Emperor Max was a modern man. He didn’t abide by the Byzantine rituals of death. Incense, prayers in a language nobody spoke any more, chanting, viewing the corpse, and burial under a large stone— these seemed, to Max, Byzantine. Max wanted to be cremated, and he didn’t want an urn. He wanted his ashes to be scattered into the wind. Maybe, OK, a plaque should be mounted beside the door of his palace: “Emperor Max lived here.” Or “Emperor Maximilian Alexander Xerces Cyrus Robert Wilhelm Kandik Ladislaus XVI MDCCCVIII - ?” That wouldn’t summarize anything, but it would mark the location.
Emperor Max