Byzantine Republicanism

[Emperor Goblinus]

To it's dying days, the empire in the West continually made nostalgic references to the republic, about how victorious emperors were "restoring the republic" and "honoring the Senate," even though by then it was basically a complete autocracy. In the Byzantine period, despite the fact that it was an absolute monarchy, did the Byzantines still give any reference to the republic, or was that kind of thinking, even just for nostalgic or propaganda purposes, completely gone?

[Andrew Dalby]

To it's dying days, the empire in the West continually made nostalgic references to the republic, about how victorious emperors were "restoring the republic" and "honoring the Senate," even though by then it was basically a complete autocracy. In the Byzantine period, despite the fact that it was an absolute monarchy, did the Byzantines still give any reference to the republic, or was that kind of thinking, even just for nostalgic or propaganda purposes, completely gone?

 

There was a Byzantine Senate. At least down to 1204. At that date it was instumental in the elevation of Alexios Mourtzouflos as Emperor, according to Niketas Choniates.

[Emperor Goblinus]

Interesting. I did not about the Constantinopolitan Senate, but I didn't know that it had emperor-making powers that late.

What I'm really trying to get at is if at any point in Byzantine records, coins, or anywhere else were there references to the "Senate and the People of Rome," or other such nostalgic republican propaganda, despite the rigid monarchy?