[We have no word corresponding to this title. Registrar, Referee, Solicitor, each expresses only part of the duties of the Referendarius, whose business it was, on behalf of the Court, to draw up a statement of the conflicting claims of the litigants before it. See the interesting letters ([v. 40] and [41]) describing the useful services rendered in this capacity by Cyprian in the King's Court of Appeal. His duties seem to have been very similar to those which in the Court of the Praetorian Praefect were discharged by the officer called Ab Actis (See p. [107]).]
'Great is the privilege of being admitted to such close converse with the King as you will possess, but great also are the responsibilities and the anxieties of the Referendarius. In the midst of the hubbub of the Court he has to make out the case of the litigant, and to clothe it in language suitable for our ears. If he softens it down ever so little in his repetition of it, the claimant declares that he has been bribed, that he is hostile to his suit. A man who is pleading his own cause may soften down a word or two here and there, if he see that the Court is against him; but the Referendarius dares not alter anything. Then upon him rests the responsibility of drawing up our decree, adding nothing, omitting nothing. Hard task to speak our words in our own presence.
'Take then the office of Referendarius, and show by your exercise of it to what learning men may attain by sharing our conversation. Under us it is impossible for an officer of the Court to be unskilled in speech. Like a whetstone we sharpen the intellects of our courtiers, and polish them by practice at our bar[456].'
[18.] Formula of the Praefectus Annonae, and his Excellency.
Praefectus Annonae.
'If the benefit of the largest number of citizens is a test of the dignity of an office yours is certainly a glorious one. You have to prepare the Annona of the sacred City, and to feed the whole people as at one board. You run up and down through the shops of the bakers, looking after the weight and fineness of the bread, and not thinking any office mean by which you may win the affections of the citizens.
'You mount the chariot of the Praefect of the City, and are displayed in closest companionship with him at the games. Should a sudden tumult arise by reason of a scarcity of loaves, you have to still it by promising a liberal distribution. It was from his conduct in this office that Pompey attained the highest dignities and earned the surname of the Great.
'The pork-butchers also (Suarii) are subject to your control.
'It is true that the corn is actually provided by the Praetorian Praefect, but you see that it is worked up into elegant bread[457].
'Even so Ceres discovered corn, but Pan taught men how to bake it into bread; whence its name (Panis, from Pan).