and the other two fingers folded against the palm, or the variant known as the
bene dictio graeca with the little finger distended as well). Quintilian, who in his Institutiones oratoriae minutely describes the linguistic gesture in all its variants, writes, in relation to its unquestionable efficacy, that it is the hands themselves
that speak (“ipsae loquuntur”: II, 3, 85). It would be impossible to define more
precisely the power of a linguistic gesture that is irreducible to a scansion or to
a mere emphasizing of the discourse: there where the gestures become words,
the words become facts. We find ourselves in the presence of a phenomenon
that corresponds, even if apparently through an inverse process, to the insoluble
interweaving of words and facts, of reality and meaning that defines the sphere
of language that linguists call performative and that has attained philosophical
status through Austin’s book How to Do Things with Words (1962). The performa-
tive is indeed a linguistic utterance that is also, in itself, immediately a real fact,
insofar as its meaning coincides with a reality that it produces.
But in what way does the performative realize its peculiar efficacy? What
allows a certain syntagma (for example, “I swear”) to acquire the status of a fact,
negating the ancient maxim according to which words and actions are separated
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by an abyss? Linguists do not tell us, as if here they found themselves before a
final, magical layer of language. In order for us to answer these questions, it is
necessary to begin by reminding ourselves that the performative is always con-
stituted through a suspension of the normal, denotative character of language.
The performative verb is necessarily constructed with a dictum that, considered
in itself, has the nature of a pure statement without which it remains empty
and without effect (“I swear” has value only if it is followed or preceded by a
dictum— for example, “that yesterday I was in Rome”). It is this normal denota-
tive character of the dictum that is suspended and, in some way, transformed at
the very moment that it becomes the object of a performative phrase.
This means, in all truth, that the performative utterance is not a sign but a
signature [ segnatura], one that marks the dictum in order to suspend its value and displace it into a new nondenotative sphere that takes the place of the former. This is the way we should understand the gestures and signs of power with
which we are occupied here. They are signatures that inhere in other signs or
objects in order to confer a particular efficacy upon them. It is not therefore by
chance that the spheres of right and the performative are always strictly con-
joined and that the acts of the sovereign are those in which gesture and word are
immediately efficacious.
7.8. The insignia of power did not exist only in the imperial age. There was
an object in the Roman republic that sheds light on the peculiar nature of the
insignia with particular force. It is the fasces lictoriae, to which curiously neither Alföldi nor Schramm refer. Their history, which begins with the monarchy,
reaches its apogee in the republican era and continues into the imperial era,
although increasingly obscured. It is well known that, like the laudes regiae, they were provisionally resurrected in the twentieth century. The fasces were elm or
birch rods about 130 centimeters in length, bound together with a red strap into
which an axe was inserted laterally. They were assigned to a special corporation,
half apparitores and half executioners, called lictores, who wore the fasces on their left shoulder. In the republic, the period about which we have most information,
the fasces were the prerogative of the consul and the magistrate who had imperium. The lictors, twelve in number, had to accompany the magistrate on every occasion, not just on public occasions. When the consul was at home, the lictors
waited in the vestibule; if he went out, even if only to the spa or the theater, they
invariably accompanied him.
To define the fasces as the “symbol of imperium,” as has sometimes been the
case, tells us nothing about their nature or their specific function. So little does
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537
the word symbol characterize them that they in fact served to actually inflict capital punishment in its two forms: flogging (the rods) and decapitation (the axe).
Thus we begin to understand the nature of the fasces only when we examine in
detail the manner in which they were linked to the imperium. It immediately
defines the nature and the effectiveness of the imperium. If, depending on the
specific circumstance, a consul did not exercise his imperium, he lost his right
to the fasces. (In 19 bc the senate conferred on Augustus, who at that time was
without consular imperium, the right to the fasces; this marked the beginning
of an involution that would be fully achieved only in the imperial age.) What
is particularly significant is the circumstance that the axe was to be removed
from the fasces of the magistrate when he found himself within the pomerium,
because here the ius necis inhering in the imperium was limited by the right belonging to each Roman citizen to appeal to the people against the death penalty.
For the same reason, the magistrate had to lower the fasces before the popular
assemblies.
The fasces do not symbolize the imperium; they execute and determine it in
such a way that to each of its juridical articulations there corresponds a material
articulation of the fasces, and vice versa. For this reason, fasces attollere signifies the magistrate’s entering office, just as the breaking open of the fasces corresponds to his dismissal. This connection between the fasces and the imperium
was so immediate and absolute that no one could stand between a magistrate
and his lictor (except for a prepubescent son who, according to Roman law, was
already subjected to the ius necisque potestas of the father). For the same reason, in some sense the lictor was without an existence of his own: not only did his
garments conform to that of the magistrate he accompanied (military sagum
outside the pomerium, a toga within the walls), but the very term “lictor” is
synonymous with “fasces.”
Particularly instructive is the relationship between the fasces and a phenom-
enon that had a decisive significance for the formation of imperial power. We
are speaking of the case of the triumph, whose relation to acclamations we have
already noted. The ban on the magistrate’s being able to display the fasces with the
axe inside Rome had two important exceptions: the dictator and the triumphant
general. This means that triumph implies an indetermination of the difference
domimilitiae, which from the standpoint of public law distinguishes the territory of the city from that of Italy and the provinces. We know that the magistrate who
had asked for the triumph to be accorded him had to wait for the decision of the
senate outside the pomerium, in the Campo Martius; otherwise he would forever
forfeit the right to the triumph, which was due only to the victorious general
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HOMO SACER II, 4
who effectively possessed imperium, that is, who was accompanied by the fasces.
Fasces and imperium once again demonstrate here their consubstantiality. At the
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same time, the triumph is revealed to be the seed from which imperial power will
develop. If the triumph can be technically defined as the extension within the
pomerium of prerogatives belonging to the imperator that are only valid outside it, the new imperial power will be defined precisely as the extension and fixing of
the triumphal right in a new figure. Moreover, if, as in Mommsen’s penetrating
formulation, the centralization of the imperium in the hands of the prince trans-
forms the triumph into a right reserved for the emperor ( kaiserliches Reservatrecht: Mommsen, vol. 1, p. 135), conversely, the emperor may be defined as the one who
has the monopoly on triumph and who permanently possesses its insignias and
prerogatives. One phenomenon, the ius triumphi, which is usually analyzed as if it concerned merely the formal apparatus and pomp of power, instead shows itself to
be the original juridical core of an essential transformation of Roman public law.
What appeared to be merely a question of clothing and splendor (the purple gown
of the triumphant general, the crown of laurels that encircles his brow, the axe as a
symbol of the power of life and death) becomes the key to understanding the deci-
sive transformations of the constitution. Thus the way is cleared for a more precise
understanding of the meaning and nature of the insignia and of the acclamations
and, more generally, of the sphere that we have defined with the term “glory.”
7.9. In the first half of the tenth century, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
gathered in an ample treatise the traditions and prescriptions relating to the impe-
rial ceremony ( basileios taxis). In the introduction, Constantine presents his task as the “most intimate and desirable, because through a praiseworthy ceremony,
imperial power appears better ordered and majestic” (Constantine Porphyrogen-
itus, Le livre des cérémonies, I, p. 1). It is clear, however, from the beginning, that the end of this gigantic choreography of power is not merely aesthetic. The
emperor writes that it is a case of placing at the heart of the royal palace a kind
of optical device, a “clear and well-polished mirror, so that, in carefully contem-
plating the image of imperial power in it [ . . . ] it is possible to hold its reins
with order and dignity” (ibid., I, p. 2). Never has the ceremonial folly of power
reached such an obsessive liturgical scrupulousness as it does in these pages. There
is not a gesture, garment, ornament, word, silence, or place that is not ritually
fixed or meticulously catalogued. The incipit of the chapters announces, for each one, what “must be observed” ( hosa dei paraphylattein) for this or the other occasion, what must be “known” ( isteon), and what acclamations ( aktalogia) are to be expressed for each festival, procession, and assembly. An infinite hierarchy of
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539
functionaries and other people involved in the various tasks, divided into the two
great classes of the “bearded ones” and the “eunuchs,” watches over the protocol
to ensure that it is observed at every moment. The ostiarii announce the entrance of the dignitaries, and the silentiaries regulate the silences and the euphemias
before the sovereign; the manglavites and the members of the Hetaireia escort
him during the solemn processions; dieticians and dressers ( bestētores) provide
personal care; and the cartularies and the prothonotaries follow its signatures and
the chancellory. Emperor Constantine’s opening description of the coronation
ceremony reads as follows:
When all is ready, the emperor departs the Augusteion, wearing his skaramangion and purple sagion, escorted by his personal staff, and proceeds as far as the vestibule called Onopodion; here he receives the first homage of the patricians.
The Master of Ceremonies says: “Acclaim [ Keleusate]!” and they exclaim: “Many
good years [ Eis pollous kai agathous chronous]!” Then they all proceed down as far as the great Konsistorion, and within the Konsistorion the consuls and the rest of
the senators assemble. The sovereigns stand in the kiborion, while all the senators together with the patricians prostrate themselves. As they rise, the sovereigns
give a sign to the Praipositos of the Sacred Cubicle and the silentiaries intone:
“Acclaim!” and they wish him “Many good years!” And then the group of sover-
eigns moves toward the cathedral, passing through the Scholae, and the factions,
properly attired, are standing in their assigned places, making the sign of the cross.
And when the emperor has entered the Horologion, the curtain is raised and he
goes into the mētatōrion; he changes into the divītīsion and the tzitzakion, and throws over them the sagion; then he enters with the patriarch. He lights candles
on the silver doors, walks through the central nave, and he proceeds to the sōlea; he prays before the holy gates, and, having lit other candles, he ascends the ambo
together with the patriarch. The patriarch recites a prayer over the mantle, and,
when he is finished, the servants of that room take up the mantle and dress the
sovereign up with it. The patriarch recites a prayer over the sovereign’s crown,
and, when the prayer is complete, he takes in his hands the crown [ stemma] and
places it on the head of the emperor, and immediately the people [ laos] thrice
cry out with the acclamation [ anakrazei] “Holy, Holy, Holy [ Hagios, Hagios,
Hagios]! Glory in the heavens [ Doxa en hypsistois] to God and peace on earth!”
And other people cry out: “Many years to the emperor [ autokratoros] and to the
great king!” and what follows. Wearing the crown he goes down and enters the
mētatōrion and sits on the royal seat [ sellion], and the dignitaries [ ta axiōmata]
enter, prostrating themselves and kissing his knees. First come the magistrates.
Second the patricians and generals; third the swordbearers [ protospathari]; fourth the logothete, the domestikos of the excubitors, of the hikanatoi and of the numbers
[ noumeroi], the senatorial swordbearers [ spatharioi], and the consuls. Fifth come
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HOMO SACER II, 4
the swordbearers; sixth the squires; seventh the counts [ komētes] of the Scholae;
eighth the Candidates of the cavalry; ninth the scribes [ skribōnoi] and domes-
tics; tenth the secretaries, the dressers, and the silentiaries; eleventh the imperial
mandatores and candidates of the infantry; twelfth the counts of the arithmos, of the hikanatoi, the tribunes and counts of the fleet.
To all the Praipositos says: “Acclaim!” and they exclaim “Many happy years!”
[ . . . ] (Ibid., I, p. 47)
7.10. It is hardly necessary to underline the central role that acclamations
play in imperial ceremonies and liturgy. In Constantine’s treatise, insofar as they
constitute an essential part of every ceremony, they, when not undertaken by the
master of ceremonies or by the silentiaries, are entrusted to the special function-
aries called the kraktai (literally, the “shriekers”) who, acting like chief claques (or, rather, like the presbyters who start to sing the psalmody in the liturgical
celebration), articulate them along with the people in the guise of responses. So,
in the procession for Christ’s birth, at the moment when the sovereigns arrive
at the Lychni
[ . . . ] the kraktai cry: “Polla, polla, polla [Many, many, many (‘years’: is implied)],”
and the people [ laos] reply “Polla etē, eis po
lla [Many years and many more].” And once again the kraktai: “Many years [ chronoi] for you divine sovereign”; and the people thrice cry: “Many years to you.” Then the kraktai: “Many years to you,
attendants of the Lord,” and the people call out three times: “Many years to you.”
Then the kraktai cry: “Many years to [such-and-such] autocrat of the Romans”;
and for three times the people reply: “Many years to you.” The kraktai: “Many
years to you [such-and-such] august dignitary of the Romans,” and thrice the
people reply: “Many years to you” [ . . . ] (Ibid., I, 2, p. 30)
What is significant, if at first disconcerting, is that the same ritualizing of accla-
mations takes place for the horse racing in the hippodrome. The shriekers cry
out here as well: “Many many many” and the people reply, just as they do in
the Christmas ceremony: “Many years, and many more,” substituting the name
of the race winner for that of the emperor. In Byzantium, beginning already in
the Justinian era, the two factions into which the spectators are divided in the
hippodrome, the Blues and Greens, have a strong political character and even
constitute, so to speak, the only form of political expression left to the people.
Therefore, it is not surprising that sporting acclamations are invested with the
same process of ritualization that defines the acclamations of the emperors.
Under Justinian’s rule there was even an uprising that shook the city for almost
a week, which had as its slogan a sporting acclamation ( nika, “win!”; exactly as
THE KINGDOM AND THE GLORY
541
today, in Italy, an important political faction draws its name from an acclama-
tion heard in the stadiums).*
Alföldi shows that to these acclamations in Byzantine hippodromes there
correspond, in even earlier times, analogous acclamations in Rome, which
sources describe to us in detail. Despite involving thousands of men applauding,
these acclamations did not occur by chance, but were, in the words of an atten-
tive witness such as Cassius Dio, “a chorus that was accurately prepared [ hōsper
tis akribōs choros dedidagmenos]” (Alföldi, p. 81). It is with acclamations of the same type that the crowds in the stadiums will later turn to the emperor and
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