All higher functions
whose exercise required close attention on the emperor's person were
covered by the description dignitates palatinae.
whose exercise required close attention on the emperor's person were
covered by the description dignitates palatinae.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
It stood where Sebastopol now stands.
The story is told only
by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (911-959), but the learned emperor
was an excellent antiquarian, and used original authorities. Cherson
and the Goths were old enemies, Rome and Cherson old allies. The
republic decided for war, and its first magistrate Diogenes struck a
decisive blow by attacking the rear of the Goths. Cherson received
a rich reward from Constantine, and remained in generally friendly
relations to the Empire till its annexation in 829, and even till its
capture by the Russians in 988.
The settlement of the Danube was the last of Constantine's great
services to the Empire. The Edict of Milan had removed the standing
danger of Christian disaffection in the East, the defeat of Licinius had
put an end to the civil wars, the reform of the administration completed
Diocletian's work of reducing the army to permanent obedience, the
Council of Nicaea had secured the active alliance of the Christian
churches, the foundation of Constantinople made the seat of power
safe for centuries; and now the consolidation of the northern frontier
seemed to enlist all the most dangerous enemies of Rome in her defence.
The Empire gained three hundred thousand settlers for the wastes of
the Gothic march, and a firm peace of more than thirty years with the
greatest of the northern nations. Henceforth the Rhine was guarded
by the Franks, the Danube covered by the Goths, and the Euphrates
flanked by the Christian kingdom of Armenia. The Empire was already
dangerously dependent on barbarian help inside and outside its frontiers ;
but the Roman peace never seemed more secure than when the skilful
policy of Constantine had formed its chief barbarian enemies into a
covering ring of friendly client states.
At all events, the years of peace were not a time of healthful
recovery. The Empire had not gained strength in the long peace of
the Antonines ; and it had gone a long way downhill since the second
century. When Diocletian came to the throne in 284, he found three
great problems before him. The first was military-how to stop the
continual mutinies which cut off the emperors before they could do their
work. This he solved, though at the cost of leaving behind him a period
of civil war. The second was religious—how to deal with the Christians.
Diocletian went wrong on this, and left his mistake to be repaired by
Constantine. The third and hardest was mainly economic-to restore
the dwindled agriculture, commerce and population of the Empire. On
this Diocletian and Constantine went wrong together. They not only
## p. 21 (#51) ##############################################
325–337]
The later years of Constantine
21
failed to cure the evil, but greatly increased it. Not much was gained
by remitting taxes that could not be paid, and settling barbarian
colonists and barbarian serfs in the wasted provinces. Serious economic
difficulties have moral causes, and there was no radical cure short of a
complete change in the temper of society. Yet much might have been
done by a permanent reduction of taxation and a reform of its incidence
and of the methods of collection. Instead of this, the machinery of
government (and its expense) was greatly increased. The army had to
be held in check by courts of Oriental splendour and a vast establish-
ment of corrupt officials. We can see the growth of officialism even in the
language, if we compare the Latin words in Athanasius with those in the
New Testament. So heavier taxes had to be levied from a smaller and
poorer population. Taxation under the Empire had never been light; in
the third century it grew heavy, under Diocletian it was crushing, and
in the later years of Constantine the burden was further increased by the
enormous expenditure which built up the new capital like the city in a
fairy tale. We are within sight of the time when the whole policy of
the government was dictated by dire financial need. We have already
reached a state of things like that we see in Russia. The strongest of
the emperors had never been able to put down brigandage; and now
disorder was rampant in the mountains, and often elsewhere. The great
army of officials was all-powerful for oppression, and very little con-
trolled by the emperor. He might displace an official at a moment's
notice, or “deliver him to the avenging flames”; but he could enforce
no reform against the passive resistance of the officials and the land-
So things drifted on from bad to worse.
Nor can we doubt that Constantine himself
grew
slacker in the
years
of peace. Nature had richly gifted him with sound health, strong
limbs, and a stately presence. His energy was untiring, his observation
keen, his decision quick. He was a splendid soldier, and the best general
since Aurelian. If he had no learned education, he was not without
interest in literature, and in practical statesmanship he may fairly rank
with Diocletian. His general humanity stands out clear in his laws, for
no emperor ever did more for the slave, the foundling and the oppressed.
If he began by giving the Frankish kings to the beasts, he went on (325)
to forbid the games of the amphitheatre. In private life he was chaste
and sober, moderate and pleasant. Yet he was given to raillery, and
his nearest friends could not entirely trust him. His ambition was
great, and he was very susceptible to flattery. So freely was it
ministered to him that he sometimes had to check it himself: but
in his later years he was more or less influenced by unworthy favourites,
as Ablabius and Sopater seem to have been. No doubt his Christianity
is of itself an offence to Zosimus and Julian, so that we may discount
their charges of sloth and luxury: but upon the whole, the judgment of
Eutropius would seem impartial, that Constantine was a match for the
owners.
CH. I.
## p. 22 (#52) ##############################################
22 Constantine's disposition of the Empire [217–380
best emperors in the early part of his reign, and at its end no more than
average.
As Constantine had won the Empire, so now he had to dispose of it.
Constantine, Constantius and Constans, his three sons by Fausta, were
born in 316, 317, 320, and received the title of Caesar in 317, 323, 333.
In 335 their inheritance was marked out. Constantine was to have the
Gaulish prefecture, Constantius the Eastern, Constans the Italian and
Illyrian. This is the partition actually made after the emperor's death ;
but for the present it was complicated by some obscure transactions.
Constantine had made honourable provision for his half-brothers Del-
matius and Julius Constantius, the sons of Theodora, and they never
gave him political trouble. Of their sisters, he married Constantia to
Licinius, Anastasia to Bassianus and Nepotianus, of whom the second
certainly was a great Roman noble, so that they too suffered no dis-
paragement. Basilina also, the wife of Julius Constantius and mother
of the emperor Julian, belonged to the great Anician family. Now
Delmatius left two sons, Delmatius and Hanniballianus. Of these
Delmatius must have been a man of mark, for he held the high office
of magister militum, and was made Caesar in 335, while Hanniballianus
was the husband of Constantine's daughter Constantina. But they had
no proper claim to any share in the succession, and we do not know why
they were given it. There may have been parties in the palace; and if
so, Ablabius is likely to have had a share in the matter, for he was put
to death along with them in the massacre which followed Constantine's
death. Certain it is that shares were carved out for them from the
inheritance of their cousins. Delmatius was to have the Gothic march,
while Hanniballianus received Pontus, with the astonishing title of
rex regum—for no Roman since the Tarquins had ever borne the name
of king.
The strange title may point to some design upon Armenia, for the
whole Eastern Question of the day was raised when Persia threatened
war. Four emperors in the third century had met with disaster on the
Persian frontier, but there had been forty years of peace since the victory
of Galerius in 297. The Empire gained Mesopotamia to the Aboras,
and the five provinces which covered the southern slopes of the Armenian
mountains; and in Armenia itself, Roman supremacy was fully recog-
nised by its great king Tiridates (287–314). If his adoption of
Christianity led to a short war with Maximin Daza, it only drew
Armenia closer to Constantine. But if the royal house was Christian
and leaned on Rome, there was a large heathen party which looked to
Persia : and Persia was an aggressive power under Sapor II (309_380).
A vigorous persecution of Christians was carried on, and war with Rome
was only a question of time. Sapor demanded back the five provinces
and attacked Mesopotamia, while a revolution in the palace threw
Armenia into his hands.
## p. 23 (#53) ##############################################
337]
Death of Constantine
23
How much of this was done during Constantine's lifetime is more
than we can say: but at all events a Persian war was plain in sight by
the spring of 337; and a war with Persia was too serious a matter to be
left to Caesars like a Frankish foray or a Gothic inroad, so the old
emperor prepared to take the field in person. He never set out. Con-
stantine fell sick soon after Easter, and when the sickness grew upon
him, he took up his abode at Ancyrona, a suburb of Nicomedia. As
his end drew near, he received the imposition of hands, for up to that
time he had not been even a catechumen. He then applied for baptism,
explaining that he had hoped some day to receive it in the waters of the
Jordan like the Lord himself. After the ceremony he laid aside the
purple, and passed away in stainless white (22 May 337). As all his
sons were absent, the government was carried on for three months in the
dead emperor's name, till they had made their arrangements, and the
soldiers had slaughtered almost the entire house of Theodora. Con-
stantine was buried on the spot he had himself marked out in the
cathedral of the Twelve Apostles in his own imperial city. The Greek
Church still calls him loanótolosan equal of the Apostles.
CH. I.
## p. 24 (#54) ##############################################
24
CHAPTER II.
THE REORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE.
It is natural to think of Diocletian as the projector and of Constantine
as the completer of a new system of government for the Roman Empire,
which persisted with mere changes of detail until it was laid in ruins by
the barbarians. But in reality the imperial institutions from the time of
Augustus onwards had passed through a course of continuous develop-
ment. Diocletian did but accelerate processes which had been in
operation from the Empire's earliest days, and Constantine left much
for his successors to accomplish. Still these two great organisers did so
far change the world which they ruled as to be rightly styled the founders
of a new type of monarchy. We will first sketch rapidly the most striking
aspects of this altered world, and then consider them one by one some-
what more closely. But our survey must be in the main of a general
character, and many details, especially when open to doubt, must be
passed over. In particular, the minutiae of chronology, which in this
region of history are specially difficult to determine, must often be
disregarded.
The ideal of a balance of power between the Princeps and the Senate,
which Augustus dangled before the eyes of his contemporaries, was never
approached in practice. From the first the imperial constitution bore
within it the seed of autocracy, and the plant was not of slow growth.
The historian Tacitus was not far wrong when he described Augustus as
having drawn to himself all the functions which in the Republic had
belonged to magistrates and to laws. The founder of the Empire had
studied well the art of concealing his political art, but the pressure of his
hand was felt in every corner of the administration. Each princeps was
as far above law as he chose to rise, so long as he did not strain the
endurance of the Senate and people to the point of breaking. When
that point was passed there was the poor consolation of refusing him his
apotheosis, or of branding with infamy his memory. As the possibility
of imperial interference was ever present in every section of the vast
machine of government, all concerned in its working were anxious to
secure themselves by obtaining an order from above. This anxiety is
conspicuous in the letters written by Pliny to his master Trajan. Even
## p. 25 (#55) ##############################################
The tendency to Despotism
25
those emperors who were most citizen-like (civiles as the phrase went)
were carried away by the tide. Tacitus exhibits the Senate as eagerly
pressing Tiberius to permit the enlargement of his powers—Tiberius
who regarded every precept of Augustus as a law for himself. The
so-called lex regia Vespasiani shews how constantly the admitted
authority of the emperor advanced by the accumulation of precedents.
Pliny gave Trajan credit for having reconciled the Empire with “liberty”;
but “liberty” had come to mean little more than orderly and benevolent
administration, free from cruel caprice, with some external deference paid
to the Senate. Developed custom made the rule of Marcus Aurelius
greatly more despotic than that of Augustus. Even the emperors of the
third century who, like Severus Alexander, made most of the Senate,
could not turn back the current. It was long, however, before the subjects
of the Empire realised that the ancient glory had departed. Down to
the time of the Emperor Tacitus pretenders found their account in posing
as senatorial champions, and rulers used the Senate's name as a con-
venient screen for their crimes. But the natural outcome of the anarchy
of the third century was the unveiled despotism of Diocletian. He was the
last in a line of valiant soldiers sprung from Illyrian soil, who accomplished
the rescue of Rome from the dissolution with which it had been threatened
by forces without and by forces within. To him more than to Aurelian,
on whom it was bestowed, belonged by right the title “restorer of the
world. ” For three centuries the legions had been a standing menace to
the very existence of Graeco-Roman civilisation. They made emperors
and unmade them, and devoured the substance of the State, exacting
continually lavish largess at the sword's point. One hope of Diocletian
when, following in the steps of Aurelian, he hedged round the throne with
pomp and majesty, was that a new awe might shield the civil power
from the lawless soldiery. In place of an Augustus, loving to parade as
a bourgeois leader of the people, there comes a kind of Sultan, with
trappings such as the men of the West had been used to associate with
the servile East, with the Persians and Parthians. The ruler of the
Roman world wears the oriental diadem, the mere dread of which had
brought Caesar to his end. He is approached as a living god with that
adoration from which the souls of the Greeks revolted when they came
into the presence of the Great King, though Alexander bent them to
endure it. Eunuchs are among his greatest officers. Lawyers buttress
his throne with an absolutist theory of the constitution which is
universally accepted.
From Augustus to Diocletian the trend of the government towards
centralisation had been incessant. The new monarchy gave to the
centralisation an intensity and an elaboration unknown before. In the
early days of conquest, whether within Italy or beyond its boundaries,
the Roman power had attempted no unification of its dominions. As
rulers, the Romans had shewn themselves thorough opportunists. They
CH. II.
## p. 26 (#56) ##############################################
26
The growth of Centrulisation
tolerated great varieties of local privilege and partial liberty. Their
government had followed, almost timidly, the line of least resistance, and
had adapted itself to circumstance, to usage, and to prejudice in every
part of the Empire. Even taxation had been elastic. Before the
age
of
despotism, few matters had ever been regulated by one unvarying
enactment for every province. To this great policy the Romans chiefly
owed the rapidity of their successes and the security of their ascendency.
The tendency towards unity was of course manifest from the first. But
it sprang far less from the direct action of the central government than
from the instinctive and unparalleled attraction which the Roman institu-
tions possessed for the provincials, particularly in the West. In part by
the extension of Roman and Italian rights to the provinces, in part
by the gradual depression of Italy to the level of a province, and in part
by interference designed to correct misgovernment, local differences were
to a great extent effaced. Septimius Severus by stationing a legion in
Italy removed one chief distinction between that favoured land and the
subject regions outside. Under his successor, Caracalla, all communities
within the Empire became alike Roman. By Diocletian and by Con-
stantine, control from the centre was made systematic and organic. Yet
absolute uniformity was not attained. In taxation, in legal administra-
tion, and in some other departments of government, local conditions
still induced some toleration of diversities.
Centralisation brought into existence with its growth a vast bureau-
cracy. The organisation of the Imperial side of the administration, as
opposed to the Senatorial, became more and more complex, while the
importance of the Senate in the administrative machinery continually
lessened. The expansion and organisation of the executive engaged the
attention of many emperors, particularly Claudius, Vespasian, Trajan,
Hadrian, and Septimius Severus. When the chaos of the third century
had been overcome, Diocletian and his successors were compelled to
reconstruct the whole service of the Empire, and a great network of
officials, bearing for the most part new titles and largely undertaking
new functions, was spread over it.
Along with the development of absolutism and the extension of
bureaucracy, and the unification of administration had gone certain
tendencies which had cut deeply into the constitution of society at large.
The boundaries between class and class tended more and more to become
fixed and impassable. As the Empire decayed society stiffened, and some
approximations were made to the oriental institution of caste. Augustus
had tried to give a rigid organisation to the circle from which senators
were drawn, and had constituted it as an order of nobility passing down
from father to son, only to be slowly recruited by imperial choice.
Many duties owed to the State tended to become hereditary, and it was
made difficult for men to rid themselves of the status which they acquired
at birth. The exigencies of finance made membership of the local
## p. 27 (#57) ##############################################
The new form of the Executive Government
27
a
senates in the municipalities almost impossible to escape. The frontier
legions, partly by encouragement and partly by ordinance, were largely
filled with sons of the camp. Several causes, the chief of which was the
financial system, gave rise to a kind of serfdom (colonatus) which at first
attached the cultivators of the soil, and as time went on, approximated
to a condition of actual slavery. The provisioning of the great capitals,
Rome and Constantinople, and the transportation of goods on public
account, rendered occupations connected with them hereditary. And
many inequalities between classes became pronounced. The criminal
law placed the honestiores and the tenuiores in different categories.
The main features of the executive government as organised by
Diocletian and his successors, must now be briefly described. For the
first time the difference between the prevalently Latin West and the pre-
valently Greek East was clearly reflected in the scheme of administration.
Diocletian ordained (286) that two Augusti with equal authority should
share the supreme power, one making his residence in the Eastern, the
other in the Western portion. The Empire was not formally divided
between them; they were to work together for the benefit of the whole
State. This association of Augusti was not exactly new; but it had
never been before formalised so completely. The separation of West
from East had been foreshadowed from the early days of the Empire.
In the first century it had been found necessary to have a Greek
Secretary of State (a libellis Graecis) as well as a Latin Secretary (a
libellis Latinis). The civilisation of the two spheres, in spite of much
interaction, remained markedly different. The municipal life of the
Eastern regions in which Greek influence predominated was fixed in its
characteristics before the Romans acquired their ascendency, and the
impression they made on it was not on the whole great. But they
spread their own municipal institutions all over Western lands.
Although Diocletian's arrangement of the two Augusti was
thrown by Constantine, the inherent incompatibility between the two
sections of the Empire continued to assert itself, and the separation
became permanent in fact if not in form on the death of Theodosius.
The establishment of Constantinople as the capital rendered the ultimate
severance inevitable. Another problem which Diocletian attacked was
that of the succession to the throne. Each “ Augustus " was to have
assigned to him (293) a “Caesar” who would assist him in the task of
government and succeed him on his retirement or death. The trans-
ference of power would thus be peaceful and the violent revolutions caused
by the claims of the legions to nominate emperors would cease. But in the
nature of things this device could not prosper. The Empire followed the
course it had taken from the beginning. The dynastic principle strove
time after time to establish itself, but dynasties were ever threatened with
catastrophe, such as had ensued on the deaths of Nero, of Commodus,
and of Severus Alexander. But new emperors frequently did homage to
over-
CH. 11.
## p. 28 (#58) ##############################################
28
Personal authority of the Emperor
9
29
heredity by a process of posthumous and fictitious adoption, whereby
they grafted themselves on to the line of their predecessors. Apparently
even this phantom of legitimacy had some value for the effect it produced
on the public mind.
The theory of government now became, as has been said, frankly
autocratic. Even Aurelian, a man of simple and soldierly life, had
thought well to take to himself officially the title of " lord and god”
which private flattery had bestowed upon Domitian. The lawyers
established a fiction that the Roman people had voluntarily resigned
all authority into the hands of the monarch. The fable was as baseless
and as serviceable as that of the “social compact,” received in the
eighteenth century. No person or class held any rights against the
emperor. The revenues were his private property. All payments from
the treasury were “sacred largesses” conceded by the divine ruler. So
far as the State was concerned, the distinction between the senatorial
exchequer (aerarium) and the imperial exchequer (fiscus) disappeared.
Certain revenues, as for instance those derived from the confiscated
estates of unsuccessful pretenders, were labelled as the emperor's private
property (res privata), and others as belonging to his “family estate
(patrimonium). But these designations were merely formal and ad-
ministrative. The emperor was the sole ultimate source of all law and
authority. The personnel by which he was immediately surrounded in
his capital was of vast extent, and the palace was often a hotbed of
intrigue. Even in the time of the Severi the “Caesareans ” (Kawoápeloi)
as Dio Cassius names them, were numerous enough to imperil often the
public peace. Another class of imperial servants, the workers at the
mint, had, in the reign of Aurelian, raised an insurrection which led to a
shedding of blood in Rome such as had not been witnessed since the age
of Sulla. The military basis of imperial power, partly concealed by the
earlier emperors, stood fully revealed. Septimius Severus had been the
first to wear regularly in the capital the full insignia of military
command, previously seen there only on days of triumph. Now every
department of the public service was regarded as “militia,” and “ camp
(castra) is the official name for the court. All high officers, with the
exception of the praefectus urbi, wore the military garb. It is needless
to say that officials who were nominally the emperor's domestic servants
easily gathered power into their own hands and often became the real
rulers of the Empire. The line between domestic offices and those which
were political and military was never strictly drawn.
All higher functions
whose exercise required close attention on the emperor's person were
covered by the description dignitates palatinae. Under the early
emperors the great ministers of state were largely freedmen, whose
status was rather that of court servants than of public administrators.
The great departments of the imperial service were gradually freed from
their close attachment to the emperor's person. The natural result was
## p. 29 (#59) ##############################################
Officers attached to the Emperor's person
29
that direct personal influence over the ruler often passed into the hands
of men whose duties were in name connected only with the daily life of
the palace. From the third century onwards the Eastern custom of
choosing eunuchs as the most trusted servants prevailed in the imperial
household as in the private households of the wealthy. The greatest of
these was the praepositus sacri cubiculi. or Great Chamberlain. This
officer often wielded the power which had been enjoyed by such men
as Parthenius had been under Domitian. The office grew in importance,
as measured by dignity and precedence, until in the time of Theo-
dosius the Great it was one of four high offices which conferred on
their holders membership of the Imperial Council (Consistorium), and
a little later was made equal in honour to the other three. The
"Palatine" servants, high and low, formed a mighty host, which re-
quired a special department for their provisioning and another for their
tendance in sickness. But exactly how many of them were under the
immediate direction (sub dispositione) of the praepositus sacri cubiculi
cannot be determined. Some duties fell to him which are hardly
suggested by his title. He was in control of the emperor's select and
intimate bodyguard, which bore the name of silentiarii, thirty in number,
with three decuriones for officers. Curiously, he superintended one
division of the vast imperial domains, that considerable portion of them
which lay within the province of Cappadocia. Dependent probably on
the praepositus sacri cubiculi was the primicerius sacri cubiculi
, who
appears in the Notitia Dignitatum as possessing the quality of a pro-
consular. Whether the castrensis sacri palatii was independent or
subordinate, cannot be determined. Under his rule were a host of pages
and lower menials of many kinds, and he had to care for the fabric of
the imperial palaces. Also he had charge of the private archives of the
imperial family.
The service of the officers described was rather personal to the
emperor than public in character. We now turn to the civil and
military administration as it was refashioned under the new monarchy.
The chaos of the period preceding Diocletian's supremacy had finally
effaced some of the leading features of the Augustan Principate which
had become fainter and fainter as the Empire ran its course. The Senate
lost the last remnant of real power. Such of its surviving privileges and
dignities as might carry back the mind to the days of its glory were
mere shadows without substance. All provinces had become imperial.
All functionaries of every class owed obedience to the autocrat alone,
and looked to him for their career. The old state-treasury, the aerarium,
retained its name, but became in practice the municipal exchequer of
Rome, which ceased to be the capital of the Empire and was merely the
first of its municipalities. The army and the civil service alike were
filled with officers whose titles and duties would have seemed strange to
a Roman of the second century of the Empire.
CH, II.
## p. 30 (#60) ##############################################
30
The forms of Provincial Government
The aspect of the provincial government, as ordered by the new
monarchy, differed profoundly from that which it had worn in the age
of the early Principate. To diminish the danger of military revolutions
Diocletian carried to a conclusion a policy which had been adopted in
part by his predecessors. The great military commands in the provinces
which had often enabled their holders to destroy or to imperil dynasties
or rulers were broken up; and the old provinces were severed into
fragments. Spain, for example, now comprised six divisions, and Gaul
fifteen. Within these fragments, still named provinces, the civil power
and the military authority were, as a rule, not placed in the same hands.
The divisions of the Empire now numbered about a hundred and twenty,
as against forty-five which existed at the end of Trajan's reign. Twelve
of the new sections lay within the boundaries of Italy, and of the old
contrast between Italy and the provinces of the Principate, few traces
remained. Egypt, hitherto treated as a land apart, was brought within
the new organisation. The titles of the civil administrators were various,
Three, who ruled regions bearing the ancient provincial names of Asia,
Africa, and Achaia were distinguished by the title of proconsul, which
had once belonged to all administrators of senatorial provinces. About
thirty-six were known as consulares. This designation ceased to indicate,
as of old, the men who had passed the consulship: it was merely con-
nected with the government of provinces. The consularis became
technically a member of the Roman Senate, though he ranked below
the ex-consul. So also with the provincial governors who bore the
common title of praeses, and the rarer name of corrector. This last
appellation belonged, in the fourth century, to the chiefs of two districts
in Italy, Apulia and Lucania, and of three outside. It denoted originally
officers who began to be appointed in Trajan's reign to reform the
condition of municipalities. The precedence of the correctores among
the governors seems to have placed them, in the West, after the
consulares, in the East after the praesides. Sometimes the title of
proconsul was for personal reasons bestowed on a governor whose
province was ordinarily ruled by an officer of lower dignity. But such
an arrangement was teniporary. The old expressions legatus pro praetore
or procurator, in its application to provincial rulers, went out of use.
After the age of Constantine new and fanciful descriptions of the pro-
vincial governors, as of other officers, tended to spring into existence.
A few frontier districts were treated (as was the case under the
Principate) in an exceptional manner. Their chiefs were allowed to
exercise civil as well as military functions and were naturally described
by the ordinary name for an army commander (dux).
The proconsuls possessed some privileges of their own. Two of them,
the proconsul of Africa and the proconsul of Asia, were alone among
provincial governors entitled to receive their orders from the emperor
himself; and the Asian proconsul was distinguished by having under him
## p. 31 (#61) ##############################################
The new divisions of the Empire
31
two deputies, who directed a region known as Hellespontus and the
Insulae or islands lying near the Asiatic coast. All other adminis-
trators communicated with the emperor through one or other of four
great officers of state, the Praefecti Praetorio. Their title had been
originally invented to designate the commander of the Praetorian
Cohorts, whom Augustus called into existence. The control of these
was usually vested in two men. Now and then three commanders were
appointed. Some emperors, disregarding the danger to themselves,
allowed a single officer to hold command. Men like Sejanus under
Tiberius and Plautianus under Septimius Severus were practically vice-
emperors. As time went on, the office gradually lost its military
character. Sometimes one of the commanders was a soldier and the
other a civilian. During the reign of Severus Alexander the great
lawyer Ulpian was in sole charge, being the first senator who had been
permitted to hold the post. The legal duties of the Praefect continued
to grow in importance. When the Praetorian Cohorts brought destruc-
tion on themselves by their support of Maxentius against Constantine,
the Praefectus Praetorio became a purely civil functionary. The four
Praefecti were distinguished as Praefectus Praetorio, Galliarum, Italiae,
Illyrici and Orientis respectively. The first administered not only the
ancient Gaul, but also the Rhine frontier and Britain, Spain, Sardinia,
Corsica and Sicily. The second in addition to Italy had under him
Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and some regions on the upper
Danube, also most of Roman Africa; the third Dacia, Achaia, and
districts near the lower Danube besides Illyricum, properly so called; the
fourth all Asia Minor, in so far as it was not subjected to the proconsul
of Asia, with Egypt and Thrace, and some lands by the mouth of the
Danube. It will be seen that three out of the four had the direction of
provinces lying on or near the Danube. Probably on their first institu-
tion and for some time afterwards all the Praefecti retained in their own
hands the administration of some portions of the great territories
mitted to their charge. Later the Illyrian praefect alone had a district,
a portion of Dacia, under his own immediate control. Apart from this
exception, the Praefecti conducted their government through officials
subordinated to them.
Each praefectal region was divided into great sections called dioeceses.
Each of these was formed by combination of a certain number of pro-
vinces; and each was comparable to the more important of the old
provinces of the age of the Republic and early Principate. The word
dioecesis had passed through a long history before the time of Diocletian.
The Romans found it existent in their Asiatic dominions, where it had
been applied by earlier rulers to an administrative district, especially in
relation to legal affairs. The Roman government extended the employ-
ment of the term both in the East and in the West and connected it
with other sides of administration besides the legal. Diocletian marked
CH. II.
## p. 32 (#62) ##############################################
32
The Status of Functionaries
successors.
out ten great divisions of the Empire to be designated by this title. The
number of the divisions and their limits were somewhat altered by his
At the head of each Dioecesis was placed an officer who bore
the name vicarius, excepting in the Eastern praefecture. Here the
Vicarius was after a while replaced by a comes Orientis, to whom the
governor of Egypt was at first subject, though he acquired independent
authority later. The treatment of Italy (in the new and extended sense)
was peculiar. It constituted a single Dioecesis, but possessed two vicarii,
one of whom had his seat at Milan, the other at Rome. This bisection
of the Italian praefecture depended on differences in taxation, to which
we must recur later. In the Dioecesis Asiana, and the Dioecesis Africae,
the Vicarius was of course responsible not to the Praefectus, but to the
proconsul.
Such were, in broad outline, the features which the civil administra-
tion of the Empire wore after Diocletian's reforms. Some rough idea
must be conveyed of the mode in which the scheme was applied to the
practical work of government. It must be premised that now, as hereto-
fore, there was no point in the vast and complex machinery of bureaucracy
at which the direct interposition of the emperor might not be at any
moment brought into play. There was therefore no mechanical sub-
ordination of officer to officer, such as would produce an unbroken official
chain, passing down from the emperor to the lowest official. And even
apart from imperial intervention we must not conceive of the different
grades of functionaries as arranged in absolutely systematic subjection,
one grade to another. This would have interfered with one principal
purpose of the new organisation, which aimed at providing the emperor
with information about the whole state of his dominions, through officers
immediately in touch with him at the centre of the government. The
emperor could not afford to restrict himself to such reports as might
reach him through a Praefectus Praetorio or a proconsul. Thus the
Vicarii were never regarded as mere agents or deputies of the Praefecti,
and the same may be said of other officials. All might be called on to
leave the beaten track. The Praefecti Praetorio, though each had his
allotted sphere, were still in some sense colleagues, and were required on
occasion to take cominon action. One great aim of the new system was
to prevent administrators from accumulating influence by long con-
tinuance in the same post, or in any other way. Therefore functionaries
were passed on rapidly from one position to another. Therefore, also,
except in rare instances, no man was allowed to hold office in the
province of his birth. All offices were now paid and the importance of
many was discernible from the amount of the stipend received by the
holder. As in earlier times, certain offices conferred on their incumbents
what may be regarded as patents of nobility. The nobiliary status
arising from office was not hereditary as in an earlier age; yet the halo
of the title to some extent covered the official's family. New appellations
## p. 33 (#63) ##############################################
11
The Praefecti Praetorio
33
were invented to decorate the higher offices, whose tenants were graded
as illustres, spectabiles, and clarissimi, To the last designation all
senators were entitled. Other expressions as comes, patricius, were less
closely bound up with office. The use of these titles spread gradually.
Before the end of the first century vir clarissimus (v. c. on inscriptions)
began to denote the senator. The employment of distinctive titles for
high officers of equestrian rank, vir eminentissimus, vir perfectissimus, vir
egregius, began with Hadrian, and developed in the time of Marcus
Aurelius. The designation vir egregius fell out of use during or soon
after Constantine's reign. The tendency of the new organisation was to
detach many offices from their old connexion with the equestrian body,
whose importance in the State diminished and then rapidly died away.
Many changes in the application of these titles to the different offices
took place from time to time.
The Praefectus Praetorio was the most exalted civil officer in the new
Empire. His duties were executive, legal, financial, of every description
in fact excepting the military. His only service for the army lay in
the supply of its material requirements in pay, food, and equipment.
He became in the end one of the highest of the viri illustres. The
Praefectus in whose district the emperor resided was for the time being
of enhanced importance, and was denoted as Praefectus Praetorio praesens.
The office had even before the time of Diocletian attracted to itself a
good deal of criminal jurisdiction. The Praefectus was now not a judge
of first instance, but heard appeals from the courts below, within his
sphere of action, with the exception of the court of the Vicarius, from
whom the appeal went straight to the emperor. On the other hand,
after 331 there was in the ordinary way no appeal against a sentence
passed by the Praefectus, who was held to sit as the alter ego of the
emperor (vice sacra iudicans). No other official possessed this privilege.
The whole administration of the regions committed to him was passed
under review by the Praefectus. His supervision of the provincial
governors was of the most general kind. Each was compelled to send
in twice a year a report on the administration of his province, and
particularly on his exercise of jurisdiction. In the selection of governors
the Praefectus had a large share, and he exercised disciplinary power over
them. Erring functionaries both military and civil could be suspended
by him till the emperor's pleasure was known. He usually advised
the emperor concerning appointments. His control of finance both on
the side of receipts and on that of expenditure formed a most important
part of his duties. All difficulties in the incidence of taxation and in the
collection of the taxes came under his consideration, but no officer of
the Empire, however highly placed, could diminish or increase taxation
without the emperor's express sanction.
The Praefectus was also re-
sponsible for the due transport of corn and other necessaries destined for
the supply of Rome and Constantinople. Many other functions fell
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. II.
3
## p. 34 (#64) ##############################################
34
The Vicarius.
The Scrinia
to his lot, among them the superintendence of the state Post (cursus
publicus).
If we may adapt an ecclesiastical phrase which describes the Arch-
deacon as the oculus Episcopi, we may say that the Vicarius was the
oculus Praefecti. He gave a closer eye to details than was possible for
his superior within his Dioecesis. At first he was perfectissimus, after-
wards spectabilis. The tendency of the rulers after Constantine was to
increase his importance at the expense of the Praefectus ; rather however
in the field of jurisdiction than in other fields. The Vicarius had but
little disciplinary power over the rector provinciae. The governor could
in a difficult case seek advice from the
emperor
without having recourse
to either of his superior officers, though he was bound to inform the
Vicarius, and the latter could on occasion go straight to the monarch.
The court of the Vicarius, like that of the Praefectus, was an appeal
court only. The provincial governor was judge of first instance in all
civil and criminal matters, except in the cases of some privileged persons,
and in those minor affairs which were left to the magistrates of the
municipalities within the province. The small size of the province made
it unnecessary that its ruler should travel about to administer justice, as
in the earlier time. Causes were heard at the seat of government. Much
of the time of the governor was occupied in seeing that imposts were
duly collected and that no irregularities were practised by subordinates.
Responsibility for public order rested primarily with him.
The lower grades of civil servants in the provinces were to a very
large extent in connexion with and controlled by the great departments
of the imperial service whose chief offices were in the capital. Early in
the imperial period three great bureaux were established, whose presidents
were named ab epistulis, a libellis, and a memoria. These phrases survived
into the age of Constantine and after, but denoted the offices and not
their chiefs, whose title was magister. The departments themselves were
now described by the word scrinium, which had originally denoted a box
or desk for containing papers. The word had therefore undergone a
change of meaning similar to that which had passed over fiscus, whereby
from a basket for holding coin, it came to mean the imperial exchequer.
The demarcation of business allotted to the three great scrinia was not
always the same. The magister memoriae gradually encroached on the
functions of the other two heads of departments and became much the
most influential of the three. A fourth scrinium, called the scrinium
dispositionum, was added. Its magister (later called comes) was at first
inferior to the other three, who belonged to the class of the spectabiles,
but was afterwards placed on a level with them. All these magistri on
being promoted became vicarii. All four were subject to an exalted
personage known as magister officiorum, who was a vir illustris.
The department known as ab epistulis was early divided into two
sections distinguished as ab epistulis Latinis and ab epistulis Graecis. It
## p. 35 (#65) ##############################################
The Scrinia and the Magister Officiorum
35
was originally the great Secretariat of the Empire. Here were managed
all communications touching foreign affairs, and the general corre-
spondence of the government, excepting in so far as it related to the legal
and other multifarious petitions addressed to the emperor, appealing for
his interference or his favour. These would come not only from officials,
but also from private persons, and all fell within the functions of the
office a libellis. This bureau absorbed into itself another which had
been specially devoted to legal inquiries, and was called a cognitionibus.
Hence the magister libellorum is described in the Digest by the fuller
title magister scrinii libellorum et sacrarum cognitionum. The depart-
ment had famous lawyers, like Papinian and Ulpian, connected with it,
and it must often have sought the aid of specialists in other matters
belonging to the public service, as revenue and finance : for many of the
petitions addressed to the ruler sought relief from taxation.
The name of the department a memoria implies that its head was the
keeper of the “emperor's memory. ” It was therefore a Record Office,
but it was much more. It assisted other offices in putting documents
into their final shape, and not only recorded the documents but issued
them. The accounts we have of the office make it clear that it took to
itself much important business which originally was transacted by other
departments. Thus the Notitia describes the magister memoriae as
dictating and issuing adnotationes, that is to say brief pronouncements
,
running in the emperor's name; also as giving answers to supplications
(preces). Further he gave to the emperor's letters, speeches, and general
announcements their final form, and sent them forth. The magister
libellorum and the magister epistularum must have become in fact, though
not in form, his inferiors. From his office emanated diplomas of appoint-
ments, the permission to use the imperial post, and countless other
official permits. The scrinium dispositionum kept in order all the emperor's
engagements, and made the innumerable arrangements necessary for his
journeys, and took count of many matters with which he was in touch,
being of such a nature as not to come definitely within the purview of
other bureaux.
All these scrinia were under the control of one of the greatest
functionaries of the Empire, the magister officiorum. His importance
grew over a long space of time from small beginnings. His functions
encroached greatly on those of the Praefecti Praetorio, and their develop-
ment is a measure of the jealousy entertained by the emperors for these
great officers. The word officium indicates a group of public servants
placed at the disposal of a state functionary. The magister officiorum
is the general master of all such groups. Naturally he is vir illustris.
He selected from the scrinia in accordance with elaborate rules of service,
the clerks who were required to carry out many sorts of business in the
capital and in the provinces. His duties were of many different kinds,
.
through which no connected thread of principle ran; they evidently
CH. II.
3-2
## p. 36 (#66) ##############################################
36
The Agentes in Rebus
99
«
reached their full compass by an agglomeration which followed lines of
convenience merely. One of the most prominent occupations of the
magister lay in his direction of what may be called the Secret Service of
the Empire. He had under him the very important schola agentum in
rebus, which was organised by Constantine or possibly by Diocletian,
and replaced a body of men called frumentarii, drawn originally from
the corps which had in charge the provisioning of the army. These had
acted as secret agents of the government. They were the men by whose
means Hadrian, as his biographer says, “wormed out all hidden things.
The vast extension of the Secret Service in the age of Constantine and
later was a consequence of the huge increase in the number of officials,
and of the suspicion which an autocratic ruler naturally entertains
towards his subordinates: in part also of a genuine but ineffectual desire
to check misgovernment.
by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (911-959), but the learned emperor
was an excellent antiquarian, and used original authorities. Cherson
and the Goths were old enemies, Rome and Cherson old allies. The
republic decided for war, and its first magistrate Diogenes struck a
decisive blow by attacking the rear of the Goths. Cherson received
a rich reward from Constantine, and remained in generally friendly
relations to the Empire till its annexation in 829, and even till its
capture by the Russians in 988.
The settlement of the Danube was the last of Constantine's great
services to the Empire. The Edict of Milan had removed the standing
danger of Christian disaffection in the East, the defeat of Licinius had
put an end to the civil wars, the reform of the administration completed
Diocletian's work of reducing the army to permanent obedience, the
Council of Nicaea had secured the active alliance of the Christian
churches, the foundation of Constantinople made the seat of power
safe for centuries; and now the consolidation of the northern frontier
seemed to enlist all the most dangerous enemies of Rome in her defence.
The Empire gained three hundred thousand settlers for the wastes of
the Gothic march, and a firm peace of more than thirty years with the
greatest of the northern nations. Henceforth the Rhine was guarded
by the Franks, the Danube covered by the Goths, and the Euphrates
flanked by the Christian kingdom of Armenia. The Empire was already
dangerously dependent on barbarian help inside and outside its frontiers ;
but the Roman peace never seemed more secure than when the skilful
policy of Constantine had formed its chief barbarian enemies into a
covering ring of friendly client states.
At all events, the years of peace were not a time of healthful
recovery. The Empire had not gained strength in the long peace of
the Antonines ; and it had gone a long way downhill since the second
century. When Diocletian came to the throne in 284, he found three
great problems before him. The first was military-how to stop the
continual mutinies which cut off the emperors before they could do their
work. This he solved, though at the cost of leaving behind him a period
of civil war. The second was religious—how to deal with the Christians.
Diocletian went wrong on this, and left his mistake to be repaired by
Constantine. The third and hardest was mainly economic-to restore
the dwindled agriculture, commerce and population of the Empire. On
this Diocletian and Constantine went wrong together. They not only
## p. 21 (#51) ##############################################
325–337]
The later years of Constantine
21
failed to cure the evil, but greatly increased it. Not much was gained
by remitting taxes that could not be paid, and settling barbarian
colonists and barbarian serfs in the wasted provinces. Serious economic
difficulties have moral causes, and there was no radical cure short of a
complete change in the temper of society. Yet much might have been
done by a permanent reduction of taxation and a reform of its incidence
and of the methods of collection. Instead of this, the machinery of
government (and its expense) was greatly increased. The army had to
be held in check by courts of Oriental splendour and a vast establish-
ment of corrupt officials. We can see the growth of officialism even in the
language, if we compare the Latin words in Athanasius with those in the
New Testament. So heavier taxes had to be levied from a smaller and
poorer population. Taxation under the Empire had never been light; in
the third century it grew heavy, under Diocletian it was crushing, and
in the later years of Constantine the burden was further increased by the
enormous expenditure which built up the new capital like the city in a
fairy tale. We are within sight of the time when the whole policy of
the government was dictated by dire financial need. We have already
reached a state of things like that we see in Russia. The strongest of
the emperors had never been able to put down brigandage; and now
disorder was rampant in the mountains, and often elsewhere. The great
army of officials was all-powerful for oppression, and very little con-
trolled by the emperor. He might displace an official at a moment's
notice, or “deliver him to the avenging flames”; but he could enforce
no reform against the passive resistance of the officials and the land-
So things drifted on from bad to worse.
Nor can we doubt that Constantine himself
grew
slacker in the
years
of peace. Nature had richly gifted him with sound health, strong
limbs, and a stately presence. His energy was untiring, his observation
keen, his decision quick. He was a splendid soldier, and the best general
since Aurelian. If he had no learned education, he was not without
interest in literature, and in practical statesmanship he may fairly rank
with Diocletian. His general humanity stands out clear in his laws, for
no emperor ever did more for the slave, the foundling and the oppressed.
If he began by giving the Frankish kings to the beasts, he went on (325)
to forbid the games of the amphitheatre. In private life he was chaste
and sober, moderate and pleasant. Yet he was given to raillery, and
his nearest friends could not entirely trust him. His ambition was
great, and he was very susceptible to flattery. So freely was it
ministered to him that he sometimes had to check it himself: but
in his later years he was more or less influenced by unworthy favourites,
as Ablabius and Sopater seem to have been. No doubt his Christianity
is of itself an offence to Zosimus and Julian, so that we may discount
their charges of sloth and luxury: but upon the whole, the judgment of
Eutropius would seem impartial, that Constantine was a match for the
owners.
CH. I.
## p. 22 (#52) ##############################################
22 Constantine's disposition of the Empire [217–380
best emperors in the early part of his reign, and at its end no more than
average.
As Constantine had won the Empire, so now he had to dispose of it.
Constantine, Constantius and Constans, his three sons by Fausta, were
born in 316, 317, 320, and received the title of Caesar in 317, 323, 333.
In 335 their inheritance was marked out. Constantine was to have the
Gaulish prefecture, Constantius the Eastern, Constans the Italian and
Illyrian. This is the partition actually made after the emperor's death ;
but for the present it was complicated by some obscure transactions.
Constantine had made honourable provision for his half-brothers Del-
matius and Julius Constantius, the sons of Theodora, and they never
gave him political trouble. Of their sisters, he married Constantia to
Licinius, Anastasia to Bassianus and Nepotianus, of whom the second
certainly was a great Roman noble, so that they too suffered no dis-
paragement. Basilina also, the wife of Julius Constantius and mother
of the emperor Julian, belonged to the great Anician family. Now
Delmatius left two sons, Delmatius and Hanniballianus. Of these
Delmatius must have been a man of mark, for he held the high office
of magister militum, and was made Caesar in 335, while Hanniballianus
was the husband of Constantine's daughter Constantina. But they had
no proper claim to any share in the succession, and we do not know why
they were given it. There may have been parties in the palace; and if
so, Ablabius is likely to have had a share in the matter, for he was put
to death along with them in the massacre which followed Constantine's
death. Certain it is that shares were carved out for them from the
inheritance of their cousins. Delmatius was to have the Gothic march,
while Hanniballianus received Pontus, with the astonishing title of
rex regum—for no Roman since the Tarquins had ever borne the name
of king.
The strange title may point to some design upon Armenia, for the
whole Eastern Question of the day was raised when Persia threatened
war. Four emperors in the third century had met with disaster on the
Persian frontier, but there had been forty years of peace since the victory
of Galerius in 297. The Empire gained Mesopotamia to the Aboras,
and the five provinces which covered the southern slopes of the Armenian
mountains; and in Armenia itself, Roman supremacy was fully recog-
nised by its great king Tiridates (287–314). If his adoption of
Christianity led to a short war with Maximin Daza, it only drew
Armenia closer to Constantine. But if the royal house was Christian
and leaned on Rome, there was a large heathen party which looked to
Persia : and Persia was an aggressive power under Sapor II (309_380).
A vigorous persecution of Christians was carried on, and war with Rome
was only a question of time. Sapor demanded back the five provinces
and attacked Mesopotamia, while a revolution in the palace threw
Armenia into his hands.
## p. 23 (#53) ##############################################
337]
Death of Constantine
23
How much of this was done during Constantine's lifetime is more
than we can say: but at all events a Persian war was plain in sight by
the spring of 337; and a war with Persia was too serious a matter to be
left to Caesars like a Frankish foray or a Gothic inroad, so the old
emperor prepared to take the field in person. He never set out. Con-
stantine fell sick soon after Easter, and when the sickness grew upon
him, he took up his abode at Ancyrona, a suburb of Nicomedia. As
his end drew near, he received the imposition of hands, for up to that
time he had not been even a catechumen. He then applied for baptism,
explaining that he had hoped some day to receive it in the waters of the
Jordan like the Lord himself. After the ceremony he laid aside the
purple, and passed away in stainless white (22 May 337). As all his
sons were absent, the government was carried on for three months in the
dead emperor's name, till they had made their arrangements, and the
soldiers had slaughtered almost the entire house of Theodora. Con-
stantine was buried on the spot he had himself marked out in the
cathedral of the Twelve Apostles in his own imperial city. The Greek
Church still calls him loanótolosan equal of the Apostles.
CH. I.
## p. 24 (#54) ##############################################
24
CHAPTER II.
THE REORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE.
It is natural to think of Diocletian as the projector and of Constantine
as the completer of a new system of government for the Roman Empire,
which persisted with mere changes of detail until it was laid in ruins by
the barbarians. But in reality the imperial institutions from the time of
Augustus onwards had passed through a course of continuous develop-
ment. Diocletian did but accelerate processes which had been in
operation from the Empire's earliest days, and Constantine left much
for his successors to accomplish. Still these two great organisers did so
far change the world which they ruled as to be rightly styled the founders
of a new type of monarchy. We will first sketch rapidly the most striking
aspects of this altered world, and then consider them one by one some-
what more closely. But our survey must be in the main of a general
character, and many details, especially when open to doubt, must be
passed over. In particular, the minutiae of chronology, which in this
region of history are specially difficult to determine, must often be
disregarded.
The ideal of a balance of power between the Princeps and the Senate,
which Augustus dangled before the eyes of his contemporaries, was never
approached in practice. From the first the imperial constitution bore
within it the seed of autocracy, and the plant was not of slow growth.
The historian Tacitus was not far wrong when he described Augustus as
having drawn to himself all the functions which in the Republic had
belonged to magistrates and to laws. The founder of the Empire had
studied well the art of concealing his political art, but the pressure of his
hand was felt in every corner of the administration. Each princeps was
as far above law as he chose to rise, so long as he did not strain the
endurance of the Senate and people to the point of breaking. When
that point was passed there was the poor consolation of refusing him his
apotheosis, or of branding with infamy his memory. As the possibility
of imperial interference was ever present in every section of the vast
machine of government, all concerned in its working were anxious to
secure themselves by obtaining an order from above. This anxiety is
conspicuous in the letters written by Pliny to his master Trajan. Even
## p. 25 (#55) ##############################################
The tendency to Despotism
25
those emperors who were most citizen-like (civiles as the phrase went)
were carried away by the tide. Tacitus exhibits the Senate as eagerly
pressing Tiberius to permit the enlargement of his powers—Tiberius
who regarded every precept of Augustus as a law for himself. The
so-called lex regia Vespasiani shews how constantly the admitted
authority of the emperor advanced by the accumulation of precedents.
Pliny gave Trajan credit for having reconciled the Empire with “liberty”;
but “liberty” had come to mean little more than orderly and benevolent
administration, free from cruel caprice, with some external deference paid
to the Senate. Developed custom made the rule of Marcus Aurelius
greatly more despotic than that of Augustus. Even the emperors of the
third century who, like Severus Alexander, made most of the Senate,
could not turn back the current. It was long, however, before the subjects
of the Empire realised that the ancient glory had departed. Down to
the time of the Emperor Tacitus pretenders found their account in posing
as senatorial champions, and rulers used the Senate's name as a con-
venient screen for their crimes. But the natural outcome of the anarchy
of the third century was the unveiled despotism of Diocletian. He was the
last in a line of valiant soldiers sprung from Illyrian soil, who accomplished
the rescue of Rome from the dissolution with which it had been threatened
by forces without and by forces within. To him more than to Aurelian,
on whom it was bestowed, belonged by right the title “restorer of the
world. ” For three centuries the legions had been a standing menace to
the very existence of Graeco-Roman civilisation. They made emperors
and unmade them, and devoured the substance of the State, exacting
continually lavish largess at the sword's point. One hope of Diocletian
when, following in the steps of Aurelian, he hedged round the throne with
pomp and majesty, was that a new awe might shield the civil power
from the lawless soldiery. In place of an Augustus, loving to parade as
a bourgeois leader of the people, there comes a kind of Sultan, with
trappings such as the men of the West had been used to associate with
the servile East, with the Persians and Parthians. The ruler of the
Roman world wears the oriental diadem, the mere dread of which had
brought Caesar to his end. He is approached as a living god with that
adoration from which the souls of the Greeks revolted when they came
into the presence of the Great King, though Alexander bent them to
endure it. Eunuchs are among his greatest officers. Lawyers buttress
his throne with an absolutist theory of the constitution which is
universally accepted.
From Augustus to Diocletian the trend of the government towards
centralisation had been incessant. The new monarchy gave to the
centralisation an intensity and an elaboration unknown before. In the
early days of conquest, whether within Italy or beyond its boundaries,
the Roman power had attempted no unification of its dominions. As
rulers, the Romans had shewn themselves thorough opportunists. They
CH. II.
## p. 26 (#56) ##############################################
26
The growth of Centrulisation
tolerated great varieties of local privilege and partial liberty. Their
government had followed, almost timidly, the line of least resistance, and
had adapted itself to circumstance, to usage, and to prejudice in every
part of the Empire. Even taxation had been elastic. Before the
age
of
despotism, few matters had ever been regulated by one unvarying
enactment for every province. To this great policy the Romans chiefly
owed the rapidity of their successes and the security of their ascendency.
The tendency towards unity was of course manifest from the first. But
it sprang far less from the direct action of the central government than
from the instinctive and unparalleled attraction which the Roman institu-
tions possessed for the provincials, particularly in the West. In part by
the extension of Roman and Italian rights to the provinces, in part
by the gradual depression of Italy to the level of a province, and in part
by interference designed to correct misgovernment, local differences were
to a great extent effaced. Septimius Severus by stationing a legion in
Italy removed one chief distinction between that favoured land and the
subject regions outside. Under his successor, Caracalla, all communities
within the Empire became alike Roman. By Diocletian and by Con-
stantine, control from the centre was made systematic and organic. Yet
absolute uniformity was not attained. In taxation, in legal administra-
tion, and in some other departments of government, local conditions
still induced some toleration of diversities.
Centralisation brought into existence with its growth a vast bureau-
cracy. The organisation of the Imperial side of the administration, as
opposed to the Senatorial, became more and more complex, while the
importance of the Senate in the administrative machinery continually
lessened. The expansion and organisation of the executive engaged the
attention of many emperors, particularly Claudius, Vespasian, Trajan,
Hadrian, and Septimius Severus. When the chaos of the third century
had been overcome, Diocletian and his successors were compelled to
reconstruct the whole service of the Empire, and a great network of
officials, bearing for the most part new titles and largely undertaking
new functions, was spread over it.
Along with the development of absolutism and the extension of
bureaucracy, and the unification of administration had gone certain
tendencies which had cut deeply into the constitution of society at large.
The boundaries between class and class tended more and more to become
fixed and impassable. As the Empire decayed society stiffened, and some
approximations were made to the oriental institution of caste. Augustus
had tried to give a rigid organisation to the circle from which senators
were drawn, and had constituted it as an order of nobility passing down
from father to son, only to be slowly recruited by imperial choice.
Many duties owed to the State tended to become hereditary, and it was
made difficult for men to rid themselves of the status which they acquired
at birth. The exigencies of finance made membership of the local
## p. 27 (#57) ##############################################
The new form of the Executive Government
27
a
senates in the municipalities almost impossible to escape. The frontier
legions, partly by encouragement and partly by ordinance, were largely
filled with sons of the camp. Several causes, the chief of which was the
financial system, gave rise to a kind of serfdom (colonatus) which at first
attached the cultivators of the soil, and as time went on, approximated
to a condition of actual slavery. The provisioning of the great capitals,
Rome and Constantinople, and the transportation of goods on public
account, rendered occupations connected with them hereditary. And
many inequalities between classes became pronounced. The criminal
law placed the honestiores and the tenuiores in different categories.
The main features of the executive government as organised by
Diocletian and his successors, must now be briefly described. For the
first time the difference between the prevalently Latin West and the pre-
valently Greek East was clearly reflected in the scheme of administration.
Diocletian ordained (286) that two Augusti with equal authority should
share the supreme power, one making his residence in the Eastern, the
other in the Western portion. The Empire was not formally divided
between them; they were to work together for the benefit of the whole
State. This association of Augusti was not exactly new; but it had
never been before formalised so completely. The separation of West
from East had been foreshadowed from the early days of the Empire.
In the first century it had been found necessary to have a Greek
Secretary of State (a libellis Graecis) as well as a Latin Secretary (a
libellis Latinis). The civilisation of the two spheres, in spite of much
interaction, remained markedly different. The municipal life of the
Eastern regions in which Greek influence predominated was fixed in its
characteristics before the Romans acquired their ascendency, and the
impression they made on it was not on the whole great. But they
spread their own municipal institutions all over Western lands.
Although Diocletian's arrangement of the two Augusti was
thrown by Constantine, the inherent incompatibility between the two
sections of the Empire continued to assert itself, and the separation
became permanent in fact if not in form on the death of Theodosius.
The establishment of Constantinople as the capital rendered the ultimate
severance inevitable. Another problem which Diocletian attacked was
that of the succession to the throne. Each “ Augustus " was to have
assigned to him (293) a “Caesar” who would assist him in the task of
government and succeed him on his retirement or death. The trans-
ference of power would thus be peaceful and the violent revolutions caused
by the claims of the legions to nominate emperors would cease. But in the
nature of things this device could not prosper. The Empire followed the
course it had taken from the beginning. The dynastic principle strove
time after time to establish itself, but dynasties were ever threatened with
catastrophe, such as had ensued on the deaths of Nero, of Commodus,
and of Severus Alexander. But new emperors frequently did homage to
over-
CH. 11.
## p. 28 (#58) ##############################################
28
Personal authority of the Emperor
9
29
heredity by a process of posthumous and fictitious adoption, whereby
they grafted themselves on to the line of their predecessors. Apparently
even this phantom of legitimacy had some value for the effect it produced
on the public mind.
The theory of government now became, as has been said, frankly
autocratic. Even Aurelian, a man of simple and soldierly life, had
thought well to take to himself officially the title of " lord and god”
which private flattery had bestowed upon Domitian. The lawyers
established a fiction that the Roman people had voluntarily resigned
all authority into the hands of the monarch. The fable was as baseless
and as serviceable as that of the “social compact,” received in the
eighteenth century. No person or class held any rights against the
emperor. The revenues were his private property. All payments from
the treasury were “sacred largesses” conceded by the divine ruler. So
far as the State was concerned, the distinction between the senatorial
exchequer (aerarium) and the imperial exchequer (fiscus) disappeared.
Certain revenues, as for instance those derived from the confiscated
estates of unsuccessful pretenders, were labelled as the emperor's private
property (res privata), and others as belonging to his “family estate
(patrimonium). But these designations were merely formal and ad-
ministrative. The emperor was the sole ultimate source of all law and
authority. The personnel by which he was immediately surrounded in
his capital was of vast extent, and the palace was often a hotbed of
intrigue. Even in the time of the Severi the “Caesareans ” (Kawoápeloi)
as Dio Cassius names them, were numerous enough to imperil often the
public peace. Another class of imperial servants, the workers at the
mint, had, in the reign of Aurelian, raised an insurrection which led to a
shedding of blood in Rome such as had not been witnessed since the age
of Sulla. The military basis of imperial power, partly concealed by the
earlier emperors, stood fully revealed. Septimius Severus had been the
first to wear regularly in the capital the full insignia of military
command, previously seen there only on days of triumph. Now every
department of the public service was regarded as “militia,” and “ camp
(castra) is the official name for the court. All high officers, with the
exception of the praefectus urbi, wore the military garb. It is needless
to say that officials who were nominally the emperor's domestic servants
easily gathered power into their own hands and often became the real
rulers of the Empire. The line between domestic offices and those which
were political and military was never strictly drawn.
All higher functions
whose exercise required close attention on the emperor's person were
covered by the description dignitates palatinae. Under the early
emperors the great ministers of state were largely freedmen, whose
status was rather that of court servants than of public administrators.
The great departments of the imperial service were gradually freed from
their close attachment to the emperor's person. The natural result was
## p. 29 (#59) ##############################################
Officers attached to the Emperor's person
29
that direct personal influence over the ruler often passed into the hands
of men whose duties were in name connected only with the daily life of
the palace. From the third century onwards the Eastern custom of
choosing eunuchs as the most trusted servants prevailed in the imperial
household as in the private households of the wealthy. The greatest of
these was the praepositus sacri cubiculi. or Great Chamberlain. This
officer often wielded the power which had been enjoyed by such men
as Parthenius had been under Domitian. The office grew in importance,
as measured by dignity and precedence, until in the time of Theo-
dosius the Great it was one of four high offices which conferred on
their holders membership of the Imperial Council (Consistorium), and
a little later was made equal in honour to the other three. The
"Palatine" servants, high and low, formed a mighty host, which re-
quired a special department for their provisioning and another for their
tendance in sickness. But exactly how many of them were under the
immediate direction (sub dispositione) of the praepositus sacri cubiculi
cannot be determined. Some duties fell to him which are hardly
suggested by his title. He was in control of the emperor's select and
intimate bodyguard, which bore the name of silentiarii, thirty in number,
with three decuriones for officers. Curiously, he superintended one
division of the vast imperial domains, that considerable portion of them
which lay within the province of Cappadocia. Dependent probably on
the praepositus sacri cubiculi was the primicerius sacri cubiculi
, who
appears in the Notitia Dignitatum as possessing the quality of a pro-
consular. Whether the castrensis sacri palatii was independent or
subordinate, cannot be determined. Under his rule were a host of pages
and lower menials of many kinds, and he had to care for the fabric of
the imperial palaces. Also he had charge of the private archives of the
imperial family.
The service of the officers described was rather personal to the
emperor than public in character. We now turn to the civil and
military administration as it was refashioned under the new monarchy.
The chaos of the period preceding Diocletian's supremacy had finally
effaced some of the leading features of the Augustan Principate which
had become fainter and fainter as the Empire ran its course. The Senate
lost the last remnant of real power. Such of its surviving privileges and
dignities as might carry back the mind to the days of its glory were
mere shadows without substance. All provinces had become imperial.
All functionaries of every class owed obedience to the autocrat alone,
and looked to him for their career. The old state-treasury, the aerarium,
retained its name, but became in practice the municipal exchequer of
Rome, which ceased to be the capital of the Empire and was merely the
first of its municipalities. The army and the civil service alike were
filled with officers whose titles and duties would have seemed strange to
a Roman of the second century of the Empire.
CH, II.
## p. 30 (#60) ##############################################
30
The forms of Provincial Government
The aspect of the provincial government, as ordered by the new
monarchy, differed profoundly from that which it had worn in the age
of the early Principate. To diminish the danger of military revolutions
Diocletian carried to a conclusion a policy which had been adopted in
part by his predecessors. The great military commands in the provinces
which had often enabled their holders to destroy or to imperil dynasties
or rulers were broken up; and the old provinces were severed into
fragments. Spain, for example, now comprised six divisions, and Gaul
fifteen. Within these fragments, still named provinces, the civil power
and the military authority were, as a rule, not placed in the same hands.
The divisions of the Empire now numbered about a hundred and twenty,
as against forty-five which existed at the end of Trajan's reign. Twelve
of the new sections lay within the boundaries of Italy, and of the old
contrast between Italy and the provinces of the Principate, few traces
remained. Egypt, hitherto treated as a land apart, was brought within
the new organisation. The titles of the civil administrators were various,
Three, who ruled regions bearing the ancient provincial names of Asia,
Africa, and Achaia were distinguished by the title of proconsul, which
had once belonged to all administrators of senatorial provinces. About
thirty-six were known as consulares. This designation ceased to indicate,
as of old, the men who had passed the consulship: it was merely con-
nected with the government of provinces. The consularis became
technically a member of the Roman Senate, though he ranked below
the ex-consul. So also with the provincial governors who bore the
common title of praeses, and the rarer name of corrector. This last
appellation belonged, in the fourth century, to the chiefs of two districts
in Italy, Apulia and Lucania, and of three outside. It denoted originally
officers who began to be appointed in Trajan's reign to reform the
condition of municipalities. The precedence of the correctores among
the governors seems to have placed them, in the West, after the
consulares, in the East after the praesides. Sometimes the title of
proconsul was for personal reasons bestowed on a governor whose
province was ordinarily ruled by an officer of lower dignity. But such
an arrangement was teniporary. The old expressions legatus pro praetore
or procurator, in its application to provincial rulers, went out of use.
After the age of Constantine new and fanciful descriptions of the pro-
vincial governors, as of other officers, tended to spring into existence.
A few frontier districts were treated (as was the case under the
Principate) in an exceptional manner. Their chiefs were allowed to
exercise civil as well as military functions and were naturally described
by the ordinary name for an army commander (dux).
The proconsuls possessed some privileges of their own. Two of them,
the proconsul of Africa and the proconsul of Asia, were alone among
provincial governors entitled to receive their orders from the emperor
himself; and the Asian proconsul was distinguished by having under him
## p. 31 (#61) ##############################################
The new divisions of the Empire
31
two deputies, who directed a region known as Hellespontus and the
Insulae or islands lying near the Asiatic coast. All other adminis-
trators communicated with the emperor through one or other of four
great officers of state, the Praefecti Praetorio. Their title had been
originally invented to designate the commander of the Praetorian
Cohorts, whom Augustus called into existence. The control of these
was usually vested in two men. Now and then three commanders were
appointed. Some emperors, disregarding the danger to themselves,
allowed a single officer to hold command. Men like Sejanus under
Tiberius and Plautianus under Septimius Severus were practically vice-
emperors. As time went on, the office gradually lost its military
character. Sometimes one of the commanders was a soldier and the
other a civilian. During the reign of Severus Alexander the great
lawyer Ulpian was in sole charge, being the first senator who had been
permitted to hold the post. The legal duties of the Praefect continued
to grow in importance. When the Praetorian Cohorts brought destruc-
tion on themselves by their support of Maxentius against Constantine,
the Praefectus Praetorio became a purely civil functionary. The four
Praefecti were distinguished as Praefectus Praetorio, Galliarum, Italiae,
Illyrici and Orientis respectively. The first administered not only the
ancient Gaul, but also the Rhine frontier and Britain, Spain, Sardinia,
Corsica and Sicily. The second in addition to Italy had under him
Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and some regions on the upper
Danube, also most of Roman Africa; the third Dacia, Achaia, and
districts near the lower Danube besides Illyricum, properly so called; the
fourth all Asia Minor, in so far as it was not subjected to the proconsul
of Asia, with Egypt and Thrace, and some lands by the mouth of the
Danube. It will be seen that three out of the four had the direction of
provinces lying on or near the Danube. Probably on their first institu-
tion and for some time afterwards all the Praefecti retained in their own
hands the administration of some portions of the great territories
mitted to their charge. Later the Illyrian praefect alone had a district,
a portion of Dacia, under his own immediate control. Apart from this
exception, the Praefecti conducted their government through officials
subordinated to them.
Each praefectal region was divided into great sections called dioeceses.
Each of these was formed by combination of a certain number of pro-
vinces; and each was comparable to the more important of the old
provinces of the age of the Republic and early Principate. The word
dioecesis had passed through a long history before the time of Diocletian.
The Romans found it existent in their Asiatic dominions, where it had
been applied by earlier rulers to an administrative district, especially in
relation to legal affairs. The Roman government extended the employ-
ment of the term both in the East and in the West and connected it
with other sides of administration besides the legal. Diocletian marked
CH. II.
## p. 32 (#62) ##############################################
32
The Status of Functionaries
successors.
out ten great divisions of the Empire to be designated by this title. The
number of the divisions and their limits were somewhat altered by his
At the head of each Dioecesis was placed an officer who bore
the name vicarius, excepting in the Eastern praefecture. Here the
Vicarius was after a while replaced by a comes Orientis, to whom the
governor of Egypt was at first subject, though he acquired independent
authority later. The treatment of Italy (in the new and extended sense)
was peculiar. It constituted a single Dioecesis, but possessed two vicarii,
one of whom had his seat at Milan, the other at Rome. This bisection
of the Italian praefecture depended on differences in taxation, to which
we must recur later. In the Dioecesis Asiana, and the Dioecesis Africae,
the Vicarius was of course responsible not to the Praefectus, but to the
proconsul.
Such were, in broad outline, the features which the civil administra-
tion of the Empire wore after Diocletian's reforms. Some rough idea
must be conveyed of the mode in which the scheme was applied to the
practical work of government. It must be premised that now, as hereto-
fore, there was no point in the vast and complex machinery of bureaucracy
at which the direct interposition of the emperor might not be at any
moment brought into play. There was therefore no mechanical sub-
ordination of officer to officer, such as would produce an unbroken official
chain, passing down from the emperor to the lowest official. And even
apart from imperial intervention we must not conceive of the different
grades of functionaries as arranged in absolutely systematic subjection,
one grade to another. This would have interfered with one principal
purpose of the new organisation, which aimed at providing the emperor
with information about the whole state of his dominions, through officers
immediately in touch with him at the centre of the government. The
emperor could not afford to restrict himself to such reports as might
reach him through a Praefectus Praetorio or a proconsul. Thus the
Vicarii were never regarded as mere agents or deputies of the Praefecti,
and the same may be said of other officials. All might be called on to
leave the beaten track. The Praefecti Praetorio, though each had his
allotted sphere, were still in some sense colleagues, and were required on
occasion to take cominon action. One great aim of the new system was
to prevent administrators from accumulating influence by long con-
tinuance in the same post, or in any other way. Therefore functionaries
were passed on rapidly from one position to another. Therefore, also,
except in rare instances, no man was allowed to hold office in the
province of his birth. All offices were now paid and the importance of
many was discernible from the amount of the stipend received by the
holder. As in earlier times, certain offices conferred on their incumbents
what may be regarded as patents of nobility. The nobiliary status
arising from office was not hereditary as in an earlier age; yet the halo
of the title to some extent covered the official's family. New appellations
## p. 33 (#63) ##############################################
11
The Praefecti Praetorio
33
were invented to decorate the higher offices, whose tenants were graded
as illustres, spectabiles, and clarissimi, To the last designation all
senators were entitled. Other expressions as comes, patricius, were less
closely bound up with office. The use of these titles spread gradually.
Before the end of the first century vir clarissimus (v. c. on inscriptions)
began to denote the senator. The employment of distinctive titles for
high officers of equestrian rank, vir eminentissimus, vir perfectissimus, vir
egregius, began with Hadrian, and developed in the time of Marcus
Aurelius. The designation vir egregius fell out of use during or soon
after Constantine's reign. The tendency of the new organisation was to
detach many offices from their old connexion with the equestrian body,
whose importance in the State diminished and then rapidly died away.
Many changes in the application of these titles to the different offices
took place from time to time.
The Praefectus Praetorio was the most exalted civil officer in the new
Empire. His duties were executive, legal, financial, of every description
in fact excepting the military. His only service for the army lay in
the supply of its material requirements in pay, food, and equipment.
He became in the end one of the highest of the viri illustres. The
Praefectus in whose district the emperor resided was for the time being
of enhanced importance, and was denoted as Praefectus Praetorio praesens.
The office had even before the time of Diocletian attracted to itself a
good deal of criminal jurisdiction. The Praefectus was now not a judge
of first instance, but heard appeals from the courts below, within his
sphere of action, with the exception of the court of the Vicarius, from
whom the appeal went straight to the emperor. On the other hand,
after 331 there was in the ordinary way no appeal against a sentence
passed by the Praefectus, who was held to sit as the alter ego of the
emperor (vice sacra iudicans). No other official possessed this privilege.
The whole administration of the regions committed to him was passed
under review by the Praefectus. His supervision of the provincial
governors was of the most general kind. Each was compelled to send
in twice a year a report on the administration of his province, and
particularly on his exercise of jurisdiction. In the selection of governors
the Praefectus had a large share, and he exercised disciplinary power over
them. Erring functionaries both military and civil could be suspended
by him till the emperor's pleasure was known. He usually advised
the emperor concerning appointments. His control of finance both on
the side of receipts and on that of expenditure formed a most important
part of his duties. All difficulties in the incidence of taxation and in the
collection of the taxes came under his consideration, but no officer of
the Empire, however highly placed, could diminish or increase taxation
without the emperor's express sanction.
The Praefectus was also re-
sponsible for the due transport of corn and other necessaries destined for
the supply of Rome and Constantinople. Many other functions fell
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. II.
3
## p. 34 (#64) ##############################################
34
The Vicarius.
The Scrinia
to his lot, among them the superintendence of the state Post (cursus
publicus).
If we may adapt an ecclesiastical phrase which describes the Arch-
deacon as the oculus Episcopi, we may say that the Vicarius was the
oculus Praefecti. He gave a closer eye to details than was possible for
his superior within his Dioecesis. At first he was perfectissimus, after-
wards spectabilis. The tendency of the rulers after Constantine was to
increase his importance at the expense of the Praefectus ; rather however
in the field of jurisdiction than in other fields. The Vicarius had but
little disciplinary power over the rector provinciae. The governor could
in a difficult case seek advice from the
emperor
without having recourse
to either of his superior officers, though he was bound to inform the
Vicarius, and the latter could on occasion go straight to the monarch.
The court of the Vicarius, like that of the Praefectus, was an appeal
court only. The provincial governor was judge of first instance in all
civil and criminal matters, except in the cases of some privileged persons,
and in those minor affairs which were left to the magistrates of the
municipalities within the province. The small size of the province made
it unnecessary that its ruler should travel about to administer justice, as
in the earlier time. Causes were heard at the seat of government. Much
of the time of the governor was occupied in seeing that imposts were
duly collected and that no irregularities were practised by subordinates.
Responsibility for public order rested primarily with him.
The lower grades of civil servants in the provinces were to a very
large extent in connexion with and controlled by the great departments
of the imperial service whose chief offices were in the capital. Early in
the imperial period three great bureaux were established, whose presidents
were named ab epistulis, a libellis, and a memoria. These phrases survived
into the age of Constantine and after, but denoted the offices and not
their chiefs, whose title was magister. The departments themselves were
now described by the word scrinium, which had originally denoted a box
or desk for containing papers. The word had therefore undergone a
change of meaning similar to that which had passed over fiscus, whereby
from a basket for holding coin, it came to mean the imperial exchequer.
The demarcation of business allotted to the three great scrinia was not
always the same. The magister memoriae gradually encroached on the
functions of the other two heads of departments and became much the
most influential of the three. A fourth scrinium, called the scrinium
dispositionum, was added. Its magister (later called comes) was at first
inferior to the other three, who belonged to the class of the spectabiles,
but was afterwards placed on a level with them. All these magistri on
being promoted became vicarii. All four were subject to an exalted
personage known as magister officiorum, who was a vir illustris.
The department known as ab epistulis was early divided into two
sections distinguished as ab epistulis Latinis and ab epistulis Graecis. It
## p. 35 (#65) ##############################################
The Scrinia and the Magister Officiorum
35
was originally the great Secretariat of the Empire. Here were managed
all communications touching foreign affairs, and the general corre-
spondence of the government, excepting in so far as it related to the legal
and other multifarious petitions addressed to the emperor, appealing for
his interference or his favour. These would come not only from officials,
but also from private persons, and all fell within the functions of the
office a libellis. This bureau absorbed into itself another which had
been specially devoted to legal inquiries, and was called a cognitionibus.
Hence the magister libellorum is described in the Digest by the fuller
title magister scrinii libellorum et sacrarum cognitionum. The depart-
ment had famous lawyers, like Papinian and Ulpian, connected with it,
and it must often have sought the aid of specialists in other matters
belonging to the public service, as revenue and finance : for many of the
petitions addressed to the ruler sought relief from taxation.
The name of the department a memoria implies that its head was the
keeper of the “emperor's memory. ” It was therefore a Record Office,
but it was much more. It assisted other offices in putting documents
into their final shape, and not only recorded the documents but issued
them. The accounts we have of the office make it clear that it took to
itself much important business which originally was transacted by other
departments. Thus the Notitia describes the magister memoriae as
dictating and issuing adnotationes, that is to say brief pronouncements
,
running in the emperor's name; also as giving answers to supplications
(preces). Further he gave to the emperor's letters, speeches, and general
announcements their final form, and sent them forth. The magister
libellorum and the magister epistularum must have become in fact, though
not in form, his inferiors. From his office emanated diplomas of appoint-
ments, the permission to use the imperial post, and countless other
official permits. The scrinium dispositionum kept in order all the emperor's
engagements, and made the innumerable arrangements necessary for his
journeys, and took count of many matters with which he was in touch,
being of such a nature as not to come definitely within the purview of
other bureaux.
All these scrinia were under the control of one of the greatest
functionaries of the Empire, the magister officiorum. His importance
grew over a long space of time from small beginnings. His functions
encroached greatly on those of the Praefecti Praetorio, and their develop-
ment is a measure of the jealousy entertained by the emperors for these
great officers. The word officium indicates a group of public servants
placed at the disposal of a state functionary. The magister officiorum
is the general master of all such groups. Naturally he is vir illustris.
He selected from the scrinia in accordance with elaborate rules of service,
the clerks who were required to carry out many sorts of business in the
capital and in the provinces. His duties were of many different kinds,
.
through which no connected thread of principle ran; they evidently
CH. II.
3-2
## p. 36 (#66) ##############################################
36
The Agentes in Rebus
99
«
reached their full compass by an agglomeration which followed lines of
convenience merely. One of the most prominent occupations of the
magister lay in his direction of what may be called the Secret Service of
the Empire. He had under him the very important schola agentum in
rebus, which was organised by Constantine or possibly by Diocletian,
and replaced a body of men called frumentarii, drawn originally from
the corps which had in charge the provisioning of the army. These had
acted as secret agents of the government. They were the men by whose
means Hadrian, as his biographer says, “wormed out all hidden things.
The vast extension of the Secret Service in the age of Constantine and
later was a consequence of the huge increase in the number of officials,
and of the suspicion which an autocratic ruler naturally entertains
towards his subordinates: in part also of a genuine but ineffectual desire
to check misgovernment.
