Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

172 7. government and administration
and old Roman ager publicus. The comes rerum privatarum also tended to lose
control of the domus divinae: by 414, the administration of the vast
Cappadocian domus divina had been taken over by the emperor’s head eunuch
chamberlain, the praepositus sacri cubiculi, presumably as the man chiefly
responsible for the court; under Justinian, other domus divinae came under
high-ranking curators, who probably worked independently from the
privata. 27 Theoderic seems to have earmarked the revenues of Visigothic
Spain for his cubiculum, perhaps on the legal excuse that they were due to him
personally as guardian of the Visigothic king Amalaric. 28 This fissiparous
tendency of the privata may reflect the difficulties of administering enormous
and far-flung estates through one department. It may also show
attempts to clarify the blurred distinction, which dates back to the overlapping
competences of aerarium and fiscus under the first emperor Augustus,
and which will continue into the medieval west with the interlocking roles of
royal exchequer and wardrobe, between the wealth of the state and of the
emperor as an individual. The growing power of the cubiculum also reflects
the reality that rulers were always interested in direct control of cash.
The third great palatine ministry – and politically, perhaps, the most
important – was that of the magister officiorum (master of the offices), 29 who
was titular superior to a range of palace staffs, including the sacra scrinia of
the chancellery (which handled legal affairs, as well as general imperial communications)
and the scholae of imperial bodyguards; how far, if at all, he
actually controlled their operations, is obscure. The magister officiorum also
ran the politically sensitive arms factories. His power lay mainly in his dominance
of communications with the emperor. He organized audiences, provided
interpreters for foreign envoys, and controlled the corps of couriers
and public post inspectors, the agentes in rebus or magistriani. The agentes
sometimes acted as spies and informers in the provinces, and the senior
members of their corps were appointed to head the staffs of prefects, diocesan
vicars, and certain provincial governors and generals. In this capacity,
they countersigned all orders issuing from their offices, but remained under
the control of the magister, who was thereby well placed to get information
on a wide range of official activity. 30 When Arvandus, praetorian prefect of
Gaul, was suspected of treason in 468, his correspondence was intercepted
and his secretary arrested; 31 in this the agens may have assisted.
The magister’s control of the palace was balanced, to some extent, by an
independent corps of socially and politically prestigious notaries. 32 Their
original duty of acting as secretaries to the imperial consistorium (council) was
taken over during the fifth century by the agentes, but they came to supply
the emperor with an important group of law officers, the referendaries;
27 Kaplan (1976) 10–16. 28 Cass. Variae v.39.13. 29 Clauss (1980); Delmaire (1995) ch. 6.
30 Giardina (1977) part 1; Sinnigen (1964); Morosi (1981). 31 Sid. Ap. Ep. i.7.5.
32 Teitler (1985).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008