Porphyrogenitos
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- For Byzantine emperor, take a look at Constantine VII
Porphyrogennētos or Porphyrogenitus (Greek: Πορφυρογέννητος), literally "born in the Purple" was a title given to a son or daughter (Porphyrogenneta) of a reigning Emperor in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
However, not every son or daughter was accorded this honorific distinction. There was a very prescribed set of circumstances that had to be in place before this title could be granted.
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[edit] Born in the Purple
This designation's most important, and geographically significant, condition was that the child be born in the Porphyry Chamber (more of a pavilion) of the Great Palace of Constantinople. No child born anywhere else could legitimately be called Porphyrogennētos.
[edit] The Porphyra/Porphyry Chamber
This pavilion was a free-standing building in the Great Palace complex in Constantinople. The pavilion rested on one of the Palace's many terraces, overlooking the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus Strait. The Porphyra was in the form of a perfect square from floor to ceiling, with the latter ending in a pyramid. Its walls, floor and ceiling were completely veneered with Imperial Porphyry.
[edit] Imperial Porphyry
There are many types of Porphyry, some more common than others, but what makes Imperial Porphyry so special and rare is that it is found one place on earth, atop a 1600-meter mountain in the eastern deserts of Egypt. The Romans named the site Mons Porphyrites, or Porphyry Mountain, and the Arabs today call it Gebel Dokhan, or the Smoky Mountain.
The porphyry found at Mons Porphyrites is, as far as we know, geologically unique. But the site is so barren and so remote that only slave labour could ever have extracted the porphyry, and even then only for the relatively brief historical moment when Roman power was at its zenith.
Imperial Porphyry was first quarried around 19 AD after its discovery by a Roman legionnaire named Caius Cominius Leugas. It was purple, flecked with white crystals and very fine-grained. The latter characteristic made it excellent for carving, and it became an imperial prerogative to quarry it, to build or sculpt with it, or even to possess it. This stone soon came to symbolize the nature of sovereignty itself.
The Romans used this porphyry for the Pantheon's inlaid panels, for the togas in the sculpted portraiture of their Emperors, and for the monolithic pillars of Baalbek's Temple of Heliopolis in Lebanon. Today there are at least 134 porphyry columns in buildings around Rome, all reused from imperial times, and countless altars, basins and other objects.
Byzantium, too, was enamoured of porphyry. Constantine the Great celebrated the founding of his new capital, Constantinopolis (Constantinople), in the year 330 AD by erecting there a 30-meter (100') pillar, built of seven porphyry drums, or cylinders, that is still standing today. Eight monolithic columns of porphyry support the exedrae, or semicircular niches of the Great Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom). Justinian's chronicler, Procopius, called the porphyry columns "a meadow with its flowers in full bloom, surely to make a man marvel at the purple of some and at those on which the crimson glows."
Imperial Porphyry was last quarried in the 330s. After that the quarries were abandoned due to the extreme difficulty in reaching the site and hauling the porphyry back out. Access to the site even today is only possible by pack animals with local Bedouin tribesmen as guides.
[edit] Basileus and Augusta
The other important qualifiication for status as a Porphyrogenetoi was that the father must be a reigning Basileus (Greek: βασιλεύς), the Byzantine Greek word for Emperor, and the mother must be married to the Basileus and therefore be an Empress. Additionally, the Empress must have also undergone a formal and sacred ceremony creating her an "Augusta".
[edit] Context
Byzantine Emperors, Porphyrogennetoi or not, were already viewed as semi-divine personages, being the Vice-Regents of God on Earth; the importance of the title Porphyrogennetos was that it imbued its honoree with the sense of the mystical and pre-ordained. Several Byzantine diplomatic missions were concluded successfully only on the condition of a Porphyrogenneta being sent to a solidify the bargain - or in reverse a foreign princess coming to Byzantium to seal a treaty, only on the condition of marrying a Porphyrogennetos.
