Afterword

It is a truism that the older one gets the more interested in family one becomes. This volume devoted to the subject of the Byzantine family certainly comes later rather than earlier in my career, but looking back at the interests that have preoccupied me so far in my research it is clear that the subject of family has always been an underlying concern. My doctoral study of the reign of the Macedonian emperor Leo VI (886–912) dwelt in part on Leo’s relationship with his father (biological or not) Basil I (867–886), but also addressed his interaction with his brother Alexander, as well as his relations with his four wives and their families, raising the topics of marriage, in-laws and other kinship ties. The subject of the Macedonian dynasty also raised questions about its relationship with the previous imperial family, the Amorian dynasty, not least the infamous partnership of Basil and his predecessor the emperor Michael III (842–867), who adopted Basil not long before he was murdered by him. An earlier imperial family has also been a focus of my research, the Constantinian (or second Flavian) dynasty, notably the figure of Julian the Apostate (361–363). Much of my interest in Julian was sparked by the nature of his relationship with his cousin the emperor Constantius II (337–361), given their notoriously difficult history. Within this context Julian’s interaction with Constantius’ second wife Eusebia was an initial topic of interest, but subsequently I have explored a range of familial relationships within the dynasty, taking in (amongst others) brothers, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins. My work on eunuchs has also brought me to the subject of family, for in the Byzantine empire native families were a source of the supply of eunuchs for the imperial court (in contrast with the dependence of the Roman empire on the importation of foreign slave eunuchs). Thus in Byzantium powerful court eunuchs could work to promote family interests and family members, by such methods as the forging of family ties through marriage or adoption. Further, eunuchs could be fostered or adopted themselves, and famously Leo VI ruled that eunuchs themselves should be allowed to adopt (Novel 26) even though he continued to refuse to allow them to marry (Novel 98).