e law calls those who are appointed to attend to
the drawing up of indictments[142].'

[Footnote 142: [Greek: kommentarisioi duo (houto de tous epi ton
hypomnematon graphe tattomenous ho nomos kalei)] (iii. 4). I accept
the necessary emendation of the text proposed in the Bonn edition.]

The Commentariensis (or Commentarisius, as Lydus calls him[143]) was
evidently the chief assistant of the Judge in all matters of criminal
jurisdiction[144]. We have a remarkably full, and in the main clear
account of his functions in the pages of Lydus (iii. 16-18), from
which it appears that he was promoted from the ranks of the
_Exceptores_ (shorthand writers), and had six of his former colleagues
serving under him as Adjutores[145]. Great was the power, and high the
position in the Civil Service, of the Commentariensis. The whole tribe
of process-servers, gaolers, lictors[146]--all that we now understand
by the police force--waited subserviently on his nod. It rested with
him, says Lydus, to establish the authority of the Court of Justice
by means of the wholesome fear inspired by iron chains and scourges
and the whole apparatus of torture[147]. Nay, not only did the
subordinate magistrates execute their sentences by his agency, he had
even the honour of being chosen by the Emperor himself to be the
minister of vengeance against the persons who had incurred his anger
or his suspicion. 'I myself remember,' says Lydus, 'when I was serving
as Chartularius in the office of the Commentariensis, under the
praefecture of Leontius (a man of the highest legal eminence), and
when the wrath of Anastasius was kindled against Apion, a person of
the most exalted rank, and one who had assisted in his elevation to
the throne[148], at the same time when Kobad, King of Persia, blazed
out into fury[149], that then all the confiscations and banishments
which were ordered by the enraged Emperor were entrusted to no one
else but to the Commentarienses serving under the Praefect. In this
service they acquitted themselves so well, with such vigour, such
harmonious energy, such entire clean-handedness and absence of all
dishonest gain, as to move the admiration of the Emperor, who made use
of them on all similar occasions that presented themselves in the
remainder of his reign. They had even the honour of being employed
against Macedonius, Patriarch of Constantinople, when that prelate had
provoked the Emperor by suspending all intercourse with him as a
h