officers of an inferior rank were stationed
in the other parts of the empire; and the deputies of the private, as
well as those of the public, treasurer were maintained in the exercise
of their independent functions, and encouraged to control the authority
of the provincial magistrates. [157] 6, 7. The chosen bands of cavalry
and infantry, which guarded the person of the emperor, were under the
immediate command of the two counts of the domestics. The whole number
consisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into seven
schools, or troops, of five hundred each; and in the East, this
honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to the Armenians.
Whenever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up in the courts and
porticos of the palace, their lofty stature, silent order, and splendid
arms of silver and gold, displayed a martial pomp not unworthy of the
Roman majesty. [158] From the seven schools two companies of horse and
foot were selected, of the protectors, whose advantageous station was
the hope and reward of the most deserving soldiers. They mounted guard
in the interior apartments, and were occasionally despatched into
the provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the orders of their
master. [159] The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the office
of the Praetorian praefects; like the praefects, they aspired from the
service of the palace to the command of armies.

[Footnote 142: Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 8.]

[Footnote 143: By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the military
character of the first emperors, the steward of their household was
styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.) Cassiodorus very
seriously represents to him, that his own fame, and that of the empire,
must depend on the opinion which foreign ambassadors may conceive of
the plenty and magnificence of the royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol.
9.)]

[Footnote 144: Gutherius (de Officiis Domus Augustae, l. ii. c. 20, l.
iii.) has very accurately explained the functions of the master of the
offices, and the constitution of the subordinate scrinia. But he vainly
attempts, on the most doubtful authority, to deduce from the time of
the Antonines, or even of Nero, the origin of a magistrate who cannot be
found in history before the reign of Constantine.]

[Footnote 145: Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first quaestors
were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the foundation of the
republic; but he is