CHALLENGING THE CANON
FUNCTION
The diptych was created to commemorate Flavius Anastasius taking the position of consul in Constantinople in 517. Functionally, a diptych like this could serve as a highly decorative writing tablet, given as gifts to supporters of the consul. The back of the panel has a raised border that would allow wax to be poured into it, into which a message could be written.
CONTENT
Flavius Anastasius is depicted wearing a trabea, a traditional and highly decorated ceremonial costume, while seated on a lion-legged throne. His left hand holds a sceptre, and his right holds a ceremonial textile known as the mappa circensis, which would be dropped to declare the start of the games that take place on the lower register of the panel. At the very bottom, a man can be seen with a crab grabbing his nose in what is possibly an act of comic relief for the games’ onlookers. Above them, two attendants lead horses, possibly for some kind of race. The seated consul is flanked by two Winged Victory figures, standing on globes and supporting shields, with medallions displaying personifications of Rome and Constantinople decorating his throne. The whole scene is set in front of an aedicula, a structure that serves to frame and highlight a statue. The upper register of the panel features both an inscription, which displays the titles of the new consul, and three busts. The uppermost bust is that of Emperor Anastasius I, Flavius Anastasius’s uncle. To his right is Anastasius I’s wife, Empress Ariadne, and to his left is Pompeius, the other Byzantine consul. The overwhelming amount of ornamentation and regalia maximize the status of the position of consul while minimizing the individuality of Flavius Anastasius himself. Moreover, the miniscule size of the other figures compared to Flavius Anastasius and the royal busts above him is a technique characteristic of Byzantine iconography, cementing the importance of the main figure(s) over the common people displayed in the ivory.
ARIADNE & KINLOCH
The Consular Diptych can be read as a visual echo of Empress Ariadne’s role as a kingmaker. When Zeno died in 491, Ariadne chose Anastasius as his successor, exercising dynastic authority that fundamentally shaped the imperial line. The diptych, commemorating Flavius Anastasius’s consulship in 517, presents his power as autonomous and divinely sanctioned, but beneath this imagery lies Ariadne’s decisive act of legitimation. Her influence is both central and invisible: she enabled Anastasius’s rule, yet the object erases her in order to construct an image of male authority. This dynamic parallels the patterns Matthew Kinloch identifies in Byzantine historiography, where female characters are “principally identified through their relationship with male characters, [and] largely passive in action” (p.314). Kinloch further argues that women are “produced as subordinate… not as autonomous individual[s] but as subordinate character[s]” (p.310). Ariadne’s historical agency is thus flattened in both text and image: historiography acknowledges her only as wife or widow, while the diptych portrays her power only in relation to Anastasius I. Yet, read alongside Kinloch’s critique, the diptych becomes a testament to Ariadne’s hidden authority, revealing how Byzantine culture simultaneously depended upon and effaced the empress’s role as kingmaker.
ARIADNE & McCLANNAN
In McClanan’s reading, the empress is not portrayed as an autonomous historical figure but as a de-individualized ideal whose body and image served as a symbolic vessel for imperial authority. This meant that her representation emphasized majesty, virtue, and continuity rather than personal identity. McClanan notes that “Representations of the empress function emblematically rather than as portraits of an individual” (p.143). Theodora’s depictions in mosaics or texts embody this logic: her jeweled attire, rigid frontal pose, and halo strip away her biography, making her into an icon that validates Justinian’s reign more than it reveals her own agency. In the diptych, Ariadne’s bust affirms two things at once: (1) her role as dynastic link — daughter of Leo I, widow of Zeno, and now legitimizer of Anastasius — and (2) her transformation into an icon of empire rather than a visible agent. Her portrait is schematic and idealized, stripped of individuality, so that she appears less as a historical person than as a timeless emblem of imperial continuity. Both Ariadne and Theodora (as well as many of the other empresses that came before and after them) are not only representatives of abstract imperial power, but are the divine, feminine representatives of the imperial cult image, making them physical embodiments of the city of Constantinople. This corporeal linkage between empress and capital (realpolitik) both elevated her power yet further blurred any sense of her individual identity. By placing Ariadne in a bust above Anastasius, the diptych visually encodes her indispensable role in securing his legitimacy, while at the same time flattening her identity into an abstract sign of lineage. Moreover, including the very specific inscription that celebrates Flavius Anastasius’s new role allows the diptych’s meaning to resonate both “with specific historical circumstances [while conveying] a broader message of eternally triumphant imperial power” (p.139). Like Theodora, whose jeweled, frontal image in mosaic erases her contested background in favor of timeless imperial majesty, Ariadne is here subsumed into the visual language of dynasty and divine sanction as a de-individualized emblem that assures viewers of the stability and continuity of imperial power.
CHALLENGING THE CANON
The Diptych complicates traditional definitions within the Byzantine canon by making feminine agency both visible and invisible at once. On the one hand, the diptych appears to conform to the conventions of imperial representation: Anastasius is enthroned in rigid, frontal majesty, the sole figure of power in the main register. Yet above him, the bust of Empress Ariadne disrupts this seemingly straightforward image of male authority. Her inclusion acknowledges her pivotal role in legitimizing Anastasius’s rule—she, after all, was the one who chose him as emperor after Zeno’s death—yet she is represented only as an abstracted bust, stripped of individuality and reduced to a symbol of dynastic continuity. This tension complicates the Byzantine canon, which typically renders the empress as a de-individualized ideal, a mere visual guarantee of power, while effacing her active political role. By encoding Ariadne’s authority in such a flattened, symbolic form, the diptych exposes the paradox of feminine agency in Byzantine art: women were indispensable kingmakers, but their power could only be visualized through abstraction and subordination to the emperor’s image. In this way, the diptych both participates in and unsettles the canonical strategies of representation that defined the empress as essential yet silenced within the visual culture of empire.
- Empresses were often depicted in a very similar fashion as a perfected imperial ideal. How does the inclusion and publicization of specific, individualized physical characteristics of imperial figures impact our perception of their power or attributes?
- Going back to our discussion of Theodosius and his uniquely long presence in Constantinople, did the empress’s role as the physical embodiment of the city create an obligation to physically stay in the city? If so, how does this impact our understanding of her agency?
- As empresses were seen as symbols and securers of the imperial lineage, how was the image of the empress impacted if she was not able to produce a male heir? What iconographic models, if any, were used in those circumstances?
CHALLENGING THE CANON
Elizabeth Burnell
Created on September 30, 2025
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Transcript
CHALLENGING THE CANON
FUNCTION
The diptych was created to commemorate Flavius Anastasius taking the position of consul in Constantinople in 517. Functionally, a diptych like this could serve as a highly decorative writing tablet, given as gifts to supporters of the consul. The back of the panel has a raised border that would allow wax to be poured into it, into which a message could be written.
CONTENT
Flavius Anastasius is depicted wearing a trabea, a traditional and highly decorated ceremonial costume, while seated on a lion-legged throne. His left hand holds a sceptre, and his right holds a ceremonial textile known as the mappa circensis, which would be dropped to declare the start of the games that take place on the lower register of the panel. At the very bottom, a man can be seen with a crab grabbing his nose in what is possibly an act of comic relief for the games’ onlookers. Above them, two attendants lead horses, possibly for some kind of race. The seated consul is flanked by two Winged Victory figures, standing on globes and supporting shields, with medallions displaying personifications of Rome and Constantinople decorating his throne. The whole scene is set in front of an aedicula, a structure that serves to frame and highlight a statue. The upper register of the panel features both an inscription, which displays the titles of the new consul, and three busts. The uppermost bust is that of Emperor Anastasius I, Flavius Anastasius’s uncle. To his right is Anastasius I’s wife, Empress Ariadne, and to his left is Pompeius, the other Byzantine consul. The overwhelming amount of ornamentation and regalia maximize the status of the position of consul while minimizing the individuality of Flavius Anastasius himself. Moreover, the miniscule size of the other figures compared to Flavius Anastasius and the royal busts above him is a technique characteristic of Byzantine iconography, cementing the importance of the main figure(s) over the common people displayed in the ivory.
ARIADNE & KINLOCH
The Consular Diptych can be read as a visual echo of Empress Ariadne’s role as a kingmaker. When Zeno died in 491, Ariadne chose Anastasius as his successor, exercising dynastic authority that fundamentally shaped the imperial line. The diptych, commemorating Flavius Anastasius’s consulship in 517, presents his power as autonomous and divinely sanctioned, but beneath this imagery lies Ariadne’s decisive act of legitimation. Her influence is both central and invisible: she enabled Anastasius’s rule, yet the object erases her in order to construct an image of male authority. This dynamic parallels the patterns Matthew Kinloch identifies in Byzantine historiography, where female characters are “principally identified through their relationship with male characters, [and] largely passive in action” (p.314). Kinloch further argues that women are “produced as subordinate… not as autonomous individual[s] but as subordinate character[s]” (p.310). Ariadne’s historical agency is thus flattened in both text and image: historiography acknowledges her only as wife or widow, while the diptych portrays her power only in relation to Anastasius I. Yet, read alongside Kinloch’s critique, the diptych becomes a testament to Ariadne’s hidden authority, revealing how Byzantine culture simultaneously depended upon and effaced the empress’s role as kingmaker.
ARIADNE & McCLANNAN
In McClanan’s reading, the empress is not portrayed as an autonomous historical figure but as a de-individualized ideal whose body and image served as a symbolic vessel for imperial authority. This meant that her representation emphasized majesty, virtue, and continuity rather than personal identity. McClanan notes that “Representations of the empress function emblematically rather than as portraits of an individual” (p.143). Theodora’s depictions in mosaics or texts embody this logic: her jeweled attire, rigid frontal pose, and halo strip away her biography, making her into an icon that validates Justinian’s reign more than it reveals her own agency. In the diptych, Ariadne’s bust affirms two things at once: (1) her role as dynastic link — daughter of Leo I, widow of Zeno, and now legitimizer of Anastasius — and (2) her transformation into an icon of empire rather than a visible agent. Her portrait is schematic and idealized, stripped of individuality, so that she appears less as a historical person than as a timeless emblem of imperial continuity. Both Ariadne and Theodora (as well as many of the other empresses that came before and after them) are not only representatives of abstract imperial power, but are the divine, feminine representatives of the imperial cult image, making them physical embodiments of the city of Constantinople. This corporeal linkage between empress and capital (realpolitik) both elevated her power yet further blurred any sense of her individual identity. By placing Ariadne in a bust above Anastasius, the diptych visually encodes her indispensable role in securing his legitimacy, while at the same time flattening her identity into an abstract sign of lineage. Moreover, including the very specific inscription that celebrates Flavius Anastasius’s new role allows the diptych’s meaning to resonate both “with specific historical circumstances [while conveying] a broader message of eternally triumphant imperial power” (p.139). Like Theodora, whose jeweled, frontal image in mosaic erases her contested background in favor of timeless imperial majesty, Ariadne is here subsumed into the visual language of dynasty and divine sanction as a de-individualized emblem that assures viewers of the stability and continuity of imperial power.
CHALLENGING THE CANON
The Diptych complicates traditional definitions within the Byzantine canon by making feminine agency both visible and invisible at once. On the one hand, the diptych appears to conform to the conventions of imperial representation: Anastasius is enthroned in rigid, frontal majesty, the sole figure of power in the main register. Yet above him, the bust of Empress Ariadne disrupts this seemingly straightforward image of male authority. Her inclusion acknowledges her pivotal role in legitimizing Anastasius’s rule—she, after all, was the one who chose him as emperor after Zeno’s death—yet she is represented only as an abstracted bust, stripped of individuality and reduced to a symbol of dynastic continuity. This tension complicates the Byzantine canon, which typically renders the empress as a de-individualized ideal, a mere visual guarantee of power, while effacing her active political role. By encoding Ariadne’s authority in such a flattened, symbolic form, the diptych exposes the paradox of feminine agency in Byzantine art: women were indispensable kingmakers, but their power could only be visualized through abstraction and subordination to the emperor’s image. In this way, the diptych both participates in and unsettles the canonical strategies of representation that defined the empress as essential yet silenced within the visual culture of empire.