SOURCE: “The Emperor and His City,” in Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity, University of California Press, 1981, pp. 50-61.

In the following excerpt, MacCormack analyzes Claudian's treatment of the theme of imperial arrival and presence.

I. Arrivals of Theodosius and Honorius

Julian's reign was incomplete; his own image of the imperial office was idiosyncratic and a little baffling to contemporaries. This makes all the more impressive the certainty of touch with which his adventus was seized upon in so many cities and articulated with such unusual zest and consistency. The element in adventus which made the ceremony a continuous progress and an acknowledgement of sovereignty recurred under Theodosius. But with Theodosius there was the additional feature of adventus in both Rome and Constantinople, the two capital cities of the empire, whereby a relationship between emperor and capital was established, such as has been encountered already with Constantius II...