Part 12 (1/2)
[Footnote 128: Ib. iii. 22-24.]
'Now that, if I am not mistaken, we have described all the various official grades, it is meet to set forth the history of the Cornicularius, the venerable head of the Civil Service, the man who, as beginning and ending, sums up in himself the complete history of the whole official order. The mere antiquity of his office is sufficient to establish his credit, seeing that he was the leader of his troop for 1,300 years, and made his appearance in the world at the same time with the sacred City of Rome itself: for the Cornicularius was, from the first, attendant on the Master of the Horse, and the Master of the Horse on the King, and thus the Cornicularius, if he retained nothing of his office but the name, would still be connected with the very beginnings of the Roman State.
'But from the time when Domitian appointed Fuscus to the office of Praefect of the Praetorians (an office which had been inst.i.tuted by Augustus), and abolished the rank of Master of the Horse, taking upon himself the command of the army[129], everything was changed.
Henceforward, therefore, all affairs that were transacted in the office of the Praefect were arranged by the Cornicularius alone, and he received the revenues arising from them for his own refreshment.
This usage, which prevailed from the days of Domitian to our own Theodosius, was then changed, on account of the usurpation of Rufinus.
For the Emperor Arcadius, fearing the overgrown power of the Praefectoral office, pa.s.sed a law that the Princeps of the Magister [Officiorum]'s staff[130] ... should appear in the highest courts, and should busy himself with part of the Praefect's duties, and especially should enquire into the principle upon which orders for the Imperial post-horses ([Greek: synthemata]; _evectiones_) were granted[131]....
This order of Arcadius was inscribed in the earlier editions of the Theodosian Code, but has been omitted in the later as superfluous.
[Footnote 129: This seems to be the meaning of Lydus, but it is not clearly expressed.]
[Footnote 130: There is something wanting in the text here.]
[Footnote 131: See Cod. Theod. vi. 29. 8, which looks rather like the law alluded to by Lydus, notwithstanding his remark about its omission.]
'Thus, then, the Princeps of the Magistriani, being introduced into the highest courts, but possessing nothing there beyond his mere empty dignity, made a bargain with the Cornicularius of the day, the object of which was to open up to him some portion of the business; and, having come to terms, the Princeps agreed to hand over to the Cornicularius one pound's weight of gold [40] monthly, and to give instant gratuities to all his subordinates according to their rank in the service. In consequence of this compact the Cornicularius then in office, after receiving his 12 lbs. weight of gold without any abatement, with every show of honour conceded to his superior[132] (?) the preferential right of introducing ”one-membered” cases ([Greek: ten ton monomeron entuchion eisagogen]), having reserved to himself, beside the fees paid for promotion in the office[133], and other sources of gain, especially the sole right of subscribing the _Acta_ of the court, and thus provided for himself a yearly revenue of not less than 1,000 aurei [600].'
[Footnote 132: [Greek: to kreittoni].]
[Footnote 133: [Greek: ek tou bathmou].]
I have endeavoured to translate as clearly as possible the obscure words of Lydus as to this bargain between the two court-officers. The complaint of Lydus appears to be that the Cornicularius of the day, by taking the money of the Princeps Magistrianorum, and conceding to him in return the preferential claim to manage 'one-membered' cases (or unopposed business), made a purse for himself, but prepared the way for the ruin of his successors. The monthly payment was, I think, to be made for twelve months only, and thus the whole amount which the Cornicularius received from this source was only 480, but from other sources--chiefly the sums paid for promotion by the subordinate members of the _officium_, and the fees charged by him for affixing his subscription to the _acta_ of the court--he still remained in receipt of a yearly revenue of 600.
[Sidenote: Jealousy between the Officia of the Praefect and the Magister.]
The jealousy between the Officia of the Praetorian Praefect and the Magister Officiorum was intense. Almost every line in the treatise of Lydus testifies to it, and shows that the former office, in which he had the misfortune to serve, was being roughly shouldered out of the way by its younger and more unscrupulous compet.i.tor.
Lydus continues[134]: 'Now, what followed, like the Peleus of Euripides, I can never describe without tears. For on account of all these sources of revenue having been dried up, I myself have had to bear my part in the general misery of our time, since, though I have reached the highest grade of promotion in the service, I have derived nothing from it but the bare name. I do not blush to call Justice herself as a witness to the truth of what I say, when I affirm that I am not conscious of having received one obol from the Princeps, nor from the Letters Patent for promotions in the office[135]. For indeed whence should I have derived it, since it was the ancient custom that those who in any way appeared in the highest courts should pay to the _officium_ seven and thirty _aurei_ [22] for a ”one-membered” suit; but ever after this bargain was made there has been given only a very moderate sum of copper--not gold--in a beggarly way, as if one were buying a flask of oil, and that not regularly? Or how compel the Princeps to pay the ancient covenanted sum to the Cornicularius of the day, when he now scarcely remembered the bare name of that officer, as he never condescended to be present in the court when promotions were made from a lower grade to a higher? Bitterly do I regret that I was so late in coming to perceive for what a paltry price I was rendering my long services as a.s.sistant in the courts, receiving in fact nothing therefrom as my own _solatium_. It serves me right, however, for having chosen that line of employment, as I will explain, if the reader will allow me to recount to him my career from its commencement to the present time.'
[Footnote 134: De Mag. iii. 25.]
[Footnote 135: [Greek: apo ton legomenon kompleusimon], apparently the same source of revenue as the promotion-money ([Greek: ten ek tou bathmou p.r.o.nomian]).]
Lydus then goes on to describe his arrival at Constantinople (A.D.
511), his intention to enter the _Scrinium Memoriae_ (in which he would have served under the Magister Officiorum), and his abandonment of this intention upon the pressing entreaties of his countryman Zoticus, who was at the time Praefectus Praetorio. This step Lydus looks upon as the fatal mistake of his life, though the consequences of it to him were in some degree mitigated by the marriage which Zoticus enabled him to make with a lady possessed of a fortune of 100 pounds' weight of gold (4,000). Her property, her virtues (for 'she was superior to all women who have ever been admired for their moral excellence'), and the consolations of Philosophy and Literature, did much to soothe the disappointment of Lydus, who nevertheless felt, when he retired to his books after forty years of service, in which he had reached the unrewarded post of Cornicularius, that his official life had been a failure.
It has seemed worth while to give this sketch of the actual career of a Byzantine official, as it may ill.u.s.trate in some points the lives of the functionaries to whom so many of the letters of Ca.s.siodorus are addressed; though I know not whether we have any indications of such a rivalry at Ravenna as that which prevailed at Constantinople between the _officium_ of the Praefect and that of the Magister. We now pa.s.s on to
[Sidenote: Adjutor.]
[Sidenote: Primiscrinius.]
(3) The _Adjutor_. Some of the uses of this term are very perplexing.
It seems clear (from Lydus, 'De Mag.' iii. 3) that all the members of the officium were known by the generic name _Adjutores_. Here however we may perhaps safely a.s.sume that Adjutor means simply an a.s.sistant to the officer next above him, as we find, lower down in the list of the 'Not.i.tia,' the Exceptores followed by their Adjutores. We may find a parallel to Adjutor in the word Lieutenant, which, for the same reason is applied to officers of such different rank as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a Lieutenant-General, a Lieutenant-Colonel, and a simple Lieutenant in the Army or Navy. In the lists of Ca.s.siodorus and Lydus we find no mention of an officer bearing the special name of Adjutor, but we meet instead with a _Primiscrinius_, of whom, according to Lydus, there were two. He says[136], 'After the Cornicularius are two Primiscrinii, whom the Greeks call first of the service[137].' And later on[138], when he is describing the course of business in the _secretum_ of the Praefect, as it used to be in the good old days, he informs us that after judgment had been given, and the Secretarii had read to the litigant the decree prepared by the a.s.sessors and carefully copied by one of the Cancellarii, and after an accurate digest of the case had been prepared in the Latin language by a Secretarius, in order to guard against future error or misrepresentation, the successful litigant pa.s.sed on with the decree in his hand _to the Primiscrinii, who appointed an officer to execute the judgment of the Court_[139]. These men then put the decree into its final shape by means of the persons appointed to a.s.sist them[140]
(men who could puzzle even the professors themselves in logical discussions), and endorsed it on the litigant's pet.i.tion in characters which at once struck awe into the reader, and which seemed actually swollen with official importance[141]. The name and t.i.tles of the 'completing' officer were then subscribed.
[Footnote 136: De Mag. iii. 4.]