Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/301

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 283 silent order, and splendid arms of silver and gold, dis- C II A P. played a martial pomp, not unworthy of the Roman " majesty". From the seven schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of the ' protectors,' whose advantageous station was the hope and reward of the most deserving soldiers. They mounted guard in the interior apartments, and were occasionally despatched into the provinces, to execute with celerity and vigour the orders of their master". The counts of the do- mestics had succeeded to the office of the pretorian prefects ; like the prefects, they aspired from the ser- vice of the palace to the command of armies. The perpetual intercourse between the court and Agents, or the provinces was facilitated by the construction ofspje^^ roads and the institution of posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally connected with a per- nicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three hundred agents or messengers were employed, under the juris- diction of the master of the offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the licence of reporting whatever they could observe of the con- duct either of magistrates or of private citizens ; and were soon considered as the eyes of the monarch ^, and the scourge of the people. Under the warm influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression. These official spies, who regu- larly corresponded with the palace, were encouraged, by favour and reward, anxiously to watch the progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent " Pancirolus, p. 102. 136. The appearance of these military domestics is described in tl'.e Latin poem of Corippus, De Laudibus Justin. 1. iii. 157—179; p. 419, 4-20, of the Appendix Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 1777. Tank of a protector. The first tea among these honourable soldiers were ' clarissimi.' y Xenophon. Cyropsed. 1. viii. ; Brisson, de Regno Persico, 1. i. M" 190. p. 264. The emperors adopted with pleasure this Persian metaphor.
 * Aramianus -Marcellmus, who served so many years, obtained only the