Rhazates

Rhazates was an Avtokrator who ruled the Videssian Empire for a very brief period many years before the ascension of Krispos. He was crowned as Avtokrator on the steps of the High Palace, but on being announced to his subjects, the crowd laughed at him because he was grossly overweight. He returned to the palace but was overthrown in a coup d'etat within days.

On being crowned Avtokrator many years later, Krispos remembered reading Rhazates's story in the chronicles with a bit of apprehension before Barsymes introduced him to a similar crowd of onlookers. Krispos understood the incident as a warning that, while Videssos was not a democracy de jure, a would-be Avtokrator who had not won the popular support of the capital's common population could never be secure in his emperorship.