The composition of the official hierarchy of the Empire is, from various sources, [82] almost as fully known to us as that of any state of modern Europe.
Footnote 82:[ (return) ] Chiefly the "Notitia Utriusque Imperii" (a sort of official Red-book of the time of Honorius,) but also the "Various Letters "of Cassiodorus, to be described below.
Pre-eminent in dignity over all the rest rose the "Illustrious" Prætorian Prefect, the vicegerent of the sovereign, a man who held towards Emperor or King nearly the same position which a Grand Vizier holds towards a Turkish Sultan. Like his sovereign he wore a purple robe (which reached however only to his knees, not to his feet), and he drove through the streets in a lofty official chariot. It was for him to promulgate the Imperial laws, sometimes to put forth edicts of his own. He proclaimed what taxes were to be imposed each year, and their produce came into his "Prætorian chest". He suggested to his sovereign the names of the governors of the provinces, paid them their salaries, and exercised a general superintendence over them, having even power to depose them from their offices. And lastly, he was the highest Judge of Appeal in the land, even the Emperor himself having generally no power to reverse his sentences.
There was another "Illustrious" minister, who, during this century both in the Eastern and Western Empire, was always treading on the heels of the Prætorian Prefect, and trying to rob him of some portion of his power. This was the Master of the Offices the intermediary between the sovereign and the great mass of the civil servants, to whom the execution of his orders was entrusted. A swarm of Agentes in Rebus (King's messengers, bailiffs, sheriff's officers; we may call them by all these designations) roved through the provinces, carrying into effect the orders of the sovereign, always magnifying their "master's" dignity, (whence they derived their epithet of "Magistriani",) and seeking to depress the Prætorian Cohorts, who discharged somewhat similar duties under the Prætorian Prefect. The Master of the Offices, besides sharing the counsels of his sovereign in relation to foreign states, had also the arsenals under his charge, and there was transferred to him from his rival, the Prefect, the superintendence of the cursus publicus, the great postal service of the Empire.
Again, somewhat overlapping, as it seems to us, the functions of the Master of the Offices, came the "Illustrious" Quæstor, the head-rhetorician of the State, the official whose business it was to put the thoughts of the sovereign into fitting and eloquent words, either when he was replying to the ambassadors of foreign powers, or when he was issuing laws and proclamations to his own subjects. As his duties and qualifications were of a more personal kind than those of his two brother-ministers already described, he had not like them a large official staff waiting upon his orders.
There were two great financial ministers, the Count of Sacred Largesses ("sacred", of course, is equivalent to "Imperial"), and the Count of Private Domains, whose duties practically related in the former case to the personal, in the latter to the real, estate of the sovereign. Or perhaps, for it is difficult exactly to define the nature of their various duties, it would be better to think of the Count of Sacred Largesses as the Imperial Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Count of Private Domains as the Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests.
The Superintendent of the Sacred Dormitory was the Grand Chamberlain of the Empire, and commanding, as he did, the army of pages, grooms of the bed-chamber, vestiaries, and life-guardsmen, who ministered to the myriad wants of an Arcadius or a Honorius, he was not the least important among the chief officers of the State.
These great civil ministers, eight in number under the Western Emperors (for there were three Prætorian Prefects, one for the Gauls, one for Italy, and one for the City of Rome), formed, with the military officers of highest rank (generally five in number), the innermost circle of "Illustres", who may be likened to the Cabinet of the Emperor. At this time the Cabinet of Illustres may have been smaller by one or two members, on account of the separation of the Gaulish provinces from Rome, but we are not able to speak positively on this point.
Nearly every one of these great ministers of state had under him a large, ambitious, and often highly-paid staff of subordinates, who were called his Officium. The civil service was at least as regular and highly specialised a profession under the Emperors and under Theodoric as it is in any modern State. It is possible that we should have to go to the Celestial Empire of China to find its fitting representative.