Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 1 1911.djvu/63

Rh that direct personal influence over the ruler often passed into the hands of men whose duties were in name connected only with the daily life of the palace. From the third century onwards the Eastern custom of choosing eunuchs as the most trusted servants prevailed in the imperial household as in the private households of the wealthy. The greatest of these was the praepositus sacri cubiculi or Great Chamberlain. This officer often wielded the power which had been enjoyed by such men as Parthenius had been under Domitian. The office grew in importance, as measured by dignity and precedence, until in the time of Theodosius the Great it was one of four high offices which conferred on their holders membership of the Imperial Council (Consistorium), and a little later was made equal in honour to the other three. The "Palatine" servants, high and low, formed a mighty host, which required a special department for their provisioning and another for their tendance in sickness. But exactly how many of them were under the immediate direction (sub dispositione) of the praepositus sacri cubiculi cannot be determined. Some duties fell to him which are hardly suggested by his title. He was in control of the emperor's select and intimate bodyguard, which bore the name of silentiarii, thirty in number, with three decuriones for officers. Curiously, he superintended one division of the vast imperial domains, that considerable portion of them which lay within the province of Cappadocia. Dependent probably on the praepositus sacri cubiculi was the primicerius sacri cubiculi, who appears in the Notitia Dignitatum as possessing the quality of a pro- consular. Whether the castrensis sacri palatii was independent or subordinate, cannot be determined. Under his rule were a host of pages and lower menials of many kinds, and he had to care for the fabric of the imperial palaces. Also he had charge of the private archives of the imperial family.

The service of the officers described was rather personal to the emperor than public in character. We now turn to the civil and military administration as it was refashioned under the new monarchy. The chaos of the period preceding Diocletian's supremacy had finally effaced some of the leading features of the Augustan Principate which had become fainter and fainter as the Empire ran its course. The Senate lost the last remnant of real power. Such of its surviving privileges and dignities as might carry back the mind to the days of its glory were mere shadows without substance. All provinces had become imperial. All functionaries of every class owed obedience to the autocrat alone, and looked to him for their career. The old state-treasury, the aerarium, retained its name, but became in practice the municipal exchequer of Rome, which ceased to be the capital of the Empire and was merely the first of its municipalities. The army and the civil service alike were filled with officers whose titles and duties would have seemed strange to a Roman of the second century of the Empire.