36

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

XVII.

that they were created by his sole authority."Their names and portraits, engraved on gilttablets of ivory, were dispersed over the empireas presents to the provinces, the cities, the ma-gistrates, the senate, and the people." Theirsolemn inauguration was performed at the placeof the imperial residence; and during a periodof one hundred and twenty years, Rome wasconstantly deprived of the presence of her an-cient magistrates . 0 On the morning of the firstof January, the consuls assumed the ensigns oftheir dignity. Their dress was a robe of pur-ple, embroidered in silk and gold, and some-times ornamented with costly gems. p On this

m Cum de consulibus in annum creandis, solus mecum voluta-reni....te consulem et designavi,et declaravi, ct priorem nnucupavi-are some of tlie expressions employed by the emperor Gratian to hispreceptor the poet Ausonius.

* Iinmanesque... .dentesQui secti ferro in tabulas auroque micantes,

Inscripti rutilum caelato consule nomenPer proccres et vulgus eant.

Claud, in ii Cons. Stilichon. 456,'

Montfaucon has represented some of these tablets or dyptics; seeSupplement a 1’AntiquiU* expliquee, tom. iii, p. 220.

° Consule laetatur post plurima saecula visoPallanteus apex : agnoscunt rostra curulesAuditas quondam proavis : desuetaque cingitRegius auratis Fora fascibus Ulpia lietor.

Claudian in vi Cons. Honorii, 643.

From the reign of Cams to the sixth consulship of Honorius, there wasan interval of one hundred and twenty years, during which the empe-rors were always absent from Rome on the first day of January. Seethe Chronologie de Tillemont, tom. iii, iv, and v.

r See Claudian in Cons. Prob. et Olybrii 178, &c.; and in iv, Cons.Honorii, 585, &c.; though in the latter it is not easy to separate theornaments of the emperor from those of the consul. Ausonius received,from the liberality of Gratian, a r estis palmuta, or robe of state, in whichthe figure of the emperor Constantius was embroidered.