© Copyrighted Material © Copyrighted Material www.ashgate.com www.ashgate.com www.ashgate.com www.ashgate.com www.ashgate.com www.ashgate.com www.ashgate.com www.ashgate.com Chapter 10 Producing Distinction: Aristocratic and Imperial Representation in the Constantinian Age Mariana Bodnaruk In the Historia Augusta, a series of imperial biographies written in the 380s, Emperor Gallienus is said to have been the frst to wear in public a radiate crown (corona radiata) and a purple cloak (chlamys purpurea) with jewelled and golden clasps. 1 He also donned a tunic with sleeves of purple and gold (tunica purpurea aurataque) and a jewelled military sword belt (balteus), and fastened jewels down to the laces of his boots (campagi). 2 Nostalgia for a good emperor and desire for a ruler respecting the senatorial order, conservative by nature, prompted the author of the Historia Augusta to criticise Gallienus’ breach of the traditional vestimentary code and to note previous emperors as always wearing the toga (semper togati). 3 By divesting themselves of the toga, late-third-century Roman emperors are shown to have renounced the very notion of the civilian ideology of the early empire. Although, despite his exclusion of senators from military service, Gallienus was not solely responsible for the abrupt break with the tradition increasingly cut off from offce since the Severan period, 4 the fourth-century pro-senatorial source An earlier version of this chapter was delivered at the University of Ottawa. I should like to thank our generous host Geoffrey Greatrex as well as Hugh Elton and the anonymous reviewers for Shifting Frontiers X for their corrections and comments. I should also like to thank Alan Cameron and Bryan Ward-Perkins as readers of my doctoral prospectus with earlier versions of this piece; I am much indebted to their encouragement and helpful suggestions. I am most grateful to Volker Menze, Michele Salzman, John Weisweiler and Marianne Sághy for their careful critiques. 1 Hist. Aug. Gall. 16.4, radiatus saepe processit; cum chlamyde purpurea gemmatisque fbulis et aureis. 2 Ibid., purpuream tunicam auratamque virilem eandemque manicatam habuit; gemmato balteo usus est; corrigias gemmeas adnexuit, cum campagos reticulos appellaret. 3 Ibid., Romae […] ubi semper togati principes videbantur. 4 P.M.M. Leunissen, Konsuln und Konsulnre in der Zeit von Commodus bis Severus Alexander (180–235 n. Chr.) (Amsterdam, 1989), 107–8, 123; P. Eich, Zur Metamorphose des politischen Systems in der römischen Kaiserzeit: die Entstehung einer ‘personalen Bürokratie’ im langen dritten Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2005), 341–6. From Geoffrey Greatrex and Hugh Elton (eds), Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity, published by Ashgate Publishing. See: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472443489 © Mariana Bodnaruk (2014)