Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/279

 xvu. OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 261 once fluctuated between twelve and eighteen", was gra- CHAP, dually reduced to two or three ; and their important functions were confined to the expensive obligation p of exhibiting games for the amusement of the people. After the office of Roman consuls had been changed into a vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital, the prefects assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were soon acknowledged as the ordinary presidents of that venerable assembly. They received appeals from the distance of one hundred miles; and it was allowed as a principle of jurisprudence, that all municipal authority was derived from them alone '^. In the discharge of his laborious employment, the go- vernor of Rome was assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been originally his equals, or even his superiors. The principal departments were relative to the command of a numerous watch, established as a safeguard against fires, robberies, and nocturnal dis- orders; the custody and distribution of the public allowance of corn and provisions; the care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the Tiber; the inspection of the markets, the theatres, and of the private as well as public works. Their vigilance ensured the three prin- cipal objects of a regular police, safety, plenty, and cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of govern- ment to preserve the splendour and ornaments of the capital, a particular inspector was appointed for the statues ; the guardian, as it were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the extravagant computa- tion of an old writer, was scarcely inferior in jiumber " See Lipsius, Excursus D. ad 1 lib. Tacit. Annal. •* Ileineccii Element. .Turis Civilis secund. ordineni Pandect, torn, i, p. 70. See likewise Spanheim de Usu Xumismatum, torn. ii. dissertat. x. p. 119. In tlie year 450, iMarcian published a law, that three citizens should be annually created pretors of Constantino[)le by the choice of the senate, but with their own consent. (Jod. Justinian. 1. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 2. 1 Quidquid igitur intra urbem adniittitur, ad P. U. videtur pertinere ; sed et siquid intra centesimum milliariiim. Ulpian in Pamlecl. 1. i. tit. xiii. n. 1. He proceeds to enumerate the various oftices of the prefect, who, in the (,'ode of .luslitiian, (1. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 3.) is declared to precede and command all city magistrates, sine injuria ac detrimento honoris alieni.