tler or Seneschal, with his army of lacqueys and pages
who attended to the spreading and serving of the royal table; the
_Comes Sacrae Vestis_, who with similar assistance took charge of the
royal wardrobe; the _Comes Domorum_, who perhaps superintended the
needful repairs of the royal palace, all took their orders in the last
resort from the Grand Chamberlain. So, too, did the three Decurions,
officers with a splendid career of advancement before them, who
marshalled the thirty brilliantly armed Silentiarii, that paced
backwards and forwards before the purple veil guarding the slumbers of
the Sovereign.

[Sidenote: Count of Sacred Largesses.]

(_c_) The _Comes Sacrarum Largitionum_, theoretically only the Grand
Almoner of the Sovereign, discharged in practice many of the duties of
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The mines, the mint, the Imperial linen
factories, the receipt of the tribute of the Provinces, and many other
departments of the public revenue were originally under the care of
this functionary, whose office however, as we are expressly told by
Cassiodorus, had lost part of its lustre, probably by a transfer of
some of these duties to the Count of the Private Domains.

[Sidenote: Count of Private Domains.]

(_d_) This Minister, the _Comes Rerum Privatarum_, had the
superintendence of the Imperial estates in Italy and the Provinces.
Confiscations and the absorption by the State of the properties of
defaulting tax-payers were probably always tending to increase the
extent of these estates, and to make the office of Count of the Domain
more important. The collection of the land-tax, far the most important
item of the Imperial revenue, was also made subject to his authority.
Finally, in order, as Cassiodorus quaintly observes[114], that his
jurisdiction should not be exercised only over slaves (the cultivators
of the State domains), some authority was given to him within the
City, and by a curious division of labour all charges of incestuous
crime, or of the spoliation of graves, were brought before the
tribunal of the Comes Privatarum.

[Footnote 114: Var. vi. 8.]

Besides the thirteen persons who, as acting Ministers of the highest
class, were entitled to the designation of Illustris, there were also
those whom we may call honorary members of the class: the persons who
had received the dignity of the Patriciate--a dignity which was
frequently bestowed on those who had filled the office of Consul, and
which