then goes on to describe his arrival at Constantinople (A.D.
511), his intention to enter the _Scrinium Memoriae_ (in which he
would have served under the Magister Officiorum), and his abandonment
of this intention upon the pressing entreaties of his countryman
Zoticus, who was at the time Praefectus Praetorio. This step Lydus
looks upon as the fatal mistake of his life, though the consequences
of it to him were in some degree mitigated by the marriage which
Zoticus enabled him to make with a lady possessed of a fortune of 100
pounds' weight of gold (L4,000). Her property, her virtues (for 'she
was superior to all women who have ever been admired for their moral
excellence'), and the consolations of Philosophy and Literature, did
much to soothe the disappointment of Lydus, who nevertheless felt,
when he retired to his books after forty years of service, in which he
had reached the unrewarded post of Cornicularius, that his official
life had been a failure.

It has seemed worth while to give this sketch of the actual career of
a Byzantine official, as it may illustrate in some points the lives of
the functionaries to whom so many of the letters of Cassiodorus are
addressed; though I know not whether we have any indications of such a
rivalry at Ravenna as that which prevailed at Constantinople between
the _officium_ of the Praefect and that of the Magister. We now pass
on to

[Sidenote: Adjutor.]

[Sidenote: Primiscrinius.]

(3) The _Adjutor_. Some of the uses of this term are very perplexing.
It seems clear (from Lydus, 'De Mag.' iii. 3) that all the members of
the officium were known by the generic name _Adjutores_. Here however
we may perhaps safely assume that Adjutor means simply an assistant to
the officer next above him, as we find, lower down in the list of the
'Notitia,' the Exceptores followed by their Adjutores. We may find a
parallel to Adjutor in the word Lieutenant, which, for the same reason
is applied to officers of such different rank as the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, a Lieutenant-General, a Lieutenant-Colonel, and a simple
Lieutenant in the Army or Navy. In the lists of Cassiodorus and Lydus
we find no mention of an officer bearing the special name of Adjutor,
but we meet instead with a _Primiscrinius_, of whom, according to
Lydus, there were two. He says[136], 'After the Cornicularius are two
Primiscrinii, whom the Greeks call first of the service[137].' And
later on[138], when he is describing th