The study examines the court ceremonial of Late Antiquity as a collection of rituals constituting meaning and power, in which the essential ideologemes of late antique emperorship were reflected and which gave them substance and life. Ceremony and rulership were inseparably linked. Through a systematic and comprehensive investigation, the author demonstrates that ceremonial was not merely an expression but also a shaping force—not only an authoritative monarchical representation, but also a performative construction of late antique emperorship.

The 'Tetrarchy' has been a much-studied and much-debated field of the Roman Empire. Debate, however, has focused primarily on whether it was a true 'system' of government, or rather a collection of ad-hoc measures undertaken to stabilise the empire after the troubled period of the 3rd century CE. The papers collected here aim to go beyond this question and to present an innovative approach to a fascinating period of Roman history by understanding the Tetrarchy not as a system of government, but primarily as a political language.