4:
Consule laetatur post plurima seculo viso
Pallanteus apex: agnoscunt rostra curules
Auditas quondam proavis:
desuetaque cingit Regius auratis
Fora fascibus Ulpia lictor.
--Claud. in vi. Cons. Honorii, 643.

From the reign of Carus to the sixth consulship of Honorius, there was
an interval of one hundred and twenty years, during which the emperors
were always absent from Rome on the first day of January. See the
Chronologie de Tillemonte, tom. iii. iv. and v.]

On the morning of the first of January, the consuls assumed the ensigns
of their dignity. Their dress was a robe of purple, embroidered in silk
and gold, and sometimes ornamented with costly gems. [85] On this solemn
occasion they were attended by the most eminent officers of the state
and army, in the habit of senators; and the useless fasces, armed with
the once formidable axes, were borne before them by the lictors. [86]
The procession moved from the palace [87] to the Forum or principal
square of the city; where the consuls ascended their tribunal, and
seated themselves in the curule chairs, which were framed after
the fashion of ancient times. They immediately exercised an act of
jurisdiction, by the manumission of a slave, who was brought before
them for that purpose; and the ceremony was intended to represent the
celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author of liberty and of
the consulship, when he admitted among his fellow-citizens the faithful
Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of the Tarquins. [88] The public
festival was continued during several days in all the principal cities
in Rome, from custom; in Constantinople, from imitation in Carthage,
Antioch, and Alexandria, from the love of pleasure, and the superfluity
of wealth. [89] In the two capitals of the empire the annual games of
the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre, [90] cost four thousand
pounds of gold, (about) one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling:
and if so heavy an expense surpassed the faculties or the inclinations
of the magistrates themselves, the sum was supplied from the Imperial
treasury. [91] As soon as the consuls had discharged these customary
duties, they were at liberty to retire into the shade of private
life, and to enjoy, during the remainder of the year, the undisturbed
contemplation of their own greatness. They no longer presided in the
national councils; they no longer executed the resolutions of peace
or war. T