Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/124

 *tion was also improved by opening his tribunal to lawsuits in which greater pecuniary interests were at stake. Some control was also conferred on them over agents of the fiscs, whom they were enjoined to restrain from collection of funds for public works, unless they presented an imperial commission for doing so. Justinian further directed his vicegerents as to the official pageantry by which they were properly distinguished, and urged them not to be lax in the matter of public display. They were reminded of their right to wear a purple robe of a certain form and hue, to sit in a silver chariot and to be preceded in their progresses by an officer bearing the axe and fasces. The Emperor himself was, indeed, unusually prone to ostentation, and when instituting these reforms he showed no little pride by enacting that all the newly created dignities should be denoted by the epithet "Justinian."

Another sweeping change made by Justinian at this time increased the importance of the individual Rectors by limiting their subservience to intermediary authorities, and placing them in more direct dependence on the bureaucracy of the capital. He abolished the division of the Empire into dioceses, and the six groups of provinces which had hitherto obeyed an administrator in chief ceased to be regarded officially as being thus connected. The title of Vicar became obsolete, and the four vicegerents who had borne it were resolved into simple Rectors of their residen-*