of mandates placed on a table,
covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by four tapers; the
allegorical figures of the provinces which they governed; or the
appellations and standards of the troops whom they commanded Some of
these official ensigns were really exhibited in their hall of audience;
others preceded their pompous march whenever they appeared in public;
and every circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments,
and their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the
representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer, the
system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a splendid
theatre, filled with players of every character and degree, who repeated
the language, and imitated the passions, of their original model.

All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in the
general state of the empire, were accurately divided into three classes.
1. The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles, or Respectable. And, 3. the
Clarissimi; whom we may translate by the word Honorable. In the times
of Roman simplicity, the last-mentioned epithet was used only as a
vague expression of deference, till it became at length the peculiar
and appropriated title of all who were members of the senate, and
consequently of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to
govern the provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and
office, might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the
senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new appellation
of Respectable; but the title of Illustrious was always reserved to some
eminent personages who were obeyed or reverenced by the two subordinate
classes. It was communicated only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II.
To the Praetorian praefects, with the praefects of Rome and Constantinople;
III. To the masters-general of the cavalry and the infantry; and IV. To
the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their sacred functions
about the person of the emperor. Among those illustrious magistrates who
were esteemed coordinate with each other, the seniority of appointment
gave place to the union of dignities. By the expedient of honorary
codicils, the emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors, might
sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of impatient
courtiers.

I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a free
state, they derived their right to power from th