Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/296

 278 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, peals from all parts of the empire, in the causes which ^^^^^- related to that numerous army of privileged persons, who, as the servants of the court, had ohtained, for themselves and famiUes, a right to decline the authority of the ordinary judges. The correspondence betvt-een the prince and his subjects was managed by the four ' scrinia,' or offices of this minister of state. The first was appropriated to memorials, the second to epistles, the third to petitions, and the fourth to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of these was directed by an inferior master of ' respectable' dignity ; and the whole business was despatched by an hundred and forty-eight secretaries, chosen for the most part from the profession of the law, on account of the variety of abstracts of reports and references which frequently occurred in the exercise of their several functions. From a condescension which in former ages would have been esteemed unworthy of the Ro- man majesty, a particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language ; and interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the barbarians: but the department of foreign affairs, which constitutes so es- sential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted the attention of the master of the offices. His mind was more seriously engaged by the general direction of the posts and arsenals of the empire. There were thirty- four cities, fifteen in the east and nineteen in the west, in which regular companies of workmen were perpetu- ally employed in fabricating defensive armour, offensive weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered The qua?s- for the service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine ^^^' centuries, the office of ' quaestor' had experienced a very singular revolution. In the infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were annually elected by the peo- ple, to relieve the consuls from the invidious manage- ment of the public treasure^; a similar assistant was « Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22.) says, that the first quaestors were elected by the people, sixty, tour years after the foundation of the republic ; but he is