The ''symponos'' ( el, σύμπονος) was, along with the ''
logothetes tou praitoriou The ''logothetēs tou praitōriou'' ( el, ) was a senior official, one of the two principal aides (together with the '' symponos'') of the Eparch of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Literary and sigillographic
Sigillograph ...
'', one of the two senior subalterns to the
Eparch of Constantinople, the chief administrator of the capital of the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
. His main responsibility was the supervision of the city's
guilds
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
on the Eparch's behalf. Earlier scholars suggested that each guild had its own ''symponos'', but this hypothesis has been rejected since.
[.][.] John B. Bury
John Bagnell Bury (; 16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an Anglo-Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He objected to the label "Byzantinist" explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his ''La ...
identified him as the successor of the ' attested in the late 4th century ''
Notitia Dignitatum
The ''Notitia Dignitatum'' (Latin for "The List of Offices") is a document of the late Roman Empire that details the administrative organization of the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. It is unique as one of very few surviving documents of ...
'', but the earliest surviving seal of a ''symponos'' dates to the 6th or 7th centuries. The office is last attested in 1023.
According to the
Taktikon Uspensky
The ''Taktikon Uspensky'' or ''Uspenskij'' is the conventional name of a mid-9th century Greek list of the civil, military and ecclesiastical offices of the Byzantine Empire and their precedence at the imperial court. Nicolas Oikonomides has dated ...
, the ''symponos'' and the ''logothetes tou praitoriou'' preceded, rank-wise, the ''
chartoularioi
The ''chartoularios'' or ''chartularius'' ( el, χαρτουλάριος), Anglicized as chartulary, was a late Roman and Byzantine administrative official, entrusted with administrative and fiscal duties, either as a subaltern official of a depar ...
'' of the
Byzantine themes and domesticates, but were beneath the rank of ''
spatharios''.
[.]
References
Sources
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Administration of Constantinople
Byzantine fiscal offices
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