ABSTRACT
“Byzantine” is often used as a pejorative term, denoting the excessively complicated, devious, and underhand, especially in political terms. However, this is misleading. The Byzantine political system was hierarchical, highly organized, and bureaucratic: it was not so tortuous as to be incomprehensible or ineffective or so corrupt as to fail to function. Indeed, it can be easily summarized: Byzantine political structure revolved around the figure of the emperor. Totalitarian in ambition and ideology, absolute in his power to intervene directly in every aspect of both government and of life itself, he was the beginning and end of all political structures. All other elements of the political system were defined in terms of their relationship with the emperor.
