The ''symponos'' () was, along with the ''
logothetes tou praitoriou'', 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 known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...
. 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 territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association. They so ...
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 identified him as the successor of the ' attested in the late 4th century ''
Notitia Dignitatum
The (Latin for 'List of all dignities and administrations both civil and military') 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 ...
'', 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
Nikolao ...
, the ''symponos'' and the ''logothetes tou praitoriou'' preceded, rank-wise, the ''
chartoularioi'' of the
Byzantine themes
The themes or (, , singular: , ) were the main military and administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire. They were established in the mid-7th century in the aftermath of the Slavic migrations to Southeastern Europe and Muslim conqu ...
and domesticates, but were beneath the rank of ''
spatharios
The ''spatharii'' or ''spatharioi'' (singular: ; , literally " spatha-bearer") were a class of Late Roman imperial bodyguards in the court in Constantinople in the 5th–6th centuries, later becoming a purely honorary dignity in the Byzantine Emp ...
''.
[.]
References
Sources
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Administration of Constantinople
Byzantine fiscal offices
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