176 Part Two: Epigrams in Context
epigrams, Julian (AP XV, 45, cf. APl 386–387), is not attributed a specific
colour in the sole epigram written in his honour. Perhaps the poet even read a
typically Byzantine innuendo in the first verse of the epigram stating that
Julian was a “nursling of Tyre”. As Tyre was famous for its purple dye, the
poet may have thought that Julian was “purplish”, that is, “red”.
In short, seeing that the Byzantine epigrams present the charioteers in the
same order as the late antique ones and contain obvious literary reminiscences,
there can be but little doubt that the tenth-century poet was familiar with the
late antique epigrams on the charioteers. Since he only needed to know a few
iconographic details, he read the late antique epigrams rather superficially. He
just haphazardly thumbed through his copy of Cephalas and picked out the
first few epigrams on each of the charioteers. If he had read more carefully, he
would have seen that Porphyrius regularly changed team and did not only race
for the Blues, but also for the Greens. He then would also have seen that two
of the epigrams on Uranius make it abundantly clear that his colleague Con-
stantine used to compete for the Greens (AP XV, 48. 1–3 and APl 376. 4). In
fact, the tenth-century poet committed a grave error by arbitrarily assuming
that Constantine used to race for the Whites. But then again, the poet was not
interested in historical accuracy. It did not matter for which teams the chari-
oteers were once racing. The poet simply wanted four famous names and four
matching colours. If the first epigrams on Porphyrius had stated that he
sported the colour Green, the poet would just as easily have portrayed Porphy-
rius as a Green charioteer. And then he would have stated that Faustinus once
used to compete for the Blues, simply because he needed the opposite colour of
the Greens. The early tenth-century epigrams do not provide, and more impor-
tantly, do not purport to provide, accurate historical information on the
charioteers of the past, but rather constitute a literary reflection of the late
antique epigrams found in the anthology of Cephalas.
The poet of these Byzantine epigrams must have been the very person who
told the artists how they should portray the ancient charioteers on the ceiling
of the parakyptikön, the gallery in the Kathisma above the level of the imperial
box^69. While it was the poet who came up with the iconographic programme for
the decoration of the parakyptikön, it was the emperor who made it possible by
providing the necessary funds. It is reasonable to assume that the poet tried his
best to please his patron and that the pictures of the ancient charioteers were
precisely what the emperor desired to see when he was sitting in his imperial
box in the Hippodrome. It is not known who was the reigning emperor at the
time: Leo VI, Alexander, young Constantine Porphyrogenitus or Romanos I.
Epigram APl 385 begins with a rather awkward phrase possibly indicating that
(^69) See CAMERON 1973: 200–201.