of [Greek: eis plethos]?]

This description by Lydus, while it aptly illustrates Cassiodorus'
exhortations to his Cancellarii to keep their hands clean from bribes,
shows how lowly their office was still considered; and indeed, but for
his statement that it used to be filled by veteran Augustales, we
might almost have doubted whether it is rightly classed among the
'Learned Services' at all.

[Sidenote: End of the Militia Literata.]

Now at any rate we leave the ranks of the gentlemen of the Civil
Service behind us, and come to the 'Militia Illiterata,' of whom the
'Notitia' enumerates only

[Sidenote: Militia Illiterata: Singularii.]

(13) The _Singularii_, a class of men of whose useful services Lydus
speaks in terms of high praise, contrasting their modest efficiency
with the pompous verbosity[179] of the Magistriani (servants of the
Master of the Offices) by whom they were being generally superseded in
his day. They travelled through the Provinces, carrying the Praefect's
orders, and riding in a post-chaise drawn by a single horse (veredus),
from which circumstance, according to Lydus, they derived their name
Singularii[180].

[Footnote 179: [Greek: Kompophakellorremosyne] =
Pomp-bundle-wordiness, an Aristophanic word.]

[Footnote 180: De Dignitatibus iii. 7.]

We observe that the letter of Cassiodorus[181] addressed to the
retiring chief (Primicerius) of the Singularii informs him that he is
promoted to a place among the King's Body-guard (Domestici et
Protectores), a suitable reward for one who had not been a member of
the 'Learned Services.'

[Footnote 181: Var. xi. 31.]

After the Singularii Lydus mentions the _Mancipes_, the men who were
either actually slaves or were at any rate engaged in servile
occupations; as, for instance, the bakers at the public bakeries, the
_Rationalii_, who distributed the rations to the receivers of the
annona[182], the _Applicitarii_ (officers of arrest), and
_Clavicularii_ (gaolers), who, as we before heard, obeyed the mandate
of the Commentariensis. The Lictors, I think, are not mentioned by
him. A corresponding class of men would probably be the _Apparitores_,
who in the 'Notitia' appear almost exclusively attached to the service
of the great Ministers of War[183].

[Footnote 182: This seems a probable explanation of a rather obscure
passage.]

[Footnote 183: See the following sections of the Notitia: Magister
Militum Praesentatis (Oriens v. 74, vi. 77; Occidens