e course of business in the
_secretum_ of the Praefect, as it used to be in the good old days, he
informs us that after judgment had been given, and the Secretarii had
read to the litigant the decree prepared by the Assessors and
carefully copied by one of the Cancellarii, and after an accurate
digest of the case had been prepared in the Latin language by a
Secretarius, in order to guard against future error or
misrepresentation, the successful litigant passed on with the decree
in his hand _to the Primiscrinii, who appointed an officer to execute
the judgment of the Court_[139]. These men then put the decree into
its final shape by means of the persons appointed to assist them[140]
(men who could puzzle even the professors themselves in logical
discussions), and endorsed it on the litigant's petition in characters
which at once struck awe into the reader, and which seemed actually
swollen with official importance[141]. The name and titles of the
'completing' officer were then subscribed.

[Footnote 136: De Mag. iii. 4.]

[Footnote 137: [Greek: meta de ton kornikoularion primiskrinioi duo,
ous Hellenes protous tes taxeos kalousi].]

[Footnote 138: De Mag. iii. 11.]

[Footnote 139: [Greek: pareei pros tous primiskrinious taxantas
ekbibasten tois apopephasmenois]. Probably we should read [Greek:
taxontas] for [Greek: taxantas].]

[Footnote 140: [Greek: epleroun dia ton boethein autois tetagmenon] (?
Adjutores).]

[Footnote 141: [Greek: epi tou notou tes entuchias grammasin aidous
autothen apases kai exousias onko sesobemenois].]

If the suggestion that the Primiscrinii were considered as in some
sense substitutes (Adjutores) for the Cornicularius be correct, we may
perhaps account for there being two of them in the days of Lydus by
the disappearance of the Princeps. The office of Cornicularius had
swallowed up that of Princeps, and accordingly the single Adjutor, who
was sufficient at the compilation of the 'Notitia,' had to be
multiplied by two.

[Sidenote: Commentariensis, or Commentarisius.]

(4) The _Commentariensis_. Here we come again to an officer who is
mentioned by all our three authorities, though in Cassiodorus he seems
to be degraded some steps below his proper rank (but this may only be
from an accidental transposition of the order of the letters), and
though Lydus again gives us two of the name instead of one. The
last-named authority inserts next after the Primiscrinii 'two
Commentarisii--so th