e rose to an Augustalis, and finally
to the dignity of Corniculus, the highest, and at one time the most
lucrative office in the department. But the Praetorian praefect had
gradually been deprived of his powers and his honors. He lost the
superintendence of the supply and manufacture of arms; the uncontrolled
charge of the public posts; the levying of the troops; the command of
the army in war when the emperors ceased nominally to command in person,
but really through the Praetorian praefect; that of the household
troops, which fell to the magister aulae. At length the office was so
completely stripped of its power, as to be virtually abolished, (see de
Magist. l. iii. c. 40, p. 220, &c.) This diminution of the office of the
praefect destroyed the emoluments of his subordinate officers, and Lydus
not only drew no revenue from his dignity, but expended upon it all the
gains of his former services. Lydus gravely refers this calamitous, and,
as he considers it, fatal degradation of the Praetorian office to the
alteration in the style of the official documents from Latin to Greek;
and refers to a prophecy of a certain Fonteius, which connected the ruin
of the Roman empire with its abandonment of its language. Lydus chiefly
owed his promotion to his knowledge of Latin!--M.]

After this precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes of avarice
and rapine under the following heads: I. Justinian was so profuse that
he could not be liberal. The civil and military officers, when they were
admitted into the service of the palace, obtained an humble rank and a
moderate stipend; they ascended by seniority to a station of affluence
and repose; the annual pensions, of which the most honorable class was
abolished by Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds; and
this domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent courtiers as
the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the salaries
of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations, were objects of more
general concern; and the cities might justly complain, that he usurped
the municipal revenues which had been appropriated to these useful
institutions. Even the soldiers were injured; and such was the decay
of military spirit, that they were injured with impunity. The emperor
refused, at the return of each fifth year, the customary donative
of five pieces of gold, reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and
suffered unpaid armies to melt away in the wars of