ABSTRACT
Of the three types of imposed authority distinguished by Max Weber, namely traditional, charismatic and rational-legal, it is the third that underpins the ἔpiαρχος τῆς piόλεως, ‘the mayor of the City’.1 For legitimacy the oce depended on established formalities and laws of the state that were only partially written down. Following the model of the praefectus urbi at Rome, the institution of the ‘eparch of Constantinople’ came into existence in the mid fourth century. e oce had acquired responsibility for trade and commerce in the territory of Constantinople by the fth century, indicated by legal tradition, for example regulations in the eodosian Codex:
1 * R-J. Lilie, Berlin, is thanked for kindly communicating to me lemmata from Part II of the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit: Zweite Abteilung (867-1025) [PmbZ], referenced in the notes. Nach Vorarbeiten F. Winkelmanns erstellt von R-J. Lilie, C. Ludwig, . Pratsch, B. Zielke sowie B. Krönung, H. Bichlmeier, D. Föller, unter Mitarbeit von A. Beihammer und G. Prinzing, vol. 1-8 (Berlin, New York, in preparation).
