ABSTRACT
Images of imperial children correlate with a visual language with which we are familiar in Byzantium: frontality, hierarchy and formality; the representations of the children appear, on the surface, to fall obediently into such conformity. This chapter explores to what extent this is accurate. In depictions of children who appear to hold power or the potential for power, children are often linked with their parents, though not exclusively so. The term power is used specifically to refer to worldly power; however this, as in depictions of adult rulers, is often linked with spiritual authority: young rulers are imaged as sharing religious power, usually delegated to them by Christ or by the Virgin. We will look at what kind of familial or political connections are portrayed in these images, how the correspondent positions of imperial family members give information about formal or familial relations, and in what way the two are interrelated. To what extent are private relationships revealed in the portraits? The study questions how far representations of children in power reflect an individual appearance, not so much in terms of their physical characteristics (of which we know very little), but in terms of differentiation and individualization. Can we detect any reference to the children’s psychological or inner qualities? The discussion focuses on whether these children were always presented in an official capacity or whether there were situations in which they appeared less formally, perhaps revealing more about them as children (and hence the cultural take on childhood), or as members of a family (and hence the cultural concept of the family), or as individuals. It questions to what extent these images were seen by the public and whether any differentiation in representations was dependent on the context or function of the image or the object on which it appears.
