A contemporary account, recorded in Gregory the Great's Register (Appendix 8), tells how the image of the new emperor Phocas and his wife Leontia was received in Rome in 603, acclaimed at the Lateran by the clergy and Senate, and then placed by Gregory in the oratory dedicated to *Caesarius (martyr of Terracina, S00893) in the palace on the Palatine Hill. Written in Latin in Rome.
E06448
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters, Appendix 8
Full text of the account:
IN NOMINE DOMINI SALVATORIS NOSTRI IESV CHRISTI.
Per indictionem sextam die uicesima tertia mensis Nouembrii temporibus domni et beatissimi papae Gregorii coronatus est Focas et Leontia Augusta in Septimo in palatio qui dicitur Secundianas, et occisus est Mauricius imperator cum omnibus filiis suis masculis, id est Theodosio iam coronato, Tiberio, Petro, Paulo et Iustiniano, simul et Petro fratre suprascripti Mauricii Augusti; sed et aliqui procerum, qui ei cohaerebant, id est Constantinus patricius et curator de Placidias sed et Georgius notarius principis.
Venit autem icona suprascriptorum Focae et Leontiae Augustorum Romae septimo Kalendarum Maiarum, et acclamatum est eis in Lateranis in basilica Iulii ab omni clero vel senatu: 'Exaudi Christe! Focae Augusto et Leontiae Augustae vita!' Tunc iussit ipsam iconam dominus beatissimus et apostolicus Gregorius papa reponi eam in oratorio sancti Cesarii intra palatio.
‘IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST
During the sixth indiction on the twenty-third day of the month of November [602], in the time of our lord and most blessed pope Gregory, Phocas was crowned emperor with the empress Leontia, in the seventh region, in the palace which is called Secundianas, and the emperor Maurice was killed with all his male children, that is the already crowned Theodosius, Tiberius, Peter, Paul and Justinian, as well as Peter brother of the above mentioned emperor Maurice; and also some of the nobles of his entourage, that is Constantinus the patrician and curator domus Placidiae, and George the emperor's notary.
The image (icona) of the above-mentioned Augusti, Phocas and Leontia, came to Rome on the seventh day before the Kalends of May [25 April], and all the clergy and senate acclaimed them in the Lateran in the Julian basilica: ‘Hear us, Christ! Life to Phocas, emperor, and to Leontia, empress.’ Then the most blessed and apostolic Pope Gregory ordered the image itself to be deposited in the oratory of Saint Caesarius, inside the palace.’
Text: Norberg 1982, Appendix 8.
Translation: Martyn (2004), vol. 3, Appendix 8, modified.
Cult building - secondary installation (fountain, pilgrims’ hostel)
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - Popes
Monarchs and their family
Source
Gregory's Register is a collection of some 854 of his letters as pope, collected into 14 books (each book representing an indictional year of his pontificate, from 1 September to 31 August) of varied length and deriving from the file-copies that were made in Rome and kept in the papal archive. The original copies survived into the 9th century, but were subsequently lost. From the late 8th century onwards, however, because of the exceptional stature that Gregory had by then attained, various collections were assembled from the original copies (the largest under Pope Hadrian I at the end of the 8th century), and these constitute the Register as we have it today.The Register does not contain all the letters that Gregory despatched as pope, since some whose text survives refer to others which are lost; but the collection we have is unique from the late antique period, and only matched in quantity and range of subjects by the registers of high-medieval popes. Recipients range from papal administrators, through prominent churchmen and aristocrats, to kings and the imperial family, and treat a wide variety of topics, from the mundane administrative affairs of the papal patrimony to deep theological and moral considerations.
For the cult of saints, there is much that is of interest in the letters, but two particular concentrations of evidence stand out. The first is a clutch of around a dozen letters that mention requests for relics from Rome, or that accompanied small personal relics as gifts to influential correspondents. The second concentration of evidence relates to the dedications of churches and other ecclesiastical institutions in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia. Because the papacy owned extensive estates in these regions, and exercised particular authority there, many of Gregory's letters mention churches and other ecclesiastical institutions by the name of the saint to whom they were dedicated, thereby providing us with a rich panorama of the spread of both local and imported saintly cults.
Gregory's Register has been the subject of two substantial critical editions: the first by Ewald and Hartmann for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica; the second by Dag Norberg for Corpus Christianorum. The numbering of the letters is often the same in both editions, but it can differ, because Norberg removed letters (and other passages) that appear to have been added at a later date to the original Register, assigning them instead to Appendices. We have used Norberg's numbering, which is that now generally used.
This passage appears in manuscripts of the Register in front of the first letter of Book 13.
(Bryan Ward-Perkins)
Discussion
This famous passage describes the coup of Phocas in 602, and the arrival in Rome the following Spring of a painted image of the new emperor and empress, sent out from Constantinople to project their presence and power to the city. It was received, and the imperial couple acclaimed, in the episcopal church of Rome, the Lateran basilica, and then transferred to the oratory of saint Caesarius within the imperial palace on the Palatine.This text is not couched in the form of a letter (no person or people are addressed) and is puzzling, since it provides a matter-of-fact, even favourable, account of the arrival of the imperial images, straight after an account of Phocas' bloody coup, that is unquestionably hostile. But the information the passage gives of the existence of an oratory of saint Caesarius on the Palatine is entirely clear. It is the first reliable reference to this oratory (whose origins and probable precise location are fully discussed by Augenti).
Bibliography
Editions:Norberg, D., S. Gregorii Magni, Registrum epistularum. 2 vols. (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 140-140A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1982), Appendix 8.
Ewald, P., and Hartmann, L., Gregorii I papae registrium epistolarum, 2 vols. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae 1-2; Berlin, 1881-99), Ep. 13.1.
English translation:
Martyn, J.R.C., The Letters of Gregory the Great, 3 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004).
Further Reading:
Augenti, A., Il Palatino nel medio evo. Archeologia e topografia (secoli VI-XIII) (Roma 1996), 41-42 and 50-52.
Neil, B., and Dal Santo, M. (eds.), A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
Frances Trzeciak, Bryan Ward-Perkins
11/01/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00893 | Caesarius and his companions Julianus, Felix and Eusebius, martyrs of Terracina | Caeserius | Certain |
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