Part 12 (2/2)
[Footnote 137: [Greek: meta de ton kornikoularion primiskrinioi duo, ous h.e.l.lenes protous tes taxeos kalousi].]
[Footnote 138: De Mag. iii. 11.]
[Footnote 139: [Greek: pareei pros tous primiskrinious taxantas ekbibasten tois apopephasmenois]. Probably we should read [Greek: taxontas] for [Greek: taxantas].]
[Footnote 140: [Greek: epleroun dia ton boethein autois tetagmenon] (?
Adjutores).]
[Footnote 141: [Greek: epi tou notou tes entuchias grammasin aidous autothen apases kai exousias onko sesobemenois].]
If the suggestion that the Primiscrinii were considered as in some sense subst.i.tutes (Adjutores) for the Cornicularius be correct, we may perhaps account for there being two of them in the days of Lydus by the disappearance of the Princeps. The office of Cornicularius had swallowed up that of Princeps, and accordingly the single Adjutor, who was sufficient at the compilation of the 'Not.i.tia,' had to be multiplied by two.
[Sidenote: Commentariensis, or Commentarisius.]
(4) The _Commentariensis_. Here we come again to an officer who is mentioned by all our three authorities, though in Ca.s.siodorus he seems to be degraded some steps below his proper rank (but this may only be from an accidental transposition of the order of the letters), and though Lydus again gives us two of the name instead of one. The last-named authority inserts next after the Primiscrinii 'two Commentarisii--so the law calls those who are appointed to attend to the drawing up of indictments[142].'
[Footnote 142: [Greek: kommentarisioi duo (houto de tous epi ton hypomnematon graphe tattomenous ho nomos kalei)] (iii. 4). I accept the necessary emendation of the text proposed in the Bonn edition.]
The Commentariensis (or Commentarisius, as Lydus calls him[143]) was evidently the chief a.s.sistant of the Judge in all matters of criminal jurisdiction[144]. We have a remarkably full, and in the main clear account of his functions in the pages of Lydus (iii. 16-18), from which it appears that he was promoted from the ranks of the _Exceptores_ (shorthand writers), and had six of his former colleagues serving under him as Adjutores[145]. Great was the power, and high the position in the Civil Service, of the Commentariensis. The whole tribe of process-servers, gaolers, lictors[146]--all that we now understand by the police force--waited subserviently on his nod. It rested with him, says Lydus, to establish the authority of the Court of Justice by means of the wholesome fear inspired by iron chains and scourges and the whole apparatus of torture[147]. Nay, not only did the subordinate magistrates execute their sentences by his agency, he had even the honour of being chosen by the Emperor himself to be the minister of vengeance against the persons who had incurred his anger or his suspicion. 'I myself remember,' says Lydus, 'when I was serving as Chartularius in the office of the Commentariensis, under the praefecture of Leontius (a man of the highest legal eminence), and when the wrath of Anastasius was kindled against Apion, a person of the most exalted rank, and one who had a.s.sisted in his elevation to the throne[148], at the same time when Kobad, King of Persia, blazed out into fury[149], that then all the confiscations and banishments which were ordered by the enraged Emperor were entrusted to no one else but to the Commentarienses serving under the Praefect. In this service they acquitted themselves so well, with such vigour, such harmonious energy, such entire clean-handedness and absence of all dishonest gain, as to move the admiration of the Emperor, who made use of them on all similar occasions that presented themselves in the remainder of his reign. They had even the honour of being employed against Macedonius, Patriarch of Constantinople, when that prelate had provoked the Emperor by suspending all intercourse with him as a heretic; and that, although Celer, one of the most intimate friends of Anastasius, was at that very time holding the rank of Magister Officiorum.'
[Footnote 143: To avoid confusion I will use the term 'Commentariensis' throughout.]
[Footnote 144: So Bethmann Hollweg (p. 179), 'Diess ist der Gehulfe des Magistrats bei Verwaltung der Criminaljustiz.' I compare him in the following translation of Ca.s.siodorus to a 'magistrate's clerk.']
[Footnote 145: See iii. 9 (p. 203, ed. Bonn), and combine with iii.
16. The _Augustales_ referred to in the latter pa.s.sage were a higher cla.s.s of Exceptores.]
[Footnote 146: Applicitarii, Clavicularii, Lictores.]
[Footnote 147: [Greek: sidereois desmois kai poinaion organon kai plektron poikilia saleuonton to phobo to dikasterion] (iii. 16).]
[Footnote 148: [Greek: kai koinonesantos auto tes basileias].]
[Footnote 149: [Greek: hote Koades ho Perses ephlegmaine]. The whole pa.s.sage is mysterious, but we seem to have here an allusion to the outbreak of the Persian War (A.D. 502).]
An officer who was thus privileged to lay hands on Patriarch and Patrician in the name of Augustus was looked up to with awful reverence by all the lower members of the official hierarchy; and Lydus, with one graphic touch, brings before us the glow of gratified self-love with which, when he was a subordinate _Scriniarius_, he found himself honoured by the familiar conversation of so great a person as the Commentariensis[150]: 'I too am struck with somewhat of my old awe, recurring in memory to those who were then holders of the office. I remember what fear of the Commentarisii fell upon all who at all took the lead in the _Officium_, but especially on the Scriniarii; and how greatly he who was favoured with a chat with a Commentarisius pa.s.sing by valued himself on the honour.' Lydus also describes to us how the Commentariensis, instructed by the Praefect, or perhaps even by the Emperor himself, would take with him one of his faithful servants, the Chartularii, would visit the abode of the suspected person (who might, as we have seen, be one of the very highest officers of the State), and would then in his presence dictate in solemn Latin words the indictment which was to be laid against him, the mere hearing of which sometimes brought the criminal to confess his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the Emperor.
[Footnote 150: iii. 17 (p. 210).]
It was from this _commentum_, the equivalent of a French _acte d'accusation_, that the Commentariensis derived his t.i.tle.
[Sidenote: Ab Actis (Scriniarius Actorum?).]
(5) The _Ab Actis_. The officer who bore this t.i.tle (which is perhaps the same as the Scriniarius Actorum of Ca.s.siodorus[151]) seems to have been exclusively concerned with civil cases, and perhaps held the same place in reference to them that the Commentarienses held in criminal matters[152]. Practically, his office appears to have been very much what we understand by that of _Chief Registrar_ of the Court. He (or they, for in Lydus' time there were two _Ab Actis_ as well as two Commentarienses[153]) was chosen from the select body of shorthand writers who were known as Augustales, and was a.s.sisted by six men of the same cla.s.s, 'men of high character and intelligence and still in the vigour of their years[154].' His chief business--and in this he was served by the _Nomenclatores_, who shouted out in a loud voice the names of the litigants--was to introduce the plaintiff and defendant into the Court, or to make a brief statement of the nature of the case to the presiding magistrate. He then had to watch the course of the pleadings and listen to the Judge's decision, so as to be able to prepare a full statement of the case for the Registers or Journals[155] of the Court. These Registers--at least in the flouris.h.i.+ng days of Roman jurisprudence--were most fully and accurately kept. Even the _Dies Nefasti_ were marked upon them, and the reason for their being observed as legal holidays duly noted.
Elaborate indices, prepared by the Chartularii, made search an easy matter to those who wished to ascertain what was the decision of the law upon every point; and the marginal notes, or _personalia_, prepared in Latin[156] by the Ab Actis or his a.s.sistants, were so excellent and so full that sometimes when the original entry in the Registers had been lost the whole case could be sufficiently reconstructed from them alone.
[Footnote 151: Var. xi. 22.]
[Footnote 152: This seems to be Bethmann Hollweg's view (p. 181).]
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