inate
members of the _officium_, and the fees charged by him for affixing
his subscription to the _acta_ of the court--he still remained in
receipt of a yearly revenue of L600.

[Sidenote: Jealousy between the Officia of the Praefect and the
Magister.]

The jealousy between the Officia of the Praetorian Praefect and the
Magister Officiorum was intense. Almost every line in the treatise of
Lydus testifies to it, and shows that the former office, in which he
had the misfortune to serve, was being roughly shouldered out of the
way by its younger and more unscrupulous competitor.

Lydus continues[134]: 'Now, what followed, like the Peleus of
Euripides, I can never describe without tears. For on account of all
these sources of revenue having been dried up, I myself have had to
bear my part in the general misery of our time, since, though I have
reached the highest grade of promotion in the service, I have derived
nothing from it but the bare name. I do not blush to call Justice
herself as a witness to the truth of what I say, when I affirm that I
am not conscious of having received one obol from the Princeps, nor
from the Letters Patent for promotions in the office[135]. For indeed
whence should I have derived it, since it was the ancient custom that
those who in any way appeared in the highest courts should pay to the
_officium_ seven and thirty _aurei_ [L22] for a "one-membered" suit;
but ever after this bargain was made there has been given only a very
moderate sum of copper--not gold--in a beggarly way, as if one were
buying a flask of oil, and that not regularly? Or how compel the
Princeps to pay the ancient covenanted sum to the Cornicularius of the
day, when he now scarcely remembered the bare name of that officer, as
he never condescended to be present in the court when promotions were
made from a lower grade to a higher? Bitterly do I regret that I was
so late in coming to perceive for what a paltry price I was rendering
my long services as assistant in the courts, receiving in fact nothing
therefrom as my own _solatium_. It serves me right, however, for
having chosen that line of employment, as I will explain, if the
reader will allow me to recount to him my career from its commencement
to the present time.'

[Footnote 134: De Mag. iii. 25.]

[Footnote 135: [Greek: apo ton legomenon kompleusimon], apparently the
same source of revenue as the promotion-money ([Greek: ten ek tou
bathmou pronomian]).]

Lydus