Consulares_ or _Correctores_, who administered the
Provinces under the Vicarii, were called Clarissimi; and we shall
observe in the collection before us many other cases in which the
title is given to men in high, but not the highest, positions in the
Civil Service of the State.

[Footnote 118: See Emil Kuehn's Verfassung des Roemischen Reichs i. 182,
and the passages quoted there.]

[Footnote 119: p. 31.]

Besides the three classes above enumerated there were also:--

[Sidenote: Perfectissimi.]

IV. The _Perfectissimi_, to which some of the smaller provincial
governors belonged, as well as some of the clerks in the Revenue
Offices (Numerarii) who had seen long service, and even some veteran
Decurions.

Below these again were:--

[Sidenote: Egregii.]

V. The _Egregii_, who were also Decurions who had earned a right to
promotion, or even what we should call veteran non-commissioned
officers in the army (Primipilares).

But of these two classes slight mention is made in the Theodosian
Code, and none at all (I believe) in the 'Notitia' or the 'Letters of
Cassiodorus.'

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE OFFICIUM OF THE PRAEFECTUS PRAETORIO[120].

[Footnote 120: To illustrate the Eleventh Book of the Variae, Letters
18 to 35.]

[Sidenote: Military character of the Roman Civil Service.]

The official staff that served under the Roman governors of high rank
was an elaborately organised body, with a carefully arranged system of
promotion, and liberal superannuation allowances for those of its
members who had attained a certain position in the office.

Although, in consequence of the changes introduced by Diocletian and
Constantine, the civil and military functions had been for the most
part divided from one another, and it was now unusual to see the same
magistrate riding at the head of armies and hearing causes in the
Praetorium, in theory the officers of the Courts of Justice were still
military officers. Their service was spoken of as a _militia_; the
type of their office was the _cingulum_, or military belt; and one of
the leading officers of the court, as we shall see, was styled
_Cornicularius_, or trumpeter.

The Praetorian Praefect, whose office had been at first a purely
military one, had now for centuries been chiefly concerned in civil
administration, and as Judge over the highest court of appeal in the
Empire. His _Officium_ (or staff of subordinates) was, at any rate in
the Fifth Century, still the