e original source
of the civil jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat
in the supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the Praetorian
praefects, and the master of the offices; and he was frequently requested
to resolve the doubts of inferior judges: but as he was not oppressed
with a variety of subordinate business, his leisure and talents were
employed to cultivate that dignified style of eloquence, which, in the
corruption of taste and language, still preserves the majesty of the
Roman laws. In some respects, the office of the Imperial quaestor may be
compared with that of a modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal,
which seems to have been adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was
never introduced to attest the public acts of the emperors. 4. The
extraordinary title of count of the sacred largesses was bestowed on
the treasurer-general of the revenue, with the intention perhaps of
inculcating, that every payment flowed from the voluntary bounty of the
monarch. To conceive the almost infinite detail of the annual and daily
expense of the civil and military administration in every part of a
great empire, would exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination.
The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed into
eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to examine and
control their respective operations. The multitude of these agents had
a natural tendency to increase; and it was more than once thought
expedient to dismiss to their native homes the useless supernumeraries,
who, deserting their honest labors, had pressed with too much eagerness
into the lucrative profession of the finances. Twenty-nine provincial
receivers, of whom eighteen were honored with the title of count,
corresponded with the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over
the mines from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the
mints, in which they were converted into the current coin, and over
the public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were
deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the empire
was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all the linen and
woollen manufactures, in which the successive operations of spinning,
weaving, and dyeing were executed, chiefly by women of a servile
condition, for the use of the palace and army. Twenty-six of these
institutions are enumerated in the West, where the arts had been more
r