in the city of Rome, to particular time periods, and to certain narrowly defined themes. It then discusses the definition of ‘court’, presenting the social definition used in the book, namely a circle of people in reasonably regular personal contact with the emperor. The introduction also considers what kinds of historical knowledge in relation to the Roman court are possible. The sources lack the focus and detail needed for a narrative history of the court; nor can we convincingly posit a model that encapsulates the impact and operation of the court over c. 300 years. Instead, one should identify features of court life and culture that recur, even if they did not exist (or are not evidenced) under every emperor.

This chapter focuses on dining as a key social ritual in which emperors and courtiers articulated and negotiated relationships among themselves. It also includes a briefer discussion of hunting and related activities as contexts for such negotiations, attested for at least a few emperors. The chapter discusses where imperial banquets (convivia) were staged, which kinds of courtiers were present, and how participants interacted. Conviviality was a central mode of communication among emperors and their courtiers. Our sources offer many moralizing accounts about convivial practices that reveal participants’ attempts to control one another, to enhance their own status, and to seek advantage relative to other participants. Imperial hunting in the wild is attested for some emperors (especially Hadrian), and some others hunted in the arena. Representations of imperial hunting are ideologically charged, assuming that ‘the hunt is the emperor’, just as the sources assume that ‘the dinner is the emperor’.

Using the rich funerary epigraphy from Rome and environs, this chapter reconstructs the organization of court domestic service, establishes a taxonomy of the various service roles attested at court, and explores the significance of the structural differentiation that can be observed among the (mostly servile) domestic servants. It then considers the impact of the emperor’s domestic servants on court politics, exploring the relationships that developed between the court and the outside world. Literary texts suggest that some domestic staff controlled access to the emperor, that others acted as brokers in distributing imperial patronage, and that a few became favourites of the emperor. The latter could rise to great heights of influence, but could also become lightning-rods of discontent with the regime. As a result, a reconfiguration of power within the court or a change of regime could see the expulsion of favourites from the inner circle – or worse.

Under some emperors, the imperial court was a social space in which writers could seek and obtain patronage. However, as this chapter cautions, later generations of writers romanticized such patronal relationships (especially those of the Augustan era), so we must be wary of accepting fantasy as truth. The chapter accordingly commences with a discussion of evidence and methodology. What counts as evidence for an author’s presence and activities in the imperial court? It then focuses on common themes that reflect the experience of authors from Augustus to the Severan dynasty, after which evidence for court patronage becomes even patchier. These are: the court as a privileged performance space for literature; the polarities of ‘autonomy’ and ‘subservience’ that defined the patronage relationship between author and emperor; and the ways in which the writer both contributed and conformed to the official messaging of the regime.

In monarchical courts, religious rituals and celebrations have often been crucial moments bringing courtiers into contact with the monarch and society at large. There was no specific ‘court religion’ at the Roman court; rather, the household religious practices of emperors and resident members of his court were not differentiated from those in aristocratic households, and individual emperors and courtiers could choose their cult practices. However, certain rituals and festivals within the imperial house were still court occasions, especially the rites connected with the toga virilis ceremony and the Saturnalia. Furthermore, religious rituals in the civic spaces of Rome brought the emperor and members of his court into contact with the populace at large. Roman ideas about the divine realm included ideas about divination. As a result, astrologers and other individuals claiming expertise in divination at times had great power and influence at court.

The texts and images in this chapter illustrate events involving the Roman imperial court that can be regarded as rituals. These included regular occurrences that took place on a daily or near-daily basis, such as the salutatio, dinners, and religious sacrifices. They also included special occasions like festivals, diplomatic receptions, lavish banquets, and the acclamation of a new emperor. Some of these events occurred in court spaces, and involved a wide cross-section of the court community. These ceremonies functioned as displays of consensus among members of the court community, as their actions demonstrated shared values and expectations. Others did not consistently take place in court spaces, but merit inclusion here because they involved key members of the court community. The sources show how the rules and expectations of these rituals were subject to modification both by emperors and courtiers, who experimented with new types of address, greeting, and physical contact.

Historians have voiced quite different opinions about the influence that the royal courts of the Hellenistic east had on the development of the Roman imperial court. This chapter considers this question, emphasizing the methodological challenges involved in identifying when one court has influenced another. After an outline of the major characteristics of the Hellenistic empires and the courts at their hearts, the focus is on the similarity of the problems faced by Hellenistic and Roman imperial leaders in the eastern Mediterranean, and on the two functions of the court that developed in response to this diversity: the court as a centre for the production of imperial, ‘cosmopolitan’ culture and as an instrument of elite integration. The chapter argues that Hellenistic influence on Roman court culture should be seen primarily in the Roman adoption of Hellenistic forms of court ritual and ideology.

This chapter examines the place within the court of the imperial secretaries and the workers in their bureaux. It first considers social connections between the servile workers in the bureaux and court domestic staff. Following this, the major imperial secretaryships are examined: the offices of ab epistulis, a libellis, a cognitionibus, a commentariis, a memoria, a studiis, a censibus, and a rationibus, as well as their late third-century equivalents. Some individuals holding these offices demonstrably had close relationships with the emperor or courtiers. But we lack the evidence to conclude that the secretaries and their bureaux formed an ‘outer court’ with a clear spatial relationship with the emperor’s domestic realm, or that they had an institutionalized pattern of social or professional contacts with that realm. The chapter also examines the structural relationship between the court and the imperial treasuries (the aerarium and fiscus), highlighting the reciprocal flow of funds.