the military officials were supposed to be soldiers of the Emperor; their service was termed militia, its badge was the military belt, which was discarded when their term of service expired, and their retirement from service was called in military language “honourable dismissal” (honesta missio). But these usages were a mere survival, and the state service was really divided into military, civil, and palatine offices. The term palatine in this connexion meant particularly the staffs of the financial ministers, the Counts of the Sacred Largesses and the Private Estates.
The number of subalterns in each office was fixed. To obtain a post an Imperial rescript was required, and advancement was governed by seniority. Those who had served their regular term in the higher offices became eligible for such a post as the governorship of a province and might rise to the highest dignities in the Empire.
Offices, such as those of a Praetorian Prefect, a vicar, or a provincial governor, were divided into a number of departments or bureaux (scrinia), each under a head. On these permanent officials far more than on their superior, who might only hold his post for a year, the efficiency of the administration depended. The bureaux differed in nature and name according to the functions of the ministry. Those in the office of the Praetorian Prefecture differed entirely from those of the financial ministries or those of the Master of Offices. But the offices of all the governors who were under the Praetorian Prefect reproduced in their chief departments the office of the Prefect himself. Each of these had a princeps,23 who was the right hand of the chief and had a general control over all departments of the office.
The State servants were paid originally (like the army) both in kind and coin, but as time went on the annona or food ration was commuted into money. They were so numerous that their salaries were a considerable item in the budget. We have no information as to the total number of State officials; but we have evidence which may lead us to conjecture that the civil servants in the Prefectures of the East and Illyricum, including the staffs of the diocesan and provincial governors, cannot have been much fewer than 10,000.24 To this have to be added the staffs of the military commanders, of the financial and other central ministries.
It was a mark of the new monarchy that the eunuchs and others who held posts about the Emperor’s person and served in the palace should be regarded as standing on a level of equality with the State officials and have a recognised position in the public service. The Grand Chamberlain (praepositus sacri cubiculi), who was almost invariably a eunuch, was a dignitary of the highest class. In the case of weak sovrans his influence might be enormous and make him the most powerful man in the State; in the case of strong Emperors who were personally active he seldom played a prominent part in politics. It is probable that he exercised a general authority over all officers connected with the Court and the Imperial person, but this power may have depended rather on a right of co-operation than on formal authority.25 At Constantinople the Grand Chamberlain had a certain control over the Imperial estates in Cappadocia which supplied the Emperor’s privy purse.26
We have already seen27 that all the higher officials in the Imperial service belonged to one or other of the three classes of rank, the illustres, spectabiles, and clarissimi,28 and were consequently members of the senatorial order. The heads of the great central ministries, the commanders-in-chief of the armies,29 the Grand Chamberlain, were all illustres. The second class included proconsuls, vicars, the military governors in the provinces, the magistri scriniorum, and many others. The title clarissimus, which was the qualification for the Senate, was attached ex officio to the governorship of a province, and to other lesser posts. It was possessed by a large number of subaltern civil servants and was bestowed on many after their retirement. The liberality of the Emperors in conferring the clarissimate gradually detracted from its value. In consequence of this it was found expedient to raise many officials, who would formerly have been clarissimi to the rank of spectabiles; and this in turn led to a cheapening of the rank of illustres. The result was that before the middle of the sixth century a new rank of gloriosi30 was instituted, superior to that of illustres, and the highest officials are henceforward described as gloriosi.
§ 2. Military Organisation
The principal features in which the military establishment of the fourth century31 differed from that of the Principate were the existence of a mobile field army, the organisation of the cavalry in bodies independent of the infantry, and the smaller size of the legionary units.
Diocletian had created, and Constantine had developed, a field army in which the Emperor could move to any part of his dominion that happened to be threatened, while at the same time all the frontiers were defended by troops permanently stationed in the frontier provinces. The military forces, therefore, consisted of two main classes: the mobile troops or comitatenses, which accompanied the Emperor in his movements and formed a “sacred retinue” (comitatus); and the frontier troops or limitanei.
The strength of the old Roman legion was 6000 men. The legion of this type was retained in the case of the limitanei; but it is broken up into detachments of about 1000 (corresponding to the old cohort), which are stationed in different quarters, sometimes in different provinces. And these detachments are no longer associated with a number of foot-cohorts and squadrons of horse, as of old, when the legatus of a legion commanded a body of about 10,000 men. The cavalry and the cohorts are under separate commanders.32
The field army consisted of two classes of troops, the simple comitatenses and the palatini.33 The palatini, who took the place of the old Praetorian guards, were a privileged section of the comitatenses and retained the special character of Imperial guards, in so far as most of them were stationed in the neighbourhood of Constantinople or in Italy.34 The infantry of the field army was composed of small legions of 1000, and bodies of light infantry known as auxilia which were now mainly recruited from Gauls, and from Franks and other Germans. The cavalry, under a separate command, consisted of squadrons, called vexillationes, 500 strong.
Each of these units,— the legion, the auxilium, the vexillatio of the comitatenses, the legionary detachment, the cohort of the limitanei,— was as a rule under the command of a tribune, in some cases of a praepositus.35 The tribune corresponded roughly to the modern colonel.
All these armies were under the supreme command of Masters of Soldiers, magistri militum. The organisation of this command in the east, as it was finally ordered by Theodosius I, differed fundamentally from that in the west. In the east there were five Masters of Horse and Foot. Two of these, distinguished as Masters in Presence (in praesenti, in immediate attendance on the Emperor), resided at Constantinople, and each of them commanded half of the Palatine troops. The three others exercised independent authority over the armies stationed in three large districts, the West, Thrace, and Illyricum.36
It was otherwise in the west. Here instead of five co-ordinate commanders we find two masters in praesenti, one of infantry and one of cavalry. The Master of Foot was the immediate commander of the infantry in Italy and had superior authority over all the infantry of the field army in all the dioceses, and also over the commanders of the limitanei. In the dioceses the commanders of the comitatenses had the title of military counts.37
According to this scheme the Master of Horse in praesenti was co-ordinate with the Master of Foot. But this arrangement was modified by investing the Master of Foot with authority over both cavalry and infantry; he was then called Master of Horse and Foot, or Master of Both Services, magister utriusque militiae, and had a superior authority over the Master of Horse. In the last years of Theodosius the command of the western armies was thus centralised in the hands of Stilicho, and throughout the fifth century this centralisation, giving enormous power and responsibility to one man, was, as we shall see, the rule.
The
