Atriklines

The atriklines or artiklines (Greek: ἀτρικλίνης, ἀρτικλίνης) was a Byzantine court official responsible for organizing feasts and banquets in the imperial palace.^[1][2] Along with maintaining order at imperial banquets,^[3] he was tasked with ensuring that guests were received in the correct order of precedence according to their court rank and office.^[1][2] The atriklines performed and fulfilled his duties by utilizing a list known as a kletorologion (κλητορολόγιον) containing the officials, dignitaries, and ministers who possessed the right to be entertained in the palace.^[1] The roster itself would undergo alterations in order to account for the establishment of new offices, the elimination of old offices, and changes made to the guest order of precedence.^[4] A prominent atriklines was a certain Philotheos, who in 899 held the imperial title of protospatharios and authored the only surviving example of a kletorologion.^[1][2]

References

1. Bury 1911, p. 11.
2. Tougher 2008, p. 57.
3. Neville 2004, p. 179.
4. Bury 1911, p. 12.

Sources

• Bury, John Bagnell (1911). The Imperial Administrative System of the Ninth Century - With a Revised Text of the Kletorologion of Philotheos. London: Oxford University Press.
• Neville, Leonora Alice (2004). Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950-1100. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52-183865-8.
• Tougher, Shaun (2008). The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-20-386620-7.