This chapter aims to examine five “purple” dreams from the Byzantine court narrated in the Vita Basilii and further illustrated in the manuscript of Ioannes Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries. These dreams were used to justify the illegitimate rise of the Emperor Basil I the Macedonian (r. 867–86) to the Byzantine throne and the violent change that accompanied his accession through assassinations of members of the legitimate ruling dynasty. The chapter investigates further how a prophetic or symbolic dream (or chrimatismos) legitimised the actions of the simple peasant Basil and provided the opportunity to usurp the imperial throne, demonstrating that dreams, dreamers, and dream interpreters could serve the political interests of a Byzantine ruler and strengthen the ties between religious authority and political power.