Symponos
Encyclopedia
The symponos was, along with the logothetes tou praitoriou
, one of the two senior subalterns to the Eparch of Constantinople, the chief administrator of the capital of the Byzantine Empire
. His main responsibility was the supervision of the city's guilds on the Eparch's behalf. Earlier scholars suggested that each guild had its own symponos, but this hypothesis has been rejected since. John B. Bury identified him as the successor of the adsessor attested in the late 4th-century Notitia Dignitatum
, but the earliest surviving seal of a symponos dates to the 6th or 7th centuries. The office is last attested in 1023. According to the Taktikon Uspensky
, the symponos and the logothetes tou praitoriou preceded, rank-wise, the chartoularii
of the Byzantine themes and domesticates, but were beneath the rank of spatharios.
Logothetes tou praitoriou
The logothetēs tou praitōriou was a senior official, one of the two principal aides of the Eparch of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Literary and sigillographic evidence attests to the existence of this office from the late 7th or early 8th century up to the 11th century...
, one of the two senior subalterns to the Eparch of Constantinople, the chief administrator of the capital of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
. His main responsibility was the supervision of the city's guilds on the Eparch's behalf. Earlier scholars suggested that each guild had its own symponos, but this hypothesis has been rejected since. John B. Bury identified him as the successor of the adsessor attested in the late 4th-century Notitia Dignitatum
Notitia Dignitatum
The Notitia Dignitatum is a unique document of the Roman imperial chanceries. One of the very few surviving documents of Roman government, it details the administrative organisation of the eastern and western empires, listing several thousand offices from the imperial court down to the provincial...
, but the earliest surviving seal of a symponos dates to the 6th or 7th centuries. The office is last attested in 1023. According to the Taktikon Uspensky
Taktikon Uspensky
The Taktikon Uspensky or Uspenskij is the conventional name of a mid-9th century Greek list of the civil, military and ecclesiastical offices of the Byzantine Empire and their precedence at the imperial court. Nicolas Oikonomides has dated it to 842/843, making it the first of a series of such...
, the symponos and the logothetes tou praitoriou preceded, rank-wise, the chartoularii
Chartoularios
The chartoularios or chartularius , Anglicized as chartulary, was a late Roman and Byzantine administrative official, entrusted with administrative and fiscal duties, either as a subaltern official of a department or province or at the head of various independent bureaus.-History:The title derives...
of the Byzantine themes and domesticates, but were beneath the rank of spatharios.