CHAPTER III.

Information as to life of Boethius.

II. We now pass on to consider the information furnished by this fragment as to the illustrious son-in-law of Symmachus, Anicius Manlius SeverinusBoethius. Of the facts of his life we had already pretty full information, from the autobiographical sections of the 'Consolation of Philosophy' and other sources. He does not indeed mention the exact year of his birth, but the allusion to 'untimely gray hairs' which he makes in that work, written in 523 or 524, together with other indications[105]as to his age, entitle us to fix it at about 480, certainly not earlier than that year. The death of his father (who was Consul in 487) occurred while he was still a child. Symmachus, as has been already said, was the guardian of his youth and the friend of his manhood, and gave him his daughter Rusticiana to wife. That he received the honour of the Consulship in 510 we know from the 'Fasti Consulares;' but it is perplexing to find him even before that year spoken of[106]as Patricius, since this honour was generally bestowed only on those who had already sat in the curule chair of the Consul[107]. The high consideration in which he was held at the Court of Theodoric, and the value placed upon his scientific attainments, are sufficiently proved by the letters in the following collection, especially by those in which he is consulted about the frauds committed by the officers of the Mint, about the water-clock which is to be sent to Gundobad King of the Burgundians, and the harper who is to be provided for the King of the Franks[108]. In the year 522 his two sons, Symmachus and Boethius, though they had but just attained to man's estate, received the honour of the Consulship, upon which occasion the proud and happy father pronounced a panegyric upon Theodoric before the assembled Senate. Some of these facts in the life of Boethius are referred to in the extract before us, which, as was before said, appears to be taken from a treatise composed in this same year 522, the year of the Consulship of the young Boethii. Of their father's investiture with the office ofMagister Officiorumon September 1, 522, of his sudden fall from the royal favour, of the charge of treason which was preferred against him before the end of that year, of his imprisonment during 523 and execution (probably in the early part of 524), we have of course no trace in this extract; and the fact that we have none is a strong argument for the genuineness and contemporary character of the treatise from which it is taken.

His theological treatises.

So far, then, we have in the 'Anecdoton Holderi' only a somewhat meagre reiteration of facts already known to us. But when we come to the statement of the literary labours of Boethius the case is entirely altered. It is well known that in the Middle Ages certain treatises on disputed points of Christian theology were attributed to him as their author. They are:—

1. A treatise 'De Sancta Trinitate.'

2. 'Ad Johannem Diaconum: Utrum Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus de Divinitate substantialiter praedicentur.'

3. 'Ad eundem: Quomodo substantiae in eo quod sint bonae sint cum non sint substantialia bona.'

4. 'De Fide Catholica.'

5. 'Contra Eutychen et Nestorium.'

It may be said at once that in the earlier MSS. the fourth treatise is not attributed to Boethius. It seems to have been included with the others by some mistake, and I shall therefore in the following remarks assume that it is not his, and shall confine my attention to the first three and the fifth.

Difficulty as to religious position of Boethius.

Even as to these, notwithstanding the nearly unanimous voice of the early Middle Ages (as represented by MSS. of the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Centuries) assigning them to Boethius as their author, scholars, especially recent scholars, have felt the gravest possible doubts of their being really his, doubts which have of late ripened into an almost complete certainty that he was not their author. The difficulty does not arise from anything in the diction or in the theology which points to a later age as the time of their composition, but from the startling contrast which they present to the religious atmosphere of the 'Consolation of Philosophy.' Here, in these theological treatises, we have the author entering cheerfully into the most abstruse points of the controversy concerning the Nature of Christ, without apparently one wavering thought as to the Deity of the Son of Mary. There, in the 'Consolation,' a book written in prison and in disgrace, with death at the executioner's hands impending over him—a book in which above all others we should have expected a man possessing the Christian faith to dwell upon the promises of Christianity—the name of Christ is never once mentioned, the tone, though religious and reverential, is that of a Theist only; and from beginning to end, except one or two sentences in which an obscure allusion may possibly be detected to the Christian revelation, there is nothing which might not have been written by a Greek philosopher ignorant of the very name of Christianity. Of the various attempts whichhave been made to solve this riddle perhaps the most ingenious is that of M. Charles Jourdain, who, in a monograph devoted to the subject[109], seeks to prove that the author of the theological treatises referred to was a certain Boethus, an African Bishop of the Byzacene Province, who was banished to Sardinia about the year 504 by the Vandal King Thrasamond.

Not thus, however, as it now appears, is the knot to be cut. And after all, M. Jourdain, in arguing, as he seems disposed to argue, against any external profession of Christianity on the part of Boethius, introduces contradictions greater than any that his theory would remove. To any person acquainted with the thoughts and words of the little coterie of Roman nobles to which Boethius belonged, it will seem absolutely impossible that the son-in-law of Symmachus, the receiver of the praises of Ennodius and Cassiodorus, should have been a professed votary of the old Paganism. It is not the theological treatises coming from a man in his position which are hard to account for; it is the apparently non-Christian tone of the 'Consolation.'

The fragment now before us shows that the old-fashioned belief in Boethius as a theologian was well founded. 'He wrote a book concerning the Holy Trinity, and certain dogmatic chapters, and a book against Nestorius.' That is a sufficiently accurateresuméof the four theological treatises enumerated above. Here Usener also observes—and I am inclined to agree with him—that there is a certain resemblance between the style of thought of these treatises and that of the 'Consolation' itself. They are, after all, philosophical rather than religious; one of the earliest samples of that kind of logical discussion of theological dogmas which the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages so delighted to indulge in. The young philosopher, hearing at his father-in-law's table the discussions between Chalcedonian and Monophysite with which all Rome resounded, on account of the prolonged strife with the Church of Constantinople, set himself down to discuss the same topics which they were wrangling over by the light—to him so clear and precious—of the Greek philosophy. There was perhaps in this employment neither reverence nor irreverence. He had not St. Augustine's intense and almost passionate conviction of the truth of Christianity; but he was quite willing to accept it and to discourse upon it, as he discoursed on Arithmetic, Music, and Geometry.

But when premature old age, solitude, and the loss of liberty befell him, it was not to the highly elaborated Christian theology of the Sixth Century that he turned for support and consolation. Probably enough the very fact that he knew some of the pitfalls in the way deterred him from that dangerous journey, where the slightest deviation on either side landed him in some detested heresy, the heresy of Nestorius or of Eutyches. 'On revient toujours à ses premiers amours;' and even so Boethius, though undoubtedly professing himself a Christian, and about to die in full communion with the Catholic Church, turned for comfort in his dungeon to the philosophical studies of his youth, especially to the ethical writings of Plato and Aristotle.

After all, the title of the treatise is 'PhilosophiaeConsolatio;' and however vigorous a literature of philosophy may in the course of centuries have grown up in the Christian domain, in the sixth century the remembrance of the old opposition between Christianity and Philosophy was perhaps still too strong for a writer to do anything more than stand neutral as to the distinctive claims of Christianity, when he had for the time donned the cloak of the philosopher.

The Bucolic Poem of Boethius.

We learn from the fragment before us that Boethius also wrote a 'Bucolic Poem.' This is an interesting fact, and helps to explain the facility with which hebreaks into song in the midst of the 'Consolation.' It may have been to this effort of the imagination that he alluded when he said at the beginning of that work—

'Carmina qui quondam studio florente peregiFlebilis, heu, moestos cogor inire modos.'

We would gladly know something more of this 'Bucolic Poem' indited by the universal genius, Boethius.

Cassiodorus.

III. As forCassiodorushimself, the additional information furnished by this fragment has been already discussed in theforegoing chapter. That he wasConsilariusto his father during his Praefecture, and that in that capacity he recited an eloquent panegyric on Theodoric, which was rewarded by his promotion to the high office of the Quaestorship, are facts which we learn from this fragment only; and they are of high importance, not only for the life of Cassiodorus but for the history of Europe at the beginning of the Sixth Century, because they make it impossible to assign to any letter in the 'Variae' an earlier date than 500.

Official Hierarchy introduced by Diocletian.

It is well known that Diocletian introduced and Constantine perfected an elaborate system of administration under which the titles, functions, order of precedence, and number of attendants of the various officers of the Civil Service as well as of the Imperial army were minutely and punctiliously regulated. This system, which, as forming the pattern upon which the nobility of mediaeval Europe was to a great extent modelled, perhaps deserves even more careful study than it has yet received, is admirably illustrated by the letters of Cassiodorus. TheNotitia Utriusque Imperii, our copies of which must have been compiled in the early years of the Fifth Century, furnishes us with a picture of official life which, after we have made allowance for the fact that the Empire of the West has shrunk into the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy (with the addition of Dalmatia and some other portions of Illyricum), is almost precisely reproduced in the pages of the 'Various Letters.' In order that the student may understand the full significance of many passages in those letters, and especially of the superscriptions by which each letter is prefaced, it will be well to give a brief outline of the system which existed alike under Theodosius and Theodoric.

Nobilissimi.

In the first place, then, we come to what is rather a family than a class, the persons bearing the titleNobilissimus[110]. These were the nearest relatives ofthe reigning Emperor; his brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. The title therefore is not unlike that of Royal or Imperial Highness in modern monarchies. I am not sure whether any trace can be found of the survival of this title in the Ostrogothic Court. Theodahad, nephew of Theodoric, is addressed simply as 'Vir Senator[111],' and he is spoken of as 'praecelsus et amplissimus vir[112].' It is not so, however, in respect of the three great official classes which follow—the Illustres, Spectabiles, and Clarissimi—whose titles were rendered as punctiliously in the Italy of Theodoric as ever they were in the Italy of Diocletian and Constantine.

Illustres.

I. TheIllustreswere a small and select circle of men, the chief depositaries of power after the Sovereign, and they may with some truth be compared to the Cabinet Ministers of our own political system. The 'Notitia' mentions thirteen of them as bearing rule in the Western Empire. They are:

1. The Praetorian Praefect of Italy.

2. The Praetorian Praefect of the Gauls.

3. The Praefect of the City of Rome.

4. The Master of the Foot Guards (Magister Peditum in Praesenti).

5. The Master of the Horse Guards (Magister Equitum in Praesenti).

6. The Master of the Horse for the Gauls (per Gallias).

7. The Grand Chamberlain (Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi).

8. The Master of the Offices.

9. The Quaestor.

10. The Count of Sacred Largesses.

11. The Count of the Private Domains (Comes Rerum Privatarum).

12. The Count of the Household Cavalry (Comes Domesticorum Equitum).

13. The Count of the Household Infantry (Comes Domesticorum Peditum).

Substantially these same titles were borne by the Illustres to whom Cassiodorus (himself one of them) addressed his 'Various Letters.' The second and the sixth (the Praetorian Praefect of the Gauls, and the Master of the Horse for the Gauls) may possibly have disappeared; and yet, in view of the fact that Theodoric was during the greater part of his reign ruler of a portion of Gaul, it is not necessary to assume even this change. Into the question of the military officers I will not enter, as I confess that I do not understand the relations (whether co-ordinate or subordinated one to another) of the two pairs of officers, Nos. 4 and 5 and Nos. 12 and 13.

The rank and duties of the Praetorian Praefect of Italy, the Master of the Offices, and the Quaestor have already been described in thefirst chapter. It will be well to say a few words as to the four remaining civil dignitaries, the Praefect of the City, the Grand Chamberlain, the Count of Sacred Largesses, and the Count of the Private Domains.

Praefect of the City.

(a) ThePraefectus Urbis Romaewas by virtue of his office head of the Senate. He had the care of the Annona or corn-largesses to the people, the command of the City-watch, and the duty of keeping the aqueducts in proper repair. The shores and channel of the Tiber, the vastcloacaewhich carried off the refuse of the City, the quays and warehouses of Portus at the river's mouth were also under his authority. The officer who was charged with taking the census, the officers charged with levying the duties on wine, the masters of the markets, the superintendents of the granaries, the curators ofthe statues, baths, theatres, and the other public buildings with which the City was adorned, all owned the supreme control of the Urban Praefect. At the beginning of the Fifth Century theVicarius Urbis(whom it is difficult not to think of as in some sort subject to thePraefectus Urbis), had jurisdiction over all central and southern Italy and Sicily. But if this was the arrangement then, it must have been altered before the time of Cassiodorus, who certainly appears as Praetorian Praefect to have wielded authority over the greater part of Italy. He states, however[113], that the Urban Praefect had, by an ancient law, jurisdiction, not only over Rome itself, but over all the district within 100 miles of the capital.

Grand Chamberlain.

(b) ThePraepositus Sacri Cubiculihad under his orders the large staff of Grooms of the Bedchamber, at whose head stood thePrimicerius Cubiculariorum, an officer of 'respectable' rank. TheCastrensis, Butler or Seneschal, with his army of lacqueys and pages who attended to the spreading and serving of the royal table; theComes Sacrae Vestis, who with similar assistance took charge of the royal wardrobe; theComes Domorum, who perhaps superintended the needful repairs of the royal palace, all took their orders in the last resort from the Grand Chamberlain. So, too, did the three Decurions, officers with a splendid career of advancement before them, who marshalled the thirty brilliantly armed Silentiarii, that paced backwards and forwards before the purple veil guarding the slumbers of the Sovereign.

Count of Sacred Largesses.

(c) TheComes Sacrarum Largitionum, theoretically only the Grand Almoner of the Sovereign, discharged in practice many of the duties of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The mines, the mint, the Imperial linen factories, the receipt of the tribute of the Provinces, and many other departments of the public revenue were originally under the care of this functionary,whose office however, as we are expressly told by Cassiodorus, had lost part of its lustre, probably by a transfer of some of these duties to the Count of the Private Domains.

Count of Private Domains.

(d) This Minister, theComes Rerum Privatarum, had the superintendence of the Imperial estates in Italy and the Provinces. Confiscations and the absorption by the State of the properties of defaulting tax-payers were probably always tending to increase the extent of these estates, and to make the office of Count of the Domain more important. The collection of the land-tax, far the most important item of the Imperial revenue, was also made subject to his authority. Finally, in order, as Cassiodorus quaintly observes[114], that his jurisdiction should not be exercised only over slaves (the cultivators of the State domains), some authority was given to him within the City, and by a curious division of labour all charges of incestuous crime, or of the spoliation of graves, were brought before the tribunal of the Comes Privatarum.

Besides the thirteen persons who, as acting Ministers of the highest class, were entitled to the designation of Illustris, there were also those whom we may call honorary members of the class: the persons who had received the dignity of the Patriciate—a dignity which was frequently bestowed on those who had filled the office of Consul, and which, unlike the others of which we have been speaking, was held for life.

It is a question on which I think we need further information, whether a person who had once filled an Illustrious office lost the right to be so addressed on vacating it. I am not sure that we have any clear case in the following collection of an ex-official holding this courtesy-rank; but it seems probable that such would be the case.

Considering also the great show of honour with whichthe Consulate, though now destitute of all real power, was still greeted, it seems probable that the Consuls for the year would rank as Illustres; but here, too, we seem to require fuller details.

Spectabiles.

II. We now come to the Second Class, theSpectabiles, which consists chiefly of the lieutenants and deputies of the Illustres.

For instance, every Praetorian Praefect had immediately under him a certain number ofVicarii, each of whom was a Spectabilis. The Praefecture included an extent of territory equivalent to two or three countries of Modern Europe (for instance, the Praefecture of the Gauls embraced Britain, Gaul, a considerable slice of Germany, Spain, and Morocco). This was divided into Dioceses (in the instance above referred to Britain formed one Diocese, Gaul another, and Spain with its attendant portion of Africa a third), and the Diocese was again divided into Provinces. The title of the ruler of the Diocese, who in his restricted but still ample domain wielded a similar authority to that of the Illustrious Praefect, wasSpectabilis Vicarius.

But the Praefect and the Vicar controlled only the civil government of the territories over which they respectively bore sway. The military command of the Diocese was vested in aSpectabilis Comes, who was under the orders of the Illustrious Magister Militum. Subordinate in some way to the Comes was theDux, who was also a Spectabilis, but whose precise relation to his superior the Comes is, to me at least, not yet clear[115].

Besides these three classes of dignitaries, theCastrensis, who was a kind of head steward in the Imperial household, and most of the Heads of Departments in the great administrative offices, such as thePrimicerius Notariorumand theMagistri Scriniorum[116], bore the title of Spectabilis. We have perhaps hardly sufficient data for an exact calculation, but I conjecture that there would be as many as fifty or sixty Spectabiles in the Kingdom of Theodoric.

It appears to me that the epithetSublimis(which is almost unknown to the Theodosian Code), when it occurs in the 'Variae' is used as synonymous with Spectabilis[117].

Clarissimi.

III. TheClarissimiwere the third rank in the official hierarchy. To our minds it may appear strange that the 'most renowned' should come below 'the respectable,' but such was the Imperial pleasure. The title 'Clarissimus' had moreover its own value, for from the time of Constantine onwards it was conferred on all the members of the Senate, and was in fact identical with Senator[118]; and this was doubtless, as Usener points out[119], the reason why the letters Cl. were still appended to a Roman nobleman's name after he had risen higher in the official scaleand was entitled to be called Spectabilis or Illustris. TheConsularesorCorrectores, who administered the Provinces under the Vicarii, were called Clarissimi; and we shall observe in the collection before us many other cases in which the title is given to men in high, but not the highest, positions in the Civil Service of the State.

Besides the three classes above enumerated there were also:—

Perfectissimi.

IV. ThePerfectissimi, to which some of the smaller provincial governors belonged, as well as some of the clerks in the Revenue Offices (Numerarii) who had seen long service, and even some veteran Decurions.

Below these again were:—

Egregii.

V. TheEgregii, who were also Decurions who had earned a right to promotion, or even what we should call veteran non-commissioned officers in the army (Primipilares).

But of these two classes slight mention is made in the Theodosian Code, and none at all (I believe) in the 'Notitia' or the 'Letters of Cassiodorus.'

Military character of the Roman Civil Service.

The official staff that served under the Roman governors of high rank was an elaborately organised body, with a carefully arranged system of promotion, and liberal superannuation allowances for those of its members who had attained a certain position in the office.

Although, in consequence of the changes introduced by Diocletian and Constantine, the civil and military functions had been for the most part divided from one another, and it was now unusual to see the same magistrate riding at the head of armies and hearing causes in the Praetorium, in theory the officers of the Courts of Justice were still military officers. Their service was spoken of as amilitia; the type of their office was thecingulum, or military belt; and one of the leading officers of the court, as we shall see, was styledCornicularius, or trumpeter.

The Praetorian Praefect, whose office had been at first a purely military one, had now for centuries been chiefly concerned in civil administration, and as Judge over the highest court of appeal in the Empire. HisOfficium(or staff of subordinates) was, at any rate in the Fifth Century, still the most complete and highly developed that served under any great functionary; and probably the career which it offered to its members was more brilliant than any that they could look for elsewhere. Accordingly, in studying the composition of this body we shall familiarise ourselves with the type to whichall the otherofficiathroughout the Empire more or less closely approximated.

Sources of information as to the Officium.

Our chief information as to this elaborate official hierarchy is derived from three sources[121]:—

(1) TheNotitia Dignitatum, the great Official Gazetteer of the Empire[122], which in its existing shape appears to date from the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, early in the Fifth Century.

(2) TheDe Magistratibusof Joannes Lydus, composed by a civil servant of the Eastern Empire in the middle of the Sixth Century.

(3) TheVariae Epistolaeof Cassiodorus, the composition of which ranges from about 504 to 540.

The first of these authorities relates to the Eastern and Western Empires, the second to the Eastern alone, the third to the Western Empire as represented by the Ostrogothic Kingdom founded by Theodoric.

Much light is also thrown on the subject by the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian.

Godefroy's Commentary on the Theodosian Code, and Bethmann Hollweg's 'Gerichtsverfassung des sinkenden Römischen Reichs,' are the chief modern works which have treated of the subject.

The Officium as described in the Notitia.

We will follow the order in which the various offices are arranged by the 'Notitia,' which is most likely to correspond with that of official precedence.

In the second chapter of the 'Notitia Orientis,' after an enumeration of the five Dioceses and forty-six Provinces which are 'sub dispositione viri illustris Praefecti Praetorio per Orientem,' we have this list, 'Officium viri illustris Praefecti Praetorio Orientis:'

Princeps.Cornicularius.Adjutor.Commentariensis.Ab actis.Numerarii.Subadjuvae.Cura Epistolarum.Regerendarius.Exceptores.Adjutores.Singularii.

The lists of the officia of all the other Praetorian Praefects in the 'Notitia' are exactly the same as this, except that under the head 'Praefectus Praetorio per Illyricum' we have, instead of the simple entry 'Numerarii,'

'Numerarii quatuor: in his auri unus, operum alter;'

and the 'Praefectus Urbis Romae' had under his Numerarii, a

'Primiscrinius,'

and between the 'Adjutores' and 'Singularii,'

Censuales andNomenculatores.

We will go through the offices enumerated above in order:

Princeps.

(1) ThePrincepswas the head of the whole official staff. In the case of the officium of the Praetorian Praefect, however, this officer seems, after the compilation of the 'Notitia,' to have disappeared, and his rights and privileges became vested in the Cornicularius. It will be observed that in the letters of Cassiodorus to the members of his staff there is none addressed to the Princeps; and similarly there is no mention of a Princeps as serving under the Praetorian Praefect in the treatise of Lydus. This elimination of the Princeps, however, was not universally applicable to all the officia. Cassiodorus (xi. 35) mentions aPrinceps Augustorum, who was, perhaps, Princeps of theAgentes in Rebus; and Lydusmore distinctly ('De Mag.' iii. 24) speaks of a bargain made between the Cornicularius of the Praetorian Praefect and theΠριγκιπς των μαγιστριανων, who must be supposed to be Princeps in the officium of theMagister Officiorum, though no such officer appears in the 'Notitia[123].'

Speaking generally, however, we may perhaps say that the greater part of what we are about to hear concerning the rights and endowments of the Cornicularius in the Praefect's office might be truly asserted of the Princeps at the time when the 'Notitia' was compiled, before the two offices had been amalgamated.

Cornicularius.

(2) TheCornicularius. As to this officer we have a good many details in the pages of Joannes Lydus. The antiquarian and etymological part of his information must generally be received with caution; but as to the actual privileges of the office in the days of Justinian we may very safely speak after him, since it was an office which he himself held, and whose curtailed gains and privileges caused him bitter disappointment.

'The foremost in rank,' says he[124], 'of the Emperor's assistants (Adjutores) is even to this day calledCornicularius, that is to sayhorned(κεραιτης), orfighting in the front rank. For the place of the monarch or the Caesar was in the middle of the army, where he alone might direct the stress of battle. This being the Emperor's place, according to Frontinus, on the left wing was posted the Praefect or Master of the Horse, and on the right the Praetors or Legati, the latter being the officers left in charge of the army when their year of office was drawing to a close, to hold the command till the new Consul should come out to take it from them.

'Of the whole Legion then, amounting to 6,000 men, exclusive of cavalry and auxiliaries, as I before said, theCorniculariustook the foremost place; and for that reason he still presides over the whole [civil] service,now that the Praefect, for reasons before stated, no longer goes forth to battle.

'Since, then, all the rest of the staff are called assistants (Adjutores), the Praefect gives an intimation under his own hand to him who is entering the service in what department (καταλογος) he is ordered to take up his station[125]. And the following are the names of all the departments of the service. First theCornicularius, resplendent in all the dignity of a so-called Count (κομης; comes; companion), but having not yet laid aside his belt of office, nor received the honour of admission to the palace, or what they call brevet-rank (codicilli vacantes), which honour at the end of his term of service is given to him, and to none of the other chiefs of departments[126].

'And after the Cornicularius follow:—

'2 Primiscrinii,'2 Commentarisii,'2 Regendarii,'2 Curae Epistolarum,'15 Scholae of Exceptores,

and then the "unlearned service" of the Singularii[127].'

Again, further on[128], Lydus, who delights to 'magnify his office,' gives us this further information as to the rank and functions of the Cornicularius:

'Now that, if I am not mistaken, we have described all the various official grades, it is meet to set forth the history of the Cornicularius, the venerable head of the Civil Service, the man who, as beginning and ending, sums up in himself the complete history of the whole official order. The mere antiquity of his office issufficient to establish his credit, seeing that he was the leader of his troop for 1,300 years, and made his appearance in the world at the same time with the sacred City of Rome itself: for the Cornicularius was, from the first, attendant on the Master of the Horse, and the Master of the Horse on the King, and thus the Cornicularius, if he retained nothing of his office but the name, would still be connected with the very beginnings of the Roman State.

'But from the time when Domitian appointed Fuscus to the office of Praefect of the Praetorians (an office which had been instituted by Augustus), and abolished the rank of Master of the Horse, taking upon himself the command of the army[129], everything was changed. Henceforward, therefore, all affairs that were transacted in the office of the Praefect were arranged by the Cornicularius alone, and he received the revenues arising from them for his own refreshment. This usage, which prevailed from the days of Domitian to our own Theodosius, was then changed, on account of the usurpation of Rufinus. For the Emperor Arcadius, fearing the overgrown power of the Praefectoral office, passed a law that the Princeps of the Magister [Officiorum]'s staff[130]... should appear in the highest courts, and should busy himself with part of the Praefect's duties, and especially should enquire into the principle upon which orders for the Imperial post-horses (συνθηματα;evectiones) were granted[131].... This order of Arcadius was inscribed in the earlier editions of the Theodosian Code, but has been omitted in the later as superfluous.

'Thus, then, the Princeps of the Magistriani, being introduced into the highest courts, but possessing nothing there beyond his mere empty dignity, made abargain with the Cornicularius of the day, the object of which was to open up to him some portion of the business; and, having come to terms, the Princeps agreed to hand over to the Cornicularius one pound's weight of gold [£40] monthly, and to give instant gratuities to all his subordinates according to their rank in the service. In consequence of this compact the Cornicularius then in office, after receiving his 12 lbs. weight of gold without any abatement, with every show of honour conceded to his superior[132](?) the preferential right of introducing "one-membered" cases (την των μονομερων εντυχιων εισαγωγην), having reserved to himself, beside the fees paid for promotion in the office[133], and other sources of gain, especially the sole right of subscribing theActaof the court, and thus provided for himself a yearly revenue of not less than 1,000 aurei [£600].'

I have endeavoured to translate as clearly as possible the obscure words of Lydus as to this bargain between the two court-officers. The complaint of Lydus appears to be that the Cornicularius of the day, by taking the money of the Princeps Magistrianorum, and conceding to him in return the preferential claim to manage 'one-membered' cases (or unopposed business), made a purse for himself, but prepared the way for the ruin of his successors. The monthly payment was, I think, to be made for twelve months only, and thus the whole amount which the Cornicularius received from this source was only £480, but from other sources—chiefly the sums paid for promotion by the subordinate members of theofficium, and the fees charged by him for affixing his subscription to theactaof the court—he still remained in receipt of a yearly revenue of £600.

Jealousy between the Officia of the Praefect and the Magister.

The jealousy between the Officia of the Praetorian Praefect and the Magister Officiorum was intense. Almost every line in the treatise of Lydus testifies to it, and shows that the former office, in which he had themisfortune to serve, was being roughly shouldered out of the way by its younger and more unscrupulous competitor.

Lydus continues[134]: 'Now, what followed, like the Peleus of Euripides, I can never describe without tears. For on account of all these sources of revenue having been dried up, I myself have had to bear my part in the general misery of our time, since, though I have reached the highest grade of promotion in the service, I have derived nothing from it but the bare name. I do not blush to call Justice herself as a witness to the truth of what I say, when I affirm that I am not conscious of having received one obol from the Princeps, nor from the Letters Patent for promotions in the office[135]. For indeed whence should I have derived it, since it was the ancient custom that those who in any way appeared in the highest courts should pay to theofficiumseven and thirtyaurei[£22] for a "one-membered" suit; but ever after this bargain was made there has been given only a very moderate sum of copper—not gold—in a beggarly way, as if one were buying a flask of oil, and that not regularly? Or how compel the Princeps to pay the ancient covenanted sum to the Cornicularius of the day, when he now scarcely remembered the bare name of that officer, as he never condescended to be present in the court when promotions were made from a lower grade to a higher? Bitterly do I regret that I was so late in coming to perceive for what a paltry price I was rendering my long services as assistant in the courts, receiving in fact nothing therefrom as my ownsolatium. It serves me right, however, for having chosen that line of employment, as I will explain, if the reader will allow me to recount to him my career from its commencement to the present time.'

Lydus then goes on to describe his arrival at Constantinople (a.d.511), his intention to enter theScrinium Memoriae(in which he would have served under the Magister Officiorum), and his abandonment of this intention upon the pressing entreaties of his countryman Zoticus, who was at the time Praefectus Praetorio. This step Lydus looks upon as the fatal mistake of his life, though the consequences of it to him were in some degree mitigated by the marriage which Zoticus enabled him to make with a lady possessed of a fortune of 100 pounds' weight of gold (£4,000). Her property, her virtues (for 'she was superior to all women who have ever been admired for their moral excellence'), and the consolations of Philosophy and Literature, did much to soothe the disappointment of Lydus, who nevertheless felt, when he retired to his books after forty years of service, in which he had reached the unrewarded post of Cornicularius, that his official life had been a failure.

It has seemed worth while to give this sketch of the actual career of a Byzantine official, as it may illustrate in some points the lives of the functionaries to whom so many of the letters of Cassiodorus are addressed; though I know not whether we have any indications of such a rivalry at Ravenna as that which prevailed at Constantinople between theofficiumof the Praefect and that of the Magister. We now pass on to

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