Two Consuls were chosen for the East and West, their names continuing to give the legal date to the year, according to the ancient custom. And though every vestige of political power was gone, the post was the object of much ambition, it being a personal favour of the Emperor, and conferring on the holder the highest rank. It also brought great popularity with the people, who still honoured the name of Consul, full of memories of the great republic, and still more passionately appreciated the Games in the Circus, which it was the expensive privilege of the Consul to inaugurate on his accession. These Games were an occasion for great ostentation, and were carried out with lavish expenditure. First there was a procession of all the dignitaries of the city, in which the Consul was the most important figure; this was greeted on its arrival at the amphitheatre by the tens of thousands of spectators starting up and clapping their hands; then all were breathlessly still while the Consul, cynosure of every eye, flung down into the arena the small white napkin, or _Mappa Circensis_, with which he, and he alone, might signal the commencement of the games. This was the psychic moment, and the scene has been preserved for all time on the carved ivory diptychs which were presented by the Consul to the Senators and other high officials in commemoration of his office. The word diptych is derived from the Greek δίπτυχον or “double folded,” and the diptychs given by the Consuls were an elaborate form of the ordinary writing-tablets or _pugillares_, “a thing held in the fist.” They consisted of two pieces of ivory joined together like a book by hinges, decorated on the outside and grooved inside to hold the wax, which was written on by a sharp style. The most important leaf is the right hand one, or that which comes uppermost when the book is closed, on it, with a few early exceptions, the Consul’s name was always inscribed, the second leaf bearing his titles. These consular diptychs probably contained the _Fasti Consulares_ or List of Consuls up to the year of the donor. They were often gilded, the inscriptions being painted in red; and some were of great size, as the Byzantine Angel in the British Museum (frontispiece), which measures 16¼ by 5½ in., and is so large that no known tusk would suffice to cut it. It has been thought that the ancients possessed some secret for rolling out ivory or joining it invisibly; but it is more likely that elephants had not been so much killed down for the sake of their ivory, so larger tusks were obtainable.