The Date and Signifrcance

of the Romanos Ivory

ANrHoNv CutrEn
,i
HERE cannot be many contibutions to a fest-
I
schrift in which the dedicatee is urged to recon-
-l-
sider his most recent position on an issue. But,
in the case of the ivory in the Cabinet des Mdailles in
Paris that shows an emperor, Romanos, and his wife,
Eudokia, crowned by Christ,l such an attitude is perhaps
justied. Considering Kurt
reitzmann's
acceptance of
the view that the emperor in question is Romanos IV
Diogenes (1068-7 1) and, implicitl the argument that
the empress depicted is Eudokia Makrembolitissa,2 we
must take into account not only the complexity of the
problem per se-a problem that \eitzmann was himself
the first to acknowledge3-but also the unusual candor
and intellectual honesty that
reitzmann
displayed when
presented with arguments sufficiently cogent to per-
suade him to change his mind.a'ithout attempting to
minimize the difficulty of the question,t and indeed by
complicating it with sevetal approaches that have been
ignored in previous discussions, I shall suggest that
\eitzmann was correct when, in 1934,he identified the
aagustoi on the ivory as Romanos II, co-emperor with his
father from Easter )45,
and his first wife, Bertha-Eudokia,
daughter of Hugo of Provence, who died in 949.
At issue, of course, is not simply a matter of imperial
identity and its immediate chronological implication
1,4..
Goldschmidt and K.
reitzmann,
Die blzantinischen Elfen-
beinskulpttren d X.-Xlll.
Jahrhmderts,
vol. II (Berlin 1934), no. )4. I
am grateful to Mesdames Evelyne Veljovic, Irne .A,ghion, and Hlne
Nicolet, clflftr7)ateilr en chef ol the Cabinet des Mdailles, for allowing me
to study the ivory ac length and for permission to photogtaph it.
2
I. KaIavrczou-Mueiner,
"Eudokia Makrembolitissa and the Ro-
manos lvor" DOP )l
(1971),
3O7
-325.
\eitzmann's agreement wirh,
and elaboration of, Kalavrezou-Maxeine's aguments is set out on the
st two (unnumbeed) pages of the foeword to the second edition of
Goldschmidt and
\Weitzmann,
Elnbeinskalpturen (as in note 1), vol. II
(Berlin 1979).
3
Goldscbmidt and
rVeitzmann,
Elfenbeinsknlpturen (as in note 1),
vol. II, 15-16.
4
See
\e.itzmann's
addenda and commentary on hs aticles re-
printed in Byzantne Boo lllumnation and laories (London 1980) and
Byzantine Liturgical Psahers and Gotpels (London 1980). But cl
J.
Low-
den, The Octateuchs, A Study in Byzantne Mawscrpt lllaration (Univer-
sity Park, Pa. 1992), IO9.
5
For the present writer, the task is made no easier by his personal
but our understanding of the evolution of Byzantine
ivory carving in its mature phase.6 No answer has been
forthcoming to my challenge that those who believe
frgurative ivories were produced in twelfth-century
Constantinople produce their evidence;7 it is no less
important to ascertain whether the Romanos ivory be-
longs to the middle of the tenth or the third quarter of
the eleventh century. In one sense, this determination is
made logically easier by the fact that only two imperial
couples were named Romanos and Eudokia: if the hy-
pothesis of an eleventh-century origin for the plaque in
Paris can be shown to be without foundation, then it
must depict Romanos II and Betha-Eudokia.8 It fol-
lows that this case would in part be made by weakness
in the arguments for the later date. Accordingl I shall
staft by considering the reasoning that, it is claimed,
supports the belief that Romanos IV and Eudokia are
represented. In the order of Kalavrezou-Maxeiner's a-
gumentation, this consists of the titulature, aspects of
rhe iconograph and the style of the ivory. But because
each of these factors is, in one way ot another, inade-
quate to the burden of proof, other aspects of the
object-notably its epigraphy and carving technique-
must also be considered. Each of these, in my view,
tends to support a tenth-century date. If one of these
admiration for the autho of the attempted chronological revision and
the fact that she is someone whose fiendship I value.
6
For reasons ofspace, I postpone until another occasion discussion of
virtually all the ivoies linked by'eitzmann and Kalavezou-Mueiner
with the plaque in the Cabinet des Mdailles. See my broader study,Tbe
Hand of the Master. Crafxmanship, laory, and Socet1 in Byzantiam (Nintlt-
E leuenth C enturies) (Princeton 1994), esp. 2O5
-206.
7
A. Cutler, review of I. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, Byzantne lcons in
Steatte, in Speculam 62 (1987),431.
8
The possibility that the ivory is a modern creation is excluded by
its provenance. It is first mentioned bV
J.J.Chifflet,
De Lnteis Se-
plcralibus Christ Sentators Crisis Historica (.Antwerp 7624), 6I. Belore
1805, the plaque formed part ofthe jeweled cover ofa Greek lectionary
kept in the church of St.
John
in Besanon. The use of the lectionary in
liturgical processions, f not the earlier handling of the ivory as an icon
carried in such a procession, would account for the plaque's worn flanks
and in particular the abrasion, consideed further below, of the faces of
rhe aag.tsloi.
grounds were in itself decisive, it would surely have
been pointed out long ago. Rather, their force derives
not from the strength of any single argument but from
their convergence and mutual reinforcement.
The
"documentary evidence" presented in 1971 be-
gins with the supposed signifrcation of the inscription
BACIAIC POMAION above the head of Eudokia.s Citing
three numismatic examples, it is claimed that
"all
of the
women who used the title basilis(sa) at one point as-
sumed the throne as sole iulers or as regents for sons in
thei minoity"; this leads to the conclusion that
"this
title was meant to imply a political position at least
equal to, and more likely of greater importance than,
the title augusta."ro Apart from the possibility that
inscriptions on the imperial coinage reresent an official
style not necessarily observed on works of a different
order, and the introduction of the epithet augasta
(which
is a red herring since it does appear on the ivory in
question), it still must be pointed out that the premise
involved here is incorrect. The inscription above the
head of Mary
"of
.lania" in the well-known miniature
in Paris, Coislin 79, reads MAPIA EN X TO OQ IICTH
BACI^ICCA KAI AYTOKPATOPICCA POMAION
(Fig. 2)'
This was not changed when the legend that identified
her fomer husband was erased and replaced with the
name of her second spouse.11 The book therefore dates
from a time after Maria's marciage to the reigning em-
peror, Michael VII Doukas, and before his abdication; at
no time in this interval was she either sole ruler or
regent for her son. As a foreigner, she would have held a
position at court roughly equivalent to that of Bertha-
Eudokia, daughter of Hugo of Provence, even though
her husband, Romanos II, was not raised to the position
of co-emperor until eight months afte their marriage
in Septembe r 944.
Yet, despite the example of Mary
"of
Alania," Kalavrezou-Maxeiner maintained that
"it is
unlikely that Bertha could have been crowne augusta
[which
is not at issueJ or permitted to use the title
bailis rornaion." Moreover, the argument against such
iulus-based on the notion that
"in normal cir-
e
Kalavrezou-Mueiner,
"Eudokia Makrembolitissa"
(as in note 2),
309-)10.
10
Ibid. In this connection, Kalavrezou-Maxeiner attempts to distin-
guish between the oirc form basilssa and the Attic basilic. Yet Anna
Komnene, a high A.tticist if eve thete was one (see now R. Beaton, T/e
Medieual Gree Romnce [Cambridge
1989], 11), uses the form bailissa
eighty-nine times, applying it to four empesses other than Eudokia
Makembolitissa. See the index prepared by P. Gautier for Ann Comnne:
Atexiafu, vol. IV (Paris 1976),24. Anna uses both terms for several of
these empresses, notably for Eudokia Makrembolitissa. See Anna Com-
nne: Alexide, ed. B. Leib (Paris 1937), vol. I, 108, line 21, and vol II,
172, line 25.
rr
I. Spatharakis, Tbe Portrait in Byzantne llluninated Manascripts
(Leiden 1976), 108, 116, g. 70. This insight was developed in an im-
portant paper by C.-L. Dumitrescu,
"Remarques en marge du C osln 79:
Les tois eunuques et le problme du donateur," Byzantion 57
(1987),
32-4), and accepted by Kalavrezou-Maxeiner in ODB IlI, 1704, s.v.
"Portraits and Portraiture."
cumstances there was only one aagasta, the wife o
mother of the emperor; only one was needed to exercise
the functions of state ceremonial, and Constantine's
wife, Helena, was present for these purposes"l2-musc
be weighed against the fact that at the time of Mary
"of
Alania's" m ra'ge to Michael VII, and indeed beyond
the day when he abdicated, hi mothet
(the same Eu-
dokia, it is claimed, as is represented on the Paris ivory)
was styled BACI(AII) PQMEONl3- a fact thatevidently
did not ptevent this appellation from being applied to
Michal's spouse in the Coislin miniature
(FiS. 2).
Given the lack of uniqueness in the title basili(a)
rontaion, and the fact that we do not know the precise
circumstances under which it came to be applied,la it
seems reasonable to suppose that the emPress is labeled
in this way simply as a pendant to the identification of
her husband as basileus ronzailn. Even if the title ba-
silis(sa) itself is rare on coins,15 such epigraphic symme-
try is by no means uncommon. Suggesting a habit of
mind involving more than matters of titulature, it might
be compared to the balanced inscriptions IE O Yc COY
and IoY H M-P CoY above the heads of the Virgin and
John
on Crucifrxion ivories of the "Romanos GroL-F."16
Be that as it ma thee is no special cogency to the use of
the term bastis( sa) in connection with Eudokia Makrem-
bolitissa. Like her, Bertha-Eudokia could have received
this title at any time between the coronation of Romanos
II as co-emperor and her death in 949.
Turning to the iconography of the ivor Kalavrezou-
Maxeiner established the important point that, as in
similar compositions in other media, the scene's pri-
mary connotatron was one of imperial coronation rather
than the couple's wedding.lT
\We
do not know the age
of Romanos IV at the time of his coronation in 1068,
but he had been old enough to command troops of
Constantine X on the Danube a few years earlier.ls If,
conservatively, we assume him precocious enough to
have achieved this position in, say, his early thirties, the
Paris ivory would then have to depict a man of at least
this age. By means of another prosopographical datum,
l2
Kalavrezou-Maxeinet,
"Eudokia Makembolitissa" (as in note 2),
3ro.
13
She is so called on the reliquary in Moscow where she is depicted
with her husband Constaotine X (ibid., 312, frg. l2).
14
"It is not exactly clear just how or why Eudokia [Makrembolit-
issal came to achieve this position during her husband's reign" (ibid.,
3t2).
1t
P. Grierson, Byzantne Coixge (Dtmt:arton Oaks Byzantine Col-
Iections 4) (\Tashington, D.C. 1982), vol. III, pt. 1, 181. Cf. note 10
above.
16
Goldschmidt and
lVeitzmann,
Elfenbensalpttren (as irt note 1),
vol. II, nos. 38-40.
l7
Kalavrezou-Maxeiner,
"Eudokia Maktembolitissa" (as in note 2)'
3rt-118.
18
C. Brand in ODB l, 1807, s.v "Romanos IV Diogenes." I am
indebted to Chatles Brand, Alexander Kazhdan, and Eric McGee fot
throwing light on the sources that can be used to calculate the ages of
Romanos II and Romanos IV.
I
60 6
,TNTHONY CUTLER
THE ROM,A.NOS IVORY 601
we can see that even this conservative approach proba-
bly underestimates the age of Romanos IV at the time
of his coonation. \e know that his father died in
I03I.r9 By this date, therefoe, the future emperor
should have been born, which would make him at least
thirty-seven when he married Eudokia Makembolitissa
and was crowned and acclaimed as autorator inHagia
Sophia onJanuary 1, 1068. Less information is available
concerning the age at which Eudokia Makrembolitissa
married he second husband: she was young enough to
bear at least two children to Romanos IV and to survive
at least ten years after his coronation.20 Professor Philip
Grierson has been kind enough to point out to me that
his main objection to an eleventh-century date for the
plaque
"is
that by that time emperors are always shown
more or less as they looked, and the eleventh century
rule would have had a black beard and not been a
beardless teefiager."2r Although Romanos ll-the only
other possible candidate for the male portrait on the
ivory-was not quite a teena3er during the lifetime of
Bertha-Eudokia,22 he was certainly closer to that status
than Romanos IV at the time of his coronation.
There can be no doubt that the emperor on the plaque
in the Cabinet des Mdailles is a beardless youth.
r(/orn
though the lower half of the head is (Fig.
l),23 it shows
no sign of a beard; indeed, one might even detect puppy
fat under his chin. Eudokia's similarly childlike features
(Fig. 4) do not suggest the face of a woman who had
borne ve children, as Makrembolitissa had before she
took Romanos Diogenes as her second husband.2a \hat-
ever degree of realistic intention we attribute to the
cayer, the argument that Romanos has lost his beard as
the result of abrasion is not tenable. On a comparably
te
Pseilos, Cbronograhia, ed. Ia. N. Liubarskii (Moscow 1978),296
n. 5. For the biography of Romanos IV before his coronation, see
N. Oikonomids, "Le serment de l'impratrice Eudocie (1067)," REB 21
(1961), IOI-128; on his coronation, ibid., 125.
20
C. Brand ln ODB 11,739-740, s.v "Eudokia Makrembolitissa."
21
Personal communication of November 16, 1989. Further on che
topic of "characterized portraiture," see Grierson, Byzantine Conage (as
in note 15), vol. I, pt. l, I42-I45.
22
Romanos Il was 24 at his death on 15 March 963
(Ioannes Sky-
litzes, Syosis hstorarum, ed. L Thurn lBerlin and New York 1973],
253, Iines 30-35). Since be was born in 9181939, he vould have been
ve o six when he married Bertha and ten when she died. For the
chronology of Romanos II's early years, see P. Odorico, "I1 calamo d'a-
gento. IJn carme inedito in onore di Romano lI,"
JOB
37 Q987), 15.
The relative immaturity of newly married couples, and especially of girls
who, in the Middle Byzantine world, maried at twelve, "very close to
notional pubert" was discussed by ,{. Laiou in a paper at the Dumbar-
ton Oaks Symposium on the Byzantine Family in May 1989. See DOP
44 (t99o),97.
23
See note 8 above.
24
See note 20 above.
2t
Formerly in the collection of
J. J.
Marquet de Vasselot (\. E
Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten du Stantike nd des
frlten
Mitwlalter,3 ed.
lMatz 19761, no. 732).
26
This comparison is all the more telling in that the apostles'beards
take quite diffeent forms: Paul's is sbot and rounded, Peter's long and
funnel-like. Thus whether one supposes that Romanos IV's beard was
worn ivory, a Christ enthroned between angels and
flanked by Peter and Paul,25 even though the surfaces of
the apostles' beads are now smooth, the contoar of these
attributes are still fully apparent. No such outline is
evident on the face of the emperor on the Paris ivory.26
Accepting the identifrcation of the basleas as Romanos
IV,
\eitzmann
remarked that
"das Poblem der Unbr-
tigkeit des Romanos ; . noch nicht geklrt ist."27 This
difficulty dissolves once Romanos II, and not Romanos
Diogenes, is recognized in the image.
It might be supposed that the empeor's costume'
which varies from one ivory to another,2s as it does in
othe representations, could still be used to distinguish
a ruler of the mid-tenth century from one of the third
quarter of the eleventh. In fact, l1s l6v6-a
jeweled,
scarflike garment wound twice around the emperor's
body as on the Constantine ivory in 1ot.o*29-and its
simplified f6-5 worn by the augurtls on the Ro-
manos plaque-were coeval. If the modifred loros, in
which a similarly gem-studded and embroidered cloth
hangs down the front of the body and ends in a fringe
just
above the hem of the emperor's tunic, was the
"direct
descendant" of the traditional loros,3o it did not
entirely supplant the older form, as the regalia of the
Paris Chrysostom manuscript (Fig. 2) of ca. 1078 attest.
The garment worn by the emperor cannot therefore be
used as a dating device. But the auguta's loros rrray be
more instructive in this respect. On our ivory the em-
press wears a loro with an inset tablion decorated with
rectangles and ivy leaves (Fig.
5) but lacking the kite-
shaped panel that is clearly in evidence on the costume
of Eudokia Makrembolitissa on histamena that she shares
with Romanos IV.31 Grierson points out that this panel
long or short-on his coins (Grieson, B1zntine Coinage las in note 15],
vol. III, pt. 2, pl. LXV, nos 1.1-2.4) it is quite ample-the wotn sur-
face of our ivory could in no way be responsible for the emperor's trans-
formation into a beardless youth. The problem of the missing beard is
rightly stressed by D. Gaborit-Chopin in Byzance l-iatt blzantin dans les
collections publiques
franaisa,
exhib. cat., ed.
J
Durand (Paris 1992),
no. 148.
27
See note 2 above.
28
Cf. Goldschmidt and
reitzmann,
Elfenbenskalptaren (as in note
1), vol. II, nos.35, 37,39,15,77.
z9
Poperly interpreted as Constantine VII: K.
rVeitzmann,
"The
Mandylion and Constantine Porphyrogennetos," CahArch 11 (1960),
183, reprinted insndies n Classical and Byzantne Manuscript lllamination
(Chicago 1971),244. See nowJ. Koder,
"'O Krrrvotovtvo flopupo"yv-
veto rco
fi
oroupo0ir toir rpoupr," in Contantine VII Porphyogenitus
and His Age, Second International Byzantine Conference,Delphi,22-26
JuJy
1987, ed. A. Markopoulos (Athens 1!8!), 166.
ro
P Gieson,
"Byzantine Gold Bullae, with a Catalogue of Those at
Dumbarton Oaks," DOP 20 (1966),248-249. Grierson illtstrates bullae
and solidi, contemporary with che Moscow ivory, in which Constantine
YII's loros displays the simplifred form. Further on the modified loros,see
idem, Byzantine Coinage (as in note 15), vol. 1, pt. I, I22,
3r
Grierson, Byzantine Coinage (as in note 15), vol. III, pt. 2,
nos. I.I
-2.4;
Kalavrezou-Maxeiner,
"Eudokia Makrembolitissa" (as in
note 2), frg.6. For the kite-shaped panel, see Grierson, Byzantine Coin-
age, voL III, pt. 1, 122, an vol. III, pt. 2' 781.
,{NTHONY
CUTLER
608
is one of the critical ways in which the lwos of eleventh-
century empresses
differed fom that of their prede-
cessors;32 he cites artistic cornparand
that include the
image of Mria"of
Alania" in Coislin 19 FiC'2)'By
this criteion,
then, the Eudokia on the Paris ivory
should be a ruler of the tenth century'
It was the difference between the figure style of works
of this era and those supposed
to be of the eleventh
century that led \eitzmann
to acquiesce
in the later
date fcr the Romanos
plaque'33 Kalavrezou-Maxeine's
argument'
however, was articulated
through contrasts
with other ivories, carved in ways which' to a
eater
or
lesser extent, differ from the plaque in the Cabinet des
Mdailles,3a
rather than in terms of the Romanos plaque
itself.
Quite
apart from the fact that different manners
of carviig.orrld
coe"i,t aare therefoe an ihsuffrcient
busison-whichtobasechonologicaldecisions'35the
plaque depicting
Romanos and Eudokia
is an object
,rrffr.i.rr,ty
important
to be examined
in its own right'
The extent to which the gures on it ae
"dematerial-
ized" has been considerably
exaggerated'
\hile several
small areas of the drapery-such
as the zone between
the train of the empero r's loros and the fringed hem of
this garment, or the empress's
tablion
(Fig' 5)-are
in-
d..Jflut, the overall impression
of insubstantiality
is
derived from two-dimensional
photographs'
not from
experience
ofthe ivory held in the hand-' In particular' a
frontal view
(Fig. 1) flattens the mass of all three bodies
which, in reality, occupy a depth of eight millimeters;
the ground against which they are set is less than halfas
thick.36 Examined directly, and perhaps apparent even
in a three-quarter
view
(Fig' 6), there is a distinct eleva-
tion to Euokia's bosom' Below her left hand' the girth
of her body is reduced at the level of the waist but rises
again over the stomach' Romanos's
torso is less mod-
.ied, bot even here the chest is manifestly
in a plane in
advance of that of the train of his loros as it passes
horizontally
across the body and rises over his left wrist'37
Christ's drapery is especially
voluminous'
Viewed
obliquely
from the right
(Fig' 6), the shallow' hanging
pl"n, of hi,
-urrtl.
aPpear progressively
thicker as they
12
Ibid., vol. III,
Pt.
1, 124'
13
See note 2 above.
14
Kalavezou-Maxeiner,
"Eudokia Makrembolitissa"
(as in note 2)'
in The Hand of tbe Mster
( in note 6)'
he entire upper half of the plaque is
ground is especially remarkable around
has developed seveal breaks thac start
from points aiong its scored contour'
37
It is this prominence, Iike that of Eudokia's left elbow' that has
caused the area in question to suffer more s'eat than othe parts of the
costume,
3sKalavrezou-Maxeiner,ssuggestionthatthe..materialthatwraps
atound the waist of tht Rotuo' Christ looks almost ioned on the
gr.." i, thus to be rejected as an impression based exclusively on a
rise. The depth of the shadow of this garment
to the left
of the .-p^r.rr',
head
(Fig' 7) suggests
how far it is
removed
from the ground, yet the relief here is still
shallower
than the folds over his right arm' These' in
turn, occupy a level markedly
lower than that of pleats
that fall fro- ttlt left shoulder almost to his hip' The
volume suggested by a photograph
taken from the right
it.onfrr-
by un tbtiq,te view from the left
(Fig' 8)'
In this perspective'
we can appreciate
the heaped folds
over Chiist's right arm and the rich superimposed
swathes
of cloth over his middle'38
The same view also suggests
the complex
modeling of his forehead'
the fullness of
his lips,ind
the swelling
volume of the tunic over his
breastbone.
"Dematerializatiorf' is not a term that I
would use of this image of Christ' The bodies are some-
what more elongated
and slightly
less monumental
than the frgures on the Palazzo Venezia triptych' as has
been
justlf, remarked,3e
but the best contrast is with
those on the Harbaville
triptych' This difference
is due
largely to the technique
employed' 'here'
in the latter'
thJ undercutting
is minimal, on the Romanos
ivory
undercutting
is used to suggest
the shaftlike
neck of
Christ, set within the plastic shape of his collar
(Figs' 7
and 8), and the necks of the bsilei which inhabit deep
,pu..r'd.frrred
at their perimeters by the perendouli
1ilgs.
3
a 4). Christ's undercut
hands have index
.r!.., that pass behind
the crosses on the imperial
.r.r, while his thumbs rest on the front of these same
regalia: the result is that he holds the crowns as if they
"r
troly three-dimensional
objects
(Figs' 3'
4' an 7)'
The undercutting
is most noticeable
in the sleeves of
Christ's mantle, from within which emerge
his modeled
forearms.4o
But volumes
of this sort are scarcely less
apparent
in the Zngenfalten
at hts hip' at the hem of the
-urrrt.
over his legs, and particularly
within the deep
recesses ofhis tunic about his ankles' To the extent that
any manuscript
illumination
can reproduce
such plas-
ticiry analogies
can be found in the Christ of the Sinai
irrrinury, [r.
zo+, of ca' 1000,a1 or' more closely' the
surn. frg..r. on the frontispiece
of Athos-' Lvra 92
Gg. 9;.42
Here, despite the difference of Christ's atti-
sleeves of Christ's mantle
4lK.NleitzmannandG.Galavaris'TheMonasteryofsaintCathaine
at Mvilnt Sinai. The llluninted Grk Manascripls' vol' I (Ptinceton
1991), no. 18, ftg.93, color
PI
III
"+i'F..
'eitzriunn,
Die by)ainiscbe
Buchmalere du 9' und 10'
Jahr-
hunderts
(Berlin 19)5),
ture' see most
recently G. Galavaris,
ctv rtrov
civc," in Constantine
j$' fr'S' )2'
Both authorities agree
his lectionary'
THE ROMANOS IVORY 609
tude, the richness of the mantle's folds-both at the
shoulder and hanging from his left arm, as well as the
gathering about his waist and the V-shaped carenaries
of drapery below it-is well simulated. Not to be ig-
nored in this mid-tenth-century miniature is the dispo-
sition of the feet, drawn, as on our ivor from above,
and carefully artanged to suggest their slight difference
of position vis--vis the gure's axis and required by its
ponderation.
The contents ofbooks offer reasons beyond the realm
of illumination to prefer a similarly early date for our
plaque. Its inscriptions, simple as they are, employ a
repertoire of letter forms found in manuscripts written
between the middle and rhe end of the tenth cerrur!;
Although one may doubt that the shapes of letters
carved in ivory and other materials necessarili marched
in lockstep with the development of book hands,43 rr
although no one letter form can in itself constirute
proof of a precise moment of creation, those on the
Romanos ivory evince chaacteristics that recur in such
manuscripts as Athos, Dionysiou 70 of the year
955;aa
Athos, Lavra L 7O of )84;45 and Bitish Llbnry, Harley
5598 of 99519646
(Text Fig. A). None of these books
displays a set of shapes totally in confomity with the
fifteen different letters of our inscriptions, but each of-
fers forms that agree with their counrerparrs on rhe
plaque in the Bibliothque Nationale. The most charac-
teristic of these-the crablike omega, the barred up-
silon, and the beta with discrete 6slls-s, in addition,
found in Saint Petesburg, Russian National Library
(formedy Public Library) 55, a monument of the so-
called e gra b ische Auszeicbnungsnaj us el.a7 The barred
upsilon and the mu with a thickened point at the inter-
section ofits oblique strokes occur even earlier, in Vati-
can Reg. gr. 29, a Praxapostolos and Epistles assigned
by E. Follieri to the beginning of the tenth cenrury.4s
Generall the total absence of ligaturesae and the
symmetrical disposition of the inscriptions on the Ro-
manos plaque argue for the object's place within the
series of ivories to be associated with Constantine VII
Porphyrogennetos. And this milieu is futher suggested
by the ivy leaves on Eudokia's tablion, aheady observed
a3
A. Cutler, "Inscriptions and Iconography on Some Mddle Byzan-
tine lvories," in Scritture, libri e testi nelle aree prnincial d Bisanz0, e.
G. Cavallo, G. de Gregorio, and M. Maniaci (Spoleto 799I),646;here,
too, on pp. 650,653, some preliminary discussion of the lette foms on
the Romanos ivory. Attention to the epigraphic anomalies involved in
identifuing the emperor on our plaque as Romanos IV was first drawn by
C. Mango, "Byzantine Epigraphy (Fourth to Tenth Centuries)," in
Paleograf.a e codicologia grra. Atti del ll Colloqzo internazonale (Berlno-
'lVolfenbt|,
17 21 lttlbre 1983), ed. D. Harlfinger and G Prato (,tles-
sandria 1991), vol. l, 247.
aa
I. Spatharakis, Coras of Dated llltminated Greek Manuscrix to the
Year 1453 (Leiden 1p81), no. 14.
as
l6id., no. 23.
46
Ibid., no 31. I am grateful to Susan Madigan for drawing my
PP T P
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Text Fig. . Letter forms on Roinanos ivory and selected
manuscripts. Left to right: Romanos ivor Dionysiou 70
(95)), HarIey tr98
(995196), Lra L 7O
(984) (drawing
Susan P Madigan)
attention to these three books and for preparing the diagram used in
Text Fig. A.
47 \Weitzmann,
Buhmalerei (as in note 42),69, frg. 41O.
48 "La
minuscola libraria dei secoli IX e X," in La palograbie grecqae
et byzantne (Colloque intenationale du CNRS, no. 559) (Pars 1977),
149,pI.8:b. The barred upsilon, which cootinued n use at least as late
as the unaltered part of the insctiption about the Constantine a Zoe
mosaic in Hagia Sophia, is especially common in tbe
Joshua
Roll-for
example, no fewer than three times in one inscription (K.
eitzmann,
The
Joshaa
Roll. A lVork of the Macedonian Renaissance [Princeton 1948],
45, s. 54).
49
Compzre the elaborate use of such forms on the revese of the
Cotona cross-reliquary (Goldschmidt and \leitzmann, E lfenberckulp-
turen ^s in note 11, vol. II, no. 77).
t0 ANTHONY CUTLER
ut until now neglected. Such ornament appears fre-
uently in the frames of the pictures in the Bible of Leo
rc aellarios of ca. 944,50 and, as a decorative adjunct,
:rminates several inscriptions in the miniatures of the
aris Psalter.tl Of course, excessive weight should not
e placed on a simple ornamental device; nonetheless, it
i worth rematking how consistent is its use, at least in
aleograph with the mid-tenth-centuty evival of Late
.ntique forms.52
Moe important than the identifrcation of any
ource" for details of the ivory is the way in which it
ncapsulates the ideological circumstances surrounding
rc basileus in the middle of the tenth century. In the
ririt of the almost contemporary plaque in Moscow
epicting Constantine VII,53 the Romanos ivory shows
re immediacy of the relationship between Christ and
re person of the empero; at the same time it extends
ris connection to members of the imperial family.
lgainst the identifrcation of the baileas with Romanos
[, it was argued that this would be the only instance
nown where a co-emperor is shown being crowned in
re absence of the senior emperor.s4 This may be so.
iut there is no reason why, in our attempt to understand
50
S. Dufrenne and P. Canart, De Bbel des Patriciut Io (Zurich
)88), fols. 46v, 176r,383. For the date of this book, see C. Mango,
lhe Date of Cod. Vat. Regin. Gr. I and the'Macedonian Renaissance,"'
ctalRNora 4 (1969), 127-126.
51
H. Omont, Minatare des
las
anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bilio-
qe Natonale dt Vl" aa XlV" sicle, 2d ed. (Paris 1929), pls.IY
Y VIII.
52
r{n ivy leaf terminal is found, for instance, after the name Ma-
:rius, the patron of a mid-third-century mosaic from Smirat. See K. M.
. Dunbabin, Tbe Mosacs of Roman North Afrca: Studies in lconograpby
td Patronage (Oxford 1978), 67-69,pI.53.
the politics of the imperial image, we should confine
ourselves to visual representations. From the Macedo-
nian era we have several encomia in which the younger
rule is lauded while the senior frgure takes a back seat.5t
Of particular relevance is an ode composed for Romanos
II when he was barely twelve, written to accompany a
courtier's offering on December IO,950.56 As on our
plaque, nothing in the poem directly indicates his status
as a child. Rather, it emphasizes the basileia romaion
which is in "the omnipotent hand of the Lord" and from
which, again as on the Romanos ivor the recipient of
the gift receives his authority.5T No more than works of
Byzantine literature do works of at necessarily record
details of titulature with the accuracy that we can expect
of coins and other
"offrcial"
documents. On the ivory in
the Cabinet des Mdailles the empress is called balis
even tholrgh she is a child married to the junior emperor.
Considerations of iconography, style, technique, and epi-
graphy all point to the conclusion that this emperor can
be no one other than Romanos II.
Pennsy luania State U niuers ity
5l
See note 29 above and, further on the plaque's ideological content,
,{. Schminck, "'In hoc sigoo vinces'-Aspects du 'csaropapisme'
l'poque de Constantin VII Porphyrognte," in Constantine Vll Por'
phyrogentus (as in note 29), IO8.
54
Kalavrezot-Maxeiner, "Eudokia Makrembolitissa" (as in note 2),
318.
55
Odorico, "Calamo d'argento" (as in note 22).
16
lbid., 7t.
t7
Ibid., 82-8t.
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