The Chrysotriklinos Seen through De Cerimoniis* Michael J. Featherstone Whether constructed originally by Justin II or reconstructed by him out of a pre-existing building of Justinian’s Palace of Hormisdas, the Chrysotriklinos had become by the tenth century the centre of court life as a result of the emperors shifting their residence from the older buildings on the Upper Ter- race to newer ones closer to sea level. 1 Most probably to be sought near the pavement found in 1983 just above the harbour of the Bukoleon, the Chryso- triklinos’s position vis-à-vis the other buildings of the Lower Terrace can be deduced on the basis of the descriptions in De Cerimoniis. 2 This octagonal hall was the interface between the public parts of the Palace and the private apartments of the emperor, the ΚοƢƬών. In the De Cerimoniis we see the Chrysotriklinos as a throne room, not for grand audiences of state as in the Magnaura with its phantasmagoric throne of Solomon, 3 but for other func- tions such as the promotion of imperial officials, banquets and, especially, the so-called ›everyday procession‹. As we have remarked elsewhere, this latter was apparently the Byzantine survival of the Roman Salutatio Augusti or, more particularly, the Cottidiana Officia, for which imperial officials as- sembled in the morning and took their places according to rank ›in proces- ν * Many thanks to Cyril Mango for his help with the Chrysotriklinos and to Anuscha Mon- chizadeh for her great patience in getting the article, and especially the sketch-plan, into the recalcitrant computer. 1 Suda attributes the building to Justin II (Adler 2, 646, 7-8). A disputation between Ortho- dox and Monophysite bishops was held in 532 in a ›heptaconch triclinium‹ of the Palace of Hormisdas, cf. Acta Conc. Oec. IV/2, 169,4-6 (cited by C. MANGO, The Church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus Once Again, in: BZ 68 [1975] 386). This palace, where Justinian re- sided with Theodora, stood between the old Upper Palace and the Monastery of Hormis- das (for whose monks SS Sergius and Bacchus was subsequently built, cf. MANGO, ibid., 385-392). After Justinian’s succession the Palace of Hormisdas was connected with the Upper Palace, cf. E. BOLOGNESI RECCHI-FRANCESCHINI, Il Gran Palazzo, in: Bizanti- nistica. Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Slavi. Serie seconda 2 (2000) 236-238 and EADEM/ M. FEATHERSTONE, The Boundaries of the Palace: De Cerimoniis II, 13 (hereafter Boun- daries), in: TM 14 (2002) 37-38. 2 For the location see C. MANGO The Palace of the Bukoleon (hereafter Bukoleon), Ca- hiers archéologiques 45, 1997, 45-46 and fig. 5; for the relation to the other buildings see BOLOGNESI/FEATHERSTONE, Boundaries, sketch plan . 3 For a recent ideological interpretation of the various places and modes of the emperor sitting on the throne, see G. DAGRON, Trônes pour un empereur (hereafter Trônes), in: ΒƭƟԃνƬƢοὶ ΚƩԃƬοƪ ƣƚƢ ƣοƢνω ԉƚὶ ƆνԇµƠ Ƈԉƣοƭ ΟƢƣονοµԉƝƠ. Athens, 2003, 180-203.