By the Emperor's Hand: Military Dress and Court Regalia in the Later Romano-Byzantine Empire

By the sixth century of the common era the Roman Empire already had many hundreds of years of accumulated ceremony embedded in its government, and practical science embodied in its army.

The transition from Republic to Imperium and the more hierarchical structure that entailed, and the absorption of Christianity into state processes, had pushed the development of court ceremonial apace, and particularly driven its embodiment and display in ever more opulent regalia. The regalia embraced not ...